136 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 31. 



The sandal witli the loops around the 

 edges may be compared with a specimen 

 figured in ' Wiener's Peru,' made of hide 

 fitted around the foot and slashed around 

 the border to receive the lacing. 



It may be also compared with sandals of 

 vegetal material in collections from north- 

 ern Japan and the Aino country. 



Yours truly, 0. T. Mason. 

 U. S. National Museum. 



THE PIGNUTS. 



There is some question as to the exact 

 distribution of the common Pignut (Carya 

 porcina or Hicoria glabra) and the related 

 Carya or Hicoria microcarpa, and the under- 

 signed will be grateful for herbarium speci- 

 mens, and especially nuts with their husks, 

 representing both. In the recently pub- 

 lished seventh volume of Professor Sar- 

 gent's Silva, the range of glabra is given 

 as southern Maine to southern Ontario, 

 through southern Michigan to southeastern 

 Ifebraska, southward to the shores of the 

 Indian Eiver and Peace Creek in Florida, 

 and to southern Alabama and Mississij^pi, 

 through Missouri and Arkansas to eastern 

 Kansas and the Indian Territory, and to 

 the valley of the Nueces Eiver in Texas. 

 H. niierocarpa (treated in the Silva as a va- 

 riety of glabra, under the varietal name 

 odorata) is said to occur in eastern Massa- 

 chusetts, Connecticut, eastern and central 

 New York, eastern Pennsylvania, Dela- 

 ware, the District of Columbia, central 

 Michigan, southern Indiana and Illinois, 

 and Missouri. William Teelease. 



St. Louis, Mo. 



SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

 A Students' Text-book of Botany : By Sidney 

 H. Vines, Sherardian Professor of Botany 

 in the TJniversitj^ of Oxford. First half 

 pp. X., 1-430, Fig. 279. 1894. Second 

 half pp. xvi., 431-821. 1895. London, 

 Swan, Sonnenschein & Co. New York, 

 Macmillan & Co. 8vo. 



The completion of this, the best general 

 text-book of botanical science yet published 

 in any language, and just now the only 

 adequate presentation in compact form of 

 the subject-matter within its scope, is an 

 event of more than ordinary interest in the 

 annals of book-making. It is not too much 

 to say that in this work Dr. Vines has sur- 

 passed even the high expectations of his 

 Mends. The volumes in hand have all the 

 admirable literary quality and firm grasp 

 of recent research that characterized so 

 notably the Lectures on the Physiology of Plants 

 by the same author, which appeared in 1886 

 and immediately took its place among the 

 leading authoritative manuals in its line. 

 The later work gains, perhaps, over the 

 earlier in its somewhat more concise and 

 transparent stj'le and in its more perfect 

 subjection of the material to the logical 

 classification adopted at the outset. Cer- 

 tainly nothing could be better than the 

 chapters on the general morphology of the 

 members, on the tissues and on the general 

 phj'siology. It is a great gain to botanical 

 teaching in England and America to have 

 the modern point of view in anatomy and 

 physiologj^ thus brought forward without 

 the confusion and archaisms that dimin- 

 ished in a degi-ee the availability of older 

 texts in common use. 



In general, it should be said that the per- 

 spective of the work is most admu-able. 

 About the right relative amount of space 

 is given to each of the four principal sub- 

 divisions — Morphologj', Anatomy, Taxon- 

 omj"^ (here called anglice, the ' Classification 

 of plants ') and Phj'siology. As has been 

 pointed out by previous reviewers, it might 

 seem that the third division has been some- 

 what unduly extended at the expense of the 

 fourth. Doubtless this is a natural result 

 of Dr. Vines having specialized in phj'si- 

 ology, for under such conditions he would 

 possibly desire to err rather on the side of 

 understating than of overstating the prom- 



