208 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 58. 



islands along the coast from Newfoundland to 

 Cape Cod, and on the mainland plentifully, in 

 Gasp6, C. E.; also along the St. Lawrence." 

 It also inhabits Greenland, but Vermont and 

 Connecticut are mentioned with doubt. It is 

 said to be common on the lower parts of Cape 

 Cod and Cape Ann, and is very abundant on 

 Salt Island, near Gloucester. 



It thus having been adventive on our north- 

 eastern coast for at least somewhat over sixty 

 or more, probably seventy-five, years (since it is 

 mentioned by Mrs. Sheppard in the Transac- 

 tions of the Literary and Historical Society of 

 Quebec, I., p. 193, 1829), it is interesting to 

 note the fact that a new variety has apparently 

 evolved in this country, so different from any 

 known to exist in the old world that Dr. Bin- 

 ney described it in 1837 as a new species under 

 the name Helix subglobosa. ' ' The specimens 

 first discovered by Dr. Binney were all of the 

 plain greenish-yellow variety; and, though he 

 could not fail to perceive their aflinity to the 

 H. hortensis, he thought he discovered differ- 

 ences enough to entitle them to a specific dis- 

 tinction, and therefore described them under 

 the name of S. subglobosa. But numerous 

 specimens have since been brought from the 

 same vicinity, bearing all the various zones of 

 the European specimens." 



Perhaps a new locality, or one not generally 

 known, is a small, quite inaccessible islet in 

 Casco Bay called 'the Brown Cow,' between 

 Portland and Harpswell. We found them in 

 abundance over ten or fifteen years ago, and 

 again in the summer of 1895. As stated by 

 Binney, we also found their habits entirely dif- 

 ferent from those of H. albolabris and aUernata, 

 in crawling up the stems and over the leaves of 

 tall plants, so that they have retained unaltered 

 this habit of their European ancestors. The 

 greenish-yellow variety subglobosa greatly out- 

 number the banded variety. Like other intro- 

 duced species, they are much more prolific and 

 numerous in individuals than the native species. 



The other omission is the farther history of 

 the case of the introduction, briefly referred to 

 by Mr. Kew, ' a few years ago,' of Helix nemor- 

 alis from Europe into Lexington, Va., which is 

 given by Prof. T. D. A. Cockerell in Nature for 

 February 27, 1890, when he remarks: " Under 



the new conditions it varied more than I have 

 ever known it to do elsewhere, and up to the 

 present date 125 varieties have been discovered 

 there. Of these, no less than sixty-seven are netv, 

 and unknown in Europe, the native country of the 

 species ! The variation is in the direction of di- 

 vision of the bands. 



The facts collected in this little volume by 

 Mr. Kew would seem, then, to be a necessary 

 preliminary to a study of the varieties set up 

 in immigrant species, and this will throw much 

 light on the general question of the origin of 

 species, the primary factors in the evolution of 

 such forms being migration, exposure to new 

 climatic conditions, and geographical isolation. 

 These would seem to be sufficiently efficient and 

 apparent causes of variation, without calling in, 

 in such cases, the aid of natural selection. 



A. S. Packard. 



Laboratory Manual of Inorganic Preparations, by 

 H. T. VuLTi;, Ph. D., F. C. S., Professor of 

 Chemistry in Barnard College and assistant 

 in Chemistry at the School of Mines, Colum- 

 bia College, N. Y. , and George M. S. Neu- 

 STADT. New York, G. G. Peck. 1895. 

 There can be no doubt that a carefully pre- 

 prepared manual of Inorganic Preparation is 

 desirable. This book is not carefully prepared. 

 The authors in their preface state that this book 

 is compiled from the works of Erdmann and 

 Fresenius and from various chemical journals. 

 The articles translated from Erdmann are good, 

 for Erdmann tested the methods before recom- 

 mending them. Through a careless blunder in 

 the translations of Erdmann's instructions for 

 making iodine pentoxide from iodine and nitric 

 acid, the student is told to use ' 158 c. e. of water 

 and nitric acid.' Erdmann says 'anhydrous 

 nitric acid.' Every chemist knows that unless 

 the nitric acid is anhydrous, it does not yield io- 

 dine pentoxide. 



On page 123 the author states that in distill- 

 ing nitric acid at 121° an acid of the composi- 

 tion 2HNO3+H2O distills over. Of course, the 

 acid HNO3+2H2O is meant. The abstracts of 

 some of the articles fi-om chemical journals are 

 very carelessly written. On page 129 is an ab- 

 stract entitled ' Pure Phosphoric Acid from 

 Sodium Phosphite.' ('Phosphate,' of course. 



