900 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. Na 



sider a request to devote a small sum from 

 an emergency fund, which is under his 

 personal control, that an organization for 

 work might be effected. The Governor 

 had already expressed a favorable interest 

 in the subject and after consideration 

 agreed to assign the sum of one thousand 

 dollars to the purposes mentioned in the 

 bill. It is quite obvious that this sum is 

 totally inadequate to the carrying out of 

 the plan originally formulated, which in- 

 volved the expenditure of ten times the 

 amount in hand; but considerable prelim- 

 inary work may be done that will simplify 

 matters when the full sum becomes finally 

 available. 



One part of the fund will be devoted to 

 an investigation of the conditions which 

 favor the transmission of malaria in cer- 

 tain districts in the State, and a competent 

 man has been secured for that purpose. 

 He will be located in a malarial district 

 where Anopheles is abundant and its breed- 

 ing places numerous. This will afford op- 

 portunity for a careful study of the con- 

 dition under which these mosquitoes are able 

 to carry the organisms causing the disease. 

 The student will be supplied with material 

 from other districts in the State where 

 malaria as an endemic disease is practi- 

 cally unknown. This material will be used 

 in comparison with that collected in the 

 infected locality, and if possible a compara- 

 tive study of the media in which the larvse 

 breed will be made. 



Another subject that will be taken up 

 by one thoroughly qualified for the work 

 is a study of the food habits of such ver- 

 tebrates as live in the waters inhabited by 

 mosquito larvse. It is further expected 

 that collections will be arranged for 

 throughout the State that the mosquito 

 fauna may be thoroughly understood, and 

 the various species locally involved may be 

 intelligently considered. 



The general survey of the salt-marsh 

 region, which was contemplated as part of 

 the original plan, will have to be postponed 

 for the present. It will be possible, how- 

 ever, for me to cover the ground in a pre- 

 liminary way, that I may be fully informed 

 when I am able to put field parties into 

 active service. 



Aside from the general work here out- 

 lined some of the more common species 

 will be bred in the laboratory in quantities 

 sufficient to allow of experiments with 

 poisonous materials. The application of 

 oil on a large scale has been found some- 

 what unsatisfactory, and while there is no 

 doubt of its effectiveness in general, there 

 are occasions when its use should be 

 avoided if possible. 



This outline of what has been done and 

 what it is expected to do is presented that 

 the scientific world at least should be under 

 no misapprehensions in this matter. 



John B. Smith. 

 New Brunswick, 

 May 15, 1902. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 A University Text-hook of Botany. By 

 Douglas Houghton Campbell, Bh.D., Pro- 

 fessor of Botany in the Leland Stanford 

 Junior University. New York, The Mac- 

 millan Company; London, Macmillan & Co., 

 Ltd. 1902. All rights reserved. 8vo. Pp. 

 sv+579. With many illustrations. 

 It has been the pleasant task of the present 

 reviewer on several previous occasions to 

 notice books prepared by Dr. Campbell, each 

 time with increased interest. There was first 

 a little text-book for High Schools — ^the 'Ele- 

 ments of Structural and Systematic Botany' 

 — which appeared twelve years ago, and justi- 

 fied the reviewer's favorable estimate. Five 

 years later came that admirable book — the 

 'Structure and Development of Mosses and 

 Perns' — which has been a handbook of ad- 

 vanced botanists since its publication. This 

 was followed in 1899 by 'Lectures on the Evo- 



