September 21, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



451 



trlcity must be judged by experts. The weight 

 of his predictions as to future discoveries would 

 be greater if his judgment on things in general 

 were less unsound. It is passing strange that 

 such loose reasonings can find a publisher. It 

 is to be hoped that they will gain little credence 

 from his readers. A line from Plato's Republic 

 applies here (changing a word) to wit: "I 

 verily believe that it is a more venial offence to 

 be the involuntary cause of death to a man than 

 to deceive him concerning scientific truth." 



BOTANICAL NOTES. 

 A NEW LABORATORY MANUAL. 



De. Clements and Principal Cutter, the 

 former of the botanical staff of the Univer- 

 sity of Nebraska, and the latter of the Beatrice 

 (Nebr.) High School have brought out what 

 must prove to be a very helpful book for 

 those teachers of Elementary Botany who wish 

 to give their pupils a good course in labora- 

 tory work. There has been an increasing 

 demand on the part of University professors 

 that the high schools should lay such a solid 

 foundation in the sciences that the subsequent 

 work in the university could safely be built 

 upon it. This has wrought a radical change in 

 the methods of teaching chemistry and physics 

 in the high schools which fit their pupils for 

 university entrance. For many years some of 

 the botanists have been demanding laboratory 

 training in elementary botany for Freshmen 

 entrance, but while the schools have made some 

 progress, it is a curious fact that no serious at- 

 tempt has hitherto been made to supply the high 

 schools with a scientific manual comparable to 

 the many excellent works of this character in 

 chemistry and physics. 



The authors of the ' Laboratory Manual of 

 High School Botany ' have attempted to make 

 a book which is at once practicable in the aver- 

 age high school, as well as strictly scientific. 

 The pupil who covers the work here laid out 

 will be prepared to go forward in college and 

 university classes without the necessity of un- 

 loading and unlearning a lot of rubbish, while 

 at the same time if he should go no further with 

 his studies he has had the satisfaction of know- 

 ing that he is in the possession of a considerable 



body of useful information in regard to the 

 structure and actions of plants. The general 

 plan of the book may be obtained by a glance 

 at the titles of the chapters, as follows : General 

 Directions, Plant Structure, or Histology, Struc- 

 ture and Classification, Phytogeography, Synop- 

 sis of the Larger Groups of the Vegetable 

 Kingdom, Physiology, Appendix (containing 

 suggestions to teachers), and Glossary. 



obigin of the higher fungi. 

 Me. Geoege Massee, the well-known my- 

 cologist of Kew, speculates (in Linn. Soc, Jour. 

 Bot. , vol. xxxiv. , p. 438) as to the origin of the 

 group of fungi known as the Basidiomyceteae, 

 which includes those genera generally regarded 

 as the highest of the hysterophytes, viz, the 

 puff-balls and their relatives, and the various 

 forms of toadstools and mushrooms. Finding 

 that the conidial fructification of certain As- 

 comyceteae bears some resemblance to the 

 spore-bearing tissues of the Basidiomyceteae, he 

 finds a series of more or less obvious gradations, 

 and arrives at the conclusion that there is a 

 genetic connection between them. According 

 to this view some plants are Ascomyceteae as to 

 their ascigerous, and Basidiomyceteae as to their 

 conidial fructifications. While ingenious, it is 

 not likely that this theory will be generally ac- 

 cepted. 



supplement to Nicholson's dictionary of 

 gardening. 

 Stimulated, perhaps, by the publication of 

 Bailey's ' Cyclopedia of American Horticul- 

 ture,' the publisher of Nicholson's ' Dictionary 

 of Gardening ' (Gill, London) announces a 

 ' 1900 Supplement ' which is to appear in two 

 volumes. The first of these supplementary 

 volumes has come to hand, and fully justifies 

 the statement of the publisher as to the quality 

 of subject matter and mechanical execution. 

 The illustrations are superb, in many cases 

 being reproduced directly from photographs. 

 Upon the appearance of the second volume a 

 more extended notice will be made. 



NEW edition op peantl's lbhrbuch. 

 De. Pax of Breslau has brought out the 

 eleventh edition of the well-known ' Lehrbuch 

 der Botanik ' of the lamented Dr. Prantl, first 



