September 20, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



373 



general comraderie which has heretofore 

 distinguished the botanists of this country. 

 It is the broadened horizon for botany in 

 general which makes the outlook for vege- 

 table physiology so especially auspicious. 

 This is the country of all others where its 

 practical and educational importance is 

 likely to be most fully recognized, and where 

 the best equipped and most independent 

 laboratories can most readily be established. 

 One difficulty yet besets it, the difficulty of 

 making known what is needed. Botany 

 has not before required much more than a 

 table near a window for its miscroscope and 

 reagents, a case for the herbarium and a few 

 shelves for books, and it is difficult to make 

 it understood that the new department 

 needs rooms with special fittings and ex- 

 pensive apparatus. If there were only one 

 well equipped laboratory in the country it 

 might be cited as a model, but even that 

 advantage is yet lacking. It can be ex- 

 plained that the chemical side of the sub- 

 ject needs much of the usual chemical 

 apparatus and supplies with many special 

 pieces, that the physical side requires similar 

 provision, and that many pieces of apparatus 

 are demanded which cannot be obtained in 

 the markets owing to the newness of the 

 subject, necessitating provision for making 

 apparatus of both metal and glass; but the 

 explanation rarely conveys a full apprecia- 

 tion of how essential and extensive this 

 equipment is expected to be. In the fitting 

 of the laboratory there should be rooms for 

 the chemical work with gas, water, sinks 

 and hoods, and rooms for the physical work, 

 with shafting for transmitting power to cli- 

 nostats and centrifugals, with devices for re- 

 gulating moisture and temperature, and 

 with as ample provision for light as in a 

 greenhouse. There should also be dark 

 rooms into which a definite amount of light 

 may be introduced by means of arc lamps, 

 and other special rooms for special lines of 

 study. It is easy to see that a well stocked 



greenhouse is required to supply healthy 

 plants when needed for study, but the value 

 of a botanic garden may not be so apparent. 

 It need not only be pointed out here, how- 

 ever, that Charles Darwin examined 116 

 species of plants belonging to 76 genera to 

 prepare his brochure on climbing plants, and 

 it might have been more complete with 

 greater opportunities. 



The man who is to preside over a depart- 

 ment of this kind, in which research woi'k 

 is to be carried on and instruction under- 

 taken suitable to a university, cannot be 

 one of St. Thomas Aquinas 's homo unius libri, 

 for physiology touches upon the adjacent 

 sciences to a far greater extent than do 

 other departments of botany, and requires 

 a more intimate acquaintance with a wide 

 range of knowledge. 



After careful consideration of the subject, 

 it seems safe to predict that the next great 

 botanical wave that sweeps over America 

 will be a physiological one. As the green 

 chlorophyll grain of vegetation is the great 

 primal storage battery absorbing and fixing 

 the energy of the sun, and making it avail- 

 able for doing the work of the world — in fact, 

 supplying nearly all the power, except that 

 fi-om wind and waters required in commer- 

 cial enterprise, whether derived finally from 

 animal force, wood, coal, steam or electri- 

 city, so the subject which includes the fun- 

 damental study of a matter of such uni- 

 versal importance will without doubt even- 

 tually attain to a place in public esteem 

 commensurate with its importance. 



J. C. Aethue. 



PUBDUE UNIVEESITY. 



CUBBENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGBAPEY {XVI.). 

 ITATIONAL GEOGEAPHIC MONOGEAPHS. 



The fourth number of this series is an 

 essay on the ' Present and Extinct Lakes of 

 Nevada,' by Professor I. C. Russell, of the 

 University of Michigan. This is a service- 

 able abstract of the fuller treatment of the 



