Febkuaet 9, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



143 



the instructor of the esact relations existing 

 between the two structures " the tunique " 

 and " the tunic " when that explanation could 

 be avoided through greater consistency in the 

 use of terms in the text. 



Errors of a nature more serious than those 

 just cited are not wanting in the text. In the 

 discussion of the earth-worm the sjDerm sacs 

 or seminal vesicles of the male reproductive 

 system are called spermathecae (misspelled 

 spermothecae three times on page 94). In so 

 far as I have been able to determine the term 

 spermathecse is applied by morphologists and 

 by specialists in the oligochstes to that part of 

 the female reproductive system which Pe- 

 trunkevitch calls the reeeptacula seminis. I 

 doubt that readers of a review would consider 

 errors of this type " of such a minor nature 

 that to mention them might seem like petty 

 criticism." 



The all too frequent misspellings of words 

 and inconsistencies in punctuation, in capitali- 

 zation, and in the indiscriminate use of or 

 omission of the hyphen in identical combina- 

 tions of words, while items in themselves of 

 but minor importance, impair the value of the 

 book as one to be placed in the hands of 

 undergraduate students, whose carelessness 

 along these lines would tend to be accentuated. 

 For some of these errors it is probable that the 

 publishers are in some degree responsible. 

 Granted that " it is not a work which gives the 

 impression of having been carelessly put to- 

 gether," yet more care in proofing, in making 

 certain of the correctness of the statements, 

 and in the form of the expression would have 

 added considerably to its value. 



H. J. Van Cleave 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Discovery, or the Spirit and Service of Science. 



By E. A. Gregory. New York, Macmillan 



and Co. Price $1.75. 



The appearance of this book could not well 

 have been more timely. At the present date 

 when all English-speaking peoples are in 

 greater or less degree reaping the bitter fruits 

 of their past indifference to the welfare of 



scientific investigation, a widespread awaken- 

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 tages of scientific discovery is finding expres- 

 sion in the formulation of far-reaching gov- 

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 nical research, research in other words that 

 "pays." Our governors and leaders utterly 

 lacking the viewpoint of the investigators and 

 any consciousness of the larger import and 

 ultimate aims and utilities of science are of 

 course as indifferent as ever to the welfare or 

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The educator, no less, perhaps, than the 

 politician, requires instruction in the true aims 

 and inspiration of science. In the words of 

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 show that the spirit of scientific research has 

 inspired the highest ethical thought and ac- 

 tion, as well as increased the comforts of life 

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 seek to justify the claim of science to be an 

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 attached to motive and method as to discovery 

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 lous or valuable these may be." It may be 

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 literature which wiU bear comparison in nobil- 

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 the literary standard of the " humanities." 



By a pardonable oversight on page 103 the 

 Yerkes Observatory is situated in California. 



T. Brailsford Eobertson 



