3fo 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVi'il. No. 464 I 



gas and electricity. For a year and a half the curator, Miss Tyler, 

 has been classifying and cataloguing the collection and preparing 

 suitable labels, giving name and location of the specimen, together 

 with a reference to some book where a fuller description can be 

 found, thus making it, not what too many collections are, a dead 

 affair, but really a tbing of life, which shall help in your search 

 for knowledge. I hope additions may be made, by those inter- 

 ested in these things, of such objects as shall be worthy and use- 

 ful in aid of the work in hand. Should persons have in their 

 possession any objects of merit, illustrative of natural science, 

 which they do not care to donate, but would like to loan, they 

 may be shown to the trustees, and, if approved, may find a lodg- 

 ment in the museum and be marked " loaned," to receive the 

 same care as is bestowed upon the rest of the collection. 



" It is my expectation that studies in the natural sciences will 

 be introduced into our public common schools in all grades, from 

 the primary to the senior, and that arrangements may be made 

 between the prudential committees of the schools, the faculty of 

 the academy, and the trustees and managers of the museum, for 

 classes to be held in the class-room of the museum at such times 

 as are best. Objects from the collection may thus be used by 

 way of illustration under suitable and proper regulations. In 

 this way the museum will truly become a factor in the education 

 of our children and young people. 



" It is my desire that its usefulness may not be restricted toihe 

 public schools or academy of this town, but that it may be open 

 to the inspection and use of any school or class in the county or 

 State. It is my desire that this institution shall take its place 

 with other public institutions, as an educator for the young, lift- 

 ing all who shall avail themselves of its advantages to a higher 

 and larger knowledge concerning the things of God's creation, 

 which lie all about us, now, practically, for many, a sealed book. 



" It is my desire that the museum shall be opened free to all at 

 such times as the trustees may direct, and that the public observe 

 such rules and regulations as seem necessary and wise to be 

 made. 



"I cannot let this opportunity pass without grateful mention of 

 the veiy valuable aid rendered, and advice given, by her who is 

 the sharer of my joys and sorrows, the companion of my home. 

 For years we have worked together in making this collection and 

 in planning for this building, and to her I feel that much of its 

 success is due. 



" And it gives me pleasure to say that here is no debt upon the 

 building or land, and that the institution is endowed, with an 

 amount sufficient to maintain it for all time, if the funds are 

 properly invested and the income judiciously expended " 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



Fossil Botany, bei7ig an Introduction to PaJceophytology from, the 

 Standpoint of the Botanist. By II. Geaf zu Solms-Laubach, 

 Professor in the University of Gottingen. Authorized Eng- 

 lish Translation by Henry E. F. Garnsey. M.A., Fellow of 

 Magdalen College, Oxford. Revised by Isaac Bayley Bal- 

 four, M.A., M.D., F.R.S. New York, Macmillan. 8°. 



The suberb English edition of Count Solms-Laubach's " Einlei- 

 tung in die Palaophytologie" which the Clarendon Press has re- 

 cently brought out is now in the hands of paleontologists and 

 botanists. The original German edition, which appeared in 1837, 

 was briefly noticed by the present writer in the American Journal 

 of Science for July, 1888 (p. 73), after a careful reading, and the 

 impression which such a reading produced was then recorded. 

 The daily use of the work since that time as a laboratory text- 

 book has somewhat modified that impression, and an English 

 translation of it is, to say the least, a very welcome accession. 



The attempt has been several times made to reduce the science 

 of fossil plants to a form adapted to general use. There is no 

 science which is less accessible to the student from the scattered 

 and fragmentary character of its literature, and every effort to 

 collect this and present it in compact form should be thankfully 

 received. Among other works that have claimed to do this should 

 be mentioned the Marquis Saporta's "Jlonde des plantes avaiit 



I'apparition de I'homme " (1879). the late Dr. Schenk's "Fossilen 

 Pflanzenreste " (1888), and Sir William Dawson's '' Geological His- 

 tory of Plants "(1888). Of these the first-named realizes much 

 more nearly than any of the others this claim, being popular in 

 its treatment and covering the entire field, both geologically and 

 botanically. The second is a condensation or abridgment of the 

 elaborate treatise on the general subject in Zittel's " Handbucb 

 der Palaontologie,'' begun by Schimper and finished by Schenk. 

 But the abridgment is carried too far and the mode of presenta- 

 tion can scarcely be called popular. Sir William Dawson's work 

 avoids these defects, but has the more serious one of both geologi- 

 cal and botanical incompleteness, making it little more than a 

 popular account of the paleozoic flora of Canada. The present 

 work is open to a similar criticism, as it confessedly takes no ac- 

 count of anything later than the mesozoic, and has nothing to say 

 about the geological history of the type of vegetation now domi- 

 nant on the globe, viz., the dicotyledons, which, nevertheless, are 

 known to have flourished in earliest cretaceous times, and which 

 of all fossil plants may, at the present time, at least in America, 

 be said to be the most interesting from the botanical, and the 

 most important from the geological point of view. 



The merits of this work, therefore, cons^ist neither in its popu- 

 larity nor in its generality. In what, then, do they consist? To 

 what class is the work useful, and how can it be used ? The treat- 

 ment of the several forms of extinct vegetation which the author 

 has selected is too thorough, minute, and technical for the non- 

 botanical reader to follow. It is of little use to the geologist be- 

 cause, as stated on the title-page, it proceeds from the botanical 

 standpoint. Botanists proper, who ought to profit most by it, are 

 not likely to do so on account of the lamentable divorce of botany 

 from paleobotany, as though fossil plants were not plants, and as 

 such as worthy of study as living ones. If this work succeeds in 

 dispelling to some extent this illusion it will certainly be useful. 

 But dealing wholly with the lower forms, and largely with their 

 internal and minute structures, so greatly neglected by botanists, 

 it is not likely to accomplish this to any great extent. 



It is, then, the paleobotanical student who, if any one, is to 

 use this work. If he wishes to cover the whole field he usually 

 has access to most of the literature of the subject, and is already 

 familiar with the sources from which most of the work is com- 

 piled. If he wishes to make a systematic review of this literature 

 he naturally goes to Schimper's " Traite de Paleontologie Vege- 

 tale,"and Zittel's " Handbucb der Palaontologie," Abtheilung II., 

 where Schimper, and after his death Schenk, have admirably 

 condensed it, but still have left it much more full than here. If 

 he wishes to acquaint himself with the original investigations 

 thus summarized, he goes to Williamson, Renault, Grand'Eury, 

 Zeiller, Weiss, Saporta, and the rest, who have furnished the 

 facts. In so far as Count Solms has himself contributed in this 

 work to these original investigations, a not inconsiderable part of 

 it, it is useful to this class of students. But unquestionably the 

 most important service which he has here done has been to put 

 on record the matured judgment of a structural botanist of the 

 first rank respecting the probable nature and significance of the 

 many problematical extinct forms of vegetable life that have been 

 found in ancient strata. Whenever one of these problems arises 

 the first question the paleobotanist now asks is. What does Solms- 

 Laubach say ? It is true that he entirely omits many such forms, 

 that he frequently contents himself with stating the opinion of 

 others, and that quite as often he declares that the facts do not 

 warrant an opinion. But on many points his mind is made up, 

 and it must be said to his credit that he has not attached himself 

 to any particular school, but appears to be guided entirely by the 

 evidence as he understands it. 



It is a great comfort, for example, to know that he regards the 

 Cordaiteaa as gpmnosperms without asserting that they are coni- 

 fers; that he does not accept the views of some French paleobotanists 

 that the secondary or exogenous growth in Sigillaria, Stigmaria, and 

 Calamodendron necessarily relegate these forms to the phanero- 

 gams; that he considers Stigmaria as the roots of Sigillaria, Lepi- 

 dodendron, etc , and does not admit the two kinds of Stigmaria 

 maintained by Renault; that he opposes the view of Renault that 

 Sphenophyllum is related to Salvinia, and while regarding the 



