856 
603 publications, aggregating 26,240 pages. 
The total number of copies was over 7,000,- 
000; 4,000 volumes were added to the De- 
partment library. 
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 
Die Landbauzonen der aussertropischen Lander. 
By Ta. H. ENGELBRECHT. Three volumes. 
Berlin, Dietrich Reimer (Ernst Vohsen). 
1898. Royal 8vo. 
These stately volumes were prompted, as the 
author’s preface states, primarily by the ques- 
tion of American competition with European 
production; certainly a most timely topic. 
Vol. I., of 290 pages, contains the explanatory 
text for the other two, of which one consists of 
statistical tables. of production, while Vol. III 
is an atlas of 79 colored maps, the graphic rep- 
resentation of results of comparisons made upon 
a basis somewhat different from the usual ones 
of total, or cultivated areas, or population. 
The author’s object is to elicit the peculiar ten- 
dencies of agricultural production rather than 
its absolute quantities, and by the discussion of 
the causes of these tendencies to forecast pres- 
ent and future possibilities. He objects to the 
method of computation o the ‘importance’ of 
the several crops devised by Walker (amount 
produced divided by area population) as 
affording no definite clew to any inquiry as to 
causes. 
Adopting for the extra-tropical countries the 
cereal grains as the fundamentally important 
product, Engelbrecht compares with the total 
area occupied by these, both those occupied by 
each individual kind, and by other crops. Cor- 
respondingly, in treating of the animal indus- 
tries, he assumes neat cattle as the basis of 
comparison with other domestic animals. On 
the maps these comparisons are made by means 
of five, or at times six, shades of color, to 
which are frequently added important (mostly 
monthly) isotherms, as well as colored limiting- 
lines of the occurrence of important trees, of 
excess of production of one product over an- 
other, of limited special cultures, etc., whereby 
the comparisons are greatly facilitated and many 
interesting points are brought out. Thus, in 
Russia, the marked coincidence of the northern 
SCIENCE. 
[N. 8. Von. X. No. 258. 
limit of the oak forest and of wheat culture is 
shown ; in the United States, the limits between 
predominance of summer and winter wheat, of 
rice over wheat culture, ete. 
For the Old World, where changes are very 
slow, the latest census has, as a rule, been util- 
ized, and as there no uniformity of dates exist 
among the various states, the data represented 
are frequently of different dates. From the 
cause just mentioned these discrepancies are of 
minor importance; yet in the more progressive 
countries the establishment of new trade routes 
and connections following lines of railroads and 
steamships has even in Europe, in many in- 
stances, been followed by rapid changes in lines 
of production. In the case of the United States, 
with the rapid changes both in population and 
routes of communication, the comparison or 
several successive enumerations is given by 
means of tables. 
In the Old World the maps are made to extend 
to the Ural mountains on the east, and south- 
ward so as to embrace Algeria and Tunisia. In 
America the map colors for the cereals reach 
a short distance only into Canada; for other 
products the Dominion is left in blank, although 
quite fully represented in the tables of Vol. II. 
In South America the Argentine Republic is in- 
cluded in the graphic presentation, as are, in 
Australia, the temperate culture belts of the 
east and west coasts. Cape Colony is also 
considered in the matter of animal industry. 
In the United States the smallest units consid- 
ered are the single States. In Europe the 
smaller administrative units—departments in 
France, ‘governments’ in Russia, in England, 
counties, are separately colored on the maps and 
listed in the tables ; the results of several cen- 
sus periods are frequently given, both in tables 
and maps, and numerous minor cultures are in- 
cluded in detail. f 
Accustomed as we are to interpret intensity 
of coloration in statistical maps as a measure of 
absolute production, at first sight these maps 
strike one rather oddly. Thus when Ireland 
and western Lapland bear the same color in re- 
spect to the production of the potato, and Ne- 
vada and Arizona appear most intensely colored 
on the score of the production of barley, our 
geographical and economic consciousness is 
