14 



8CIENCE. 



[Vol. II., No. 22. 



therefore of demoralization. Whether the 

 root which the author is so fortunate as to pos- 

 sess is in dipsomaniac captivity to the bottle it 

 hugs, or whether the bottle is captivated bj' 

 the caressing root, is not quite clear from the 

 context. And how such dire mischief to 

 man wrought by roots — more injurious ' than 

 tempest, fire, and war combined ' — is to be 

 reconciled with creative benevolence, we must 

 leave for the Princeton theologians to settle, 

 and pass on to another topic, that of judicious 

 abstinence from technicalities. 



Writers of test-books are prone to employ 

 all the technical terms they can find, especially 

 new-fangled ones which hare not j^et proved 

 their right or reason to exist by continued 

 usage, or which, though convenient in an origi- 

 nal treatise or memoir, and harmless or even 

 useful in a glossar}', maj' be advantageouslj' 

 dispensed with in ordinary' scientific teaching. 

 We all know of the painter commemorated by 

 Punch, who ' rubbed out a good deal,' and 

 who claimed to ' get his best effects that waj'.' 

 Many scientific books for students' use might 

 be bettered by the same process. Professor 

 Macloskie has so well resisted the ordinar}' 

 temptation, or restrained in parenthesis need- 

 less terms which he did not like to leave out, 

 — such as xylem, Greek for wood, most barba- 

 rously Germanized (as if, where a Greek said 

 xylon and a Roman said lignum, we might not 

 say wood when we meant it) , — that it may be 

 a little ungracious to complain of his making 

 one or two himself, and making them badl^'. 

 Where he says, " to avoid confusion, we shall 

 call [the seed-coats] exotest and endotest ," the 

 inference is, that these terms are original. 

 Nor, not to insist that confusion is rather made 

 than avoided by the substitution of new names 

 for well-recognized old ones, we might suggest 

 that the coinage is in a small waj' pedantic, ex- 

 cept that a pedant would not violate what our 

 author in another place terms ' the jus connubii ' 

 b.y hybridizing Greek with Latin. Nor, if we 

 must have such Greek-Latin crosses, would he 

 have truncated them into quasi English, which 

 is as bad as a third cross, but have written exo- 

 testa and endotesta in full, vile as the terms 

 are. Gametic is certainly' new coinage ; and 

 the author does not clearly say what he means 

 it to pass for. But it may be gathered that 

 ' gametic affinity ' means relationship near 

 enough to allow of interbreeding. We are to 

 say, then, that species belonging to different 

 genera have gametic affinity in the rare cases 

 when they can be made to hj-bridize ; and that 

 certain species strictl}- of the same genus, 

 which we have failed to hybridize, are devoid 



of gametic affinity : so the term has no explan- 

 atory value whatever. 



Some of the borrowed woodcuts are verj' 

 good ; most of tlie original ones are quite the re- 

 verse ; and the one which is said to represent a 

 'tip shoot of pea' is a complete puzzle, after all 

 the enlightenment which the letterpress affords. 



Turning over the pages, we now and then 

 come upon statements which dampen any en- 

 thusiasm of commendation which a reviewer 

 might wish to express. On p. 16 we read that 

 " c^mose flowers are alwaj-s actinomorphic, 

 being equally exposed to light in all directions." 

 The implication that ' actinomor|)hic,' i.e., reg- 

 ular, flowers are so because equally exposed to 

 light from all directions is a bit of deductive 

 botanj- of the Grant Allen school. And the 

 assertion that cymose inflorescence and actino- 

 morphic flowers always go together is by no 

 means true, as witness all Labiatae and a large 

 share of other didynamous flowers. The seed 

 " in Lepidium, on being moistened, darts out 

 mucilaginous threads." Is Dr. Macloskie sure 

 of this, or does he infer that there must be Such 

 threads because thej' exist in various other 

 seeds and seed-like fruits which develop muci- 

 lage when wetted? The hypocotyledonary 

 stem " in the pea is short because the seed re- 

 mains underground." Were it not better to 

 say that the seed remains underground because 

 this initial stem does not lengthen ? On p. 82 

 it is asserted, or at least implied, that root- 

 hairs last all summer long, and may be renewed 

 on a surface that has lost them. To Grant 

 Allen, in the year 1882, is attributed the idea 

 that neutral ray-flowers of Compositae are 

 sterilized members set apart and enlarged for 

 purposes of displaj-. Has Dr. Macloskie met 

 with no earlier exposition of that doctrine ? 



Not to prolong questioning, let us sa}-, that, 

 for those who are most likely to use this book, 

 it was a good idea to devote a few pages at the 

 close to the derivation of common terms, Latin 

 and Greek root- words, and prefixes, and to 

 help those who do not know the Greek alpha- 

 bet by writing out the words, as nearlj' as maj' 

 be, in Roman letters. 



THE GEOLOGY OF BELGIUM. 



Geologie de la Belgique. Par Michel Mourlon. 



2 vols. Bruielles, fl^aj/e2, 1880-81. 317; 16 -f- 392 



p., illustr. 8°. 



This book, a model in its way, will be read 

 with equal profit by the geologist and by the 

 general reader. The geologist will find in it, 

 criticall}' exposed, and in a short and impar- 

 tial manner, the immense amount of labor 



