662 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 382. 



The story since 1820 is told briefly, as that is 

 given in detail beyond. 



The main portion of the work contains chap- 

 ters on cosmical, physiographical, dynamical 

 and stratigraphical geology, petrography and 

 paleontology, which are not mere narratives, 

 not mere synopses of individual contributions : 

 they are true histories ; the opinions of investi- 

 gators are given, their value discussed and 

 their bearing upon the advancement of the sci- 

 ence determined. The reader may detect here 

 and there evidence of positive bias, or he may 

 feel that the decision is inexact, but in every 

 instance he must recognize the author's effort 

 to maintain a judicial attitude — and it may be 

 said that the effort has been so far successful 

 as to place the work in a class by itself. 



The statement has been made frequently that 

 Germans are inclined to ignore the work of 

 English-speaking peoples, but there is no trace 

 of any such inclination in this work. Professor 

 Zittel has been a faithful student of British 

 and American contributions, and the refer- 

 ences to such titles compare in number very 

 favorably with those to works in German or 

 French. This history will prove more than 

 sei;viceable to the geologist who finds the daily 

 accumulation of literature bearing upon his 

 own immediate line of work so burdensome as 

 to prevent him from keeping track of advance 

 along other lines. 



Mrs. Ogilvie-Gordon, the translator, has 

 done her work well, for hardly a trace of Ger- 

 man idioms remains. The text is enriched 

 with brief biographical notices of deceased 

 geologists and with thirteen portraits. The 

 index of authors is complete and in a measure 

 replaces the bibliography, which the British 

 publisher felt compelled to omit. The index 

 of subjects is less satisfactory, being much too 

 brief. 



John J. Stevenson. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 



The April number (Vol. III., No 2) of the 

 Transactions of the Atnerican Mathematical 

 Society contains the following papers: 'On the 

 Small Divisors in the Lunar Theory,' by E. 

 W. Brown ; ' On the ITolomorphisms of a 



Group,' by J. W. Toung; 'A Simple Non- 

 Desarguesian Plane Geometry,' by F. R. Moul- 

 ton; 'On the Real Solutions of Two Linear 

 Homogeneous Differential Equations of the 

 First Order,' by M. Bocher; 'On a Recent 

 Method for Dealing with the Intersections of 

 Plane Curves,' by C. A. Scott; 'A Complete 

 Set of Postulates for the Theory of Absolute 

 Continuous Magnitude,' by E. V. LIuntington ; 

 'Complete Sets of Postulates for the Theories 

 of Positive Integral and of Positive Rational 

 Numbers,' by E. V. Huntington. 



The April number (Vol. VIIL, No. 7) of the 

 Bulletin of the American Mathematical So- 

 ciety contains the following articles: 'The 

 February Meeting of the American Mathemat- 

 ical Society,' by E. Kasner; 'Note on the 

 Transformation of a Group into its Canonical 

 Form,' by S. E. Slocum; 'Some Applications 

 of Green's Theorem in One Dimension,' by 0. 

 Dunkel; 'On the Forms of Quintic Scrolls,' 

 by V. Snyder; 'Simplified Definition of a 

 Group,' by E. V. Huntington; 'Note on Iso- 

 tropic Congruences,' by L. P. Eisenhart; 

 'Kronecker's Lectures on the Theory of Num- 

 bers,' by G. A. Miller; 'Notes' and 'New Pub- 

 lications.' 



The Botanical Gazette for March contains 

 the following: Professor Frederick C. New- 

 combe, of tlie University of MieJiigan, pub- 

 lishes the first instalment of a paper upon the 

 'Geotropism of R(5ots,' the result of a number 

 of years of investigation. His results will be 

 noted upon the completion of the paper. Miss 

 Alice Eastwood, of the California Academy of 

 Sciences, continues her descriptions of an 

 interesting collection of plants from Nome 

 City, Alaska, describing several new species 

 and completing descriptions of many species 

 already poorly known. John Gallatin Hall has 

 published some interesting results of an 

 embryological study of Limnocharis emargi- 

 nata, a South American member of the Alis- 

 maceas. Some of the interesting features are 

 as follows : The tapetal cell of the ovule is cut 

 off, but no division wall is formed, the cell 

 disappearing early ; the antipodal cell following 

 the first division of the megaspore nucleus 

 remains undivided, so that there is no antip- 



