December 25, 1891. J 



SCIENCE. 



36t 



group as sui generis and incapable of being brought within any 

 classification of living plants, inclines to see its nearest affinities 

 in the Lyoopodiacese ; that of all the different views that have 

 been held as to the affinities of Spirangium he regaids that of 

 Nathorst as the most attractive, viz., that it may represent the 

 gigantic sporangia of Chara surrounded by spirally twisted enve- 

 lope-tubes; and that he leans to the conclusion that Williamsonia 

 belongs to the Cycadaeese, or to sooie analogous type of vegetation. 



The most serious charge that must be made against this Eng- 

 lish edition is that it has not been revised to date. No science is 

 progressing more rapidly than paleophytology, and the depart- 

 ment that is advancing the fastest is our knowledge of just such 

 problematical forms as those considered in this work. In making 

 a translation it would have been easy to introduce the result of 

 the investigations of the last four years, and the value of these 

 results would have been very great to the class who are certain to 

 make the most use of the work. But although it is said to be an 

 authorized edition, it seems to be nothing more than an exact 

 translation of the German edition of 1887. 



For, example, nothing new is presented in relation to Bennet- 

 tiles, on which the author has been so long engaged. On page 97 

 tlie remark of the original edition that " the sketch here given of 

 Bennettites, which I hope to make more complete at some future 

 time," etc., is repeated without modification. But the " future 

 time '" came more than a year ago, and the Count's able researches 

 on this form were published in the Botanisehe Zeitung for 1890 and 

 noticed by the present writer in the American Journal of Science 

 for April, 1891, p. 331. Still later the interesting specimen from 

 Golden, Col., which Lesquereux called Zamiostrobus mirabilis, 

 has been sent to him, and he has made sections of it and referred 

 it to the same genus, which he now properly calls by Buckland's 

 earlier name, Cycadeoidea. All this new matter should have been 

 incorporated in the English edition. 



We are never sure that we have the_author's present opinion on 

 the most problematical forms. Nothing is said of the recent dis- 

 coveries of Zeiller, Saporta, and others respecting ISpirangium 

 and Fayolia, from which these authors are now disposed to give 

 them over entirely to the zoologists as probably of animal origin. 

 We jhould be glid to know what the successor of De Bary thinks 

 of this. And it is amusing to read on page 371, where William- 

 sonia is under discussion and the early views of Paporfa and Jlar- 

 ion are considered, to learn that "it is hoped that a publication 

 yet to come from Saporta will contain further and more convinc- 

 ing particulars on this subject." Paleobotanists have been famil- 

 iar for at least three years with the "'publication " referred to, as 

 it appears in the " Paleontologie fran9aise, Planles jurassiques," 

 Livrrtisons 36-39, pp. 87-191, where the subject has received the 

 most exhaustive treatment vet given to it, illustrated by seven- 

 teen plates. What we want to know is whether the professor of 

 botany at the Univer.=ity of Strasburg agrees with the conclusion 

 of the Marquis Saporta that the Williamsonias, without being pre- 

 cisely Pandanese, may have had a genetic relationship with that 

 family (op. cit.,p. 117). Solms Laubach's own conclusion, quoted 

 above is given without the knowledge of Saporta's work, which 

 might have modified it. It is also given without acquaintance 

 with the important discovery by Nathorst of the inflorescence of 

 Williamsonia augustifolia attached to the steins and foliage of 

 Anomozaniites minor, a supposed cycadean plant,' and, although 

 this is confirmatory of the views above expressed, it would be in- 

 teresting to know to what extent he regards it as conclusive; and, 

 in general it would be very useful to know what this author's 

 attitude now is toward Saporla's views as here expressed (op. 

 cit , pp. 229-2-^6), according to which not only Williamsonia, 

 Weltrichia, and Goniolina, but Cycadeoidea, Anomozamites. and 

 other forms hitherto uniformly referred to the Cycadacese, are 

 taken entirely out of the Qymposperms and as&imilated to the 

 angiospermous orders Balanophorese and Pandanese, and are 

 grouped under his new and extinct class of Proangiosperms. 



The Sphenoglossum quadrifoliatum of Emmons,^ tvfice men- 



' Ofvarsigt af Kongl. Vetonskaps-Akaaemleng ForhandllDgar, June, 1888. 

 No. 6. 



' " American Geology," Vol. VL, p. 1-34, pi. v., flg. 2. 



tioned,' was carefully considered in 1883 by Professor Fontaine, 

 and referred doubtfully to Actinopteris, a genus of ferns, in a work 

 with which the authcr should have been acquainted,' and in 

 treating the Cycadacese in this volume, as well as in his later 

 studies of the Portland Cycadeoideee, he seems to be equally un- 

 familiar with the important cycadean trunks discovered by Tyson 

 in 1860 in the iron ore beds of the Potomac formation of Maryland, 

 and described also by Professor Fontaine in bis great monograph 

 of the flora of that formation.' 



The "forty -nine illustrations" so prominently mentioned on 

 the title-page as a high recommendation are indeed excellent and 

 largely the author's own. but in view of the uses to which this work 

 is likely to be put, as explained above, this number is obviously 

 far too small. To have secured the maximum usefulness, even to 

 the small class to whom it is adapted, several times that number 

 would have been required. 



The English publishers have left nothing undone to render the 

 volume handsome and attractive, and as usual, where the pub- 

 lisher's point of view is alone followed, the convenience of the 

 reader and user is often sacrificed to style and appearance. This 

 is notably the case, and applies to the German edition as well, 

 in the avoidance of italics. It may be admitted that the printing 

 of all words having the Latin form in italics produces, in works of 

 this class, a very unseemly effect, but the compromise which 

 limits them to strict binomials, i.e., rases in which the species 

 requires to be mentioned, reduces this evil from the esthetic point 

 of view to a degree which is many times counterbalanced by the 

 increased value which it gives to a work that is to be in constant 

 use by busy students, who in nine cases out of ten are looking for 

 some particular name. To compel this class to pore over a whole 

 page for what, if italicized, would instantly catch the eje, is a 

 positive cruelty, to a deserving animal, and should be prohibited 

 by penal enactment. 



The placing of the references to the appendix to the literature in 

 foot-notes at the bottom of the pages is a decided improvement 

 from all points of view over the unsightly microscopic superior fig- 

 ures in the German edition, and perhaps in a work like this, where 

 the same memoirs are frequently several limes referred to, this 

 general plan is upon the whole justifiable, but after all nothing is 

 so simple, easy, and clear as the old way, in which the reader 

 finds all he wants in foot-notes on the page he is reading, and 

 this simplicity, ease, and clearness usually atone for considerable 

 repetition as well as for whatever offence these foot-notes may give 

 to the most fastidious eye. 



If, from all that has been said, it should appear to any that the 

 work before us consists entirely of a bundle of defects, let him 

 hasten to divest himself of so false an impression. It is rather 

 our purpose to point out these defects than to extol its excellencies, 

 and should the latter be attempted it would require much more 

 space than has been needed for the former task. 



Lestee F. Ward. 



AMONG THE PUBLISHERS. 



The Century Company is about to publish, in cheap tract 

 form, the editorials on 'Cheap Money Experiments" which have 

 been appearing in The Century 



— Houghton, Mifflin & Co. will issue early next year John 

 Fiske's work on "The Discovery of America.'' It has involved a 

 vast amount of research, and Mr. Fiske is reported to reg.ard these 

 two volumes as his most important contribution to American his- 

 tory. 



— In "The Platform: Its Rise and Progress." Mr. Henry Jeph- 

 son, private secretary to Mr. Forster and Sir G. Trevelyan, begin- 

 ning with the days vvhen an open meeting for discussion of public 

 affairs was condemned as scarcely less than overt treason, traces 

 the slow growth of political speech making and analyzes t! e ele- 



= Ibid, pp. 183 and 315 



* " Contributions to ttie Knowledge of the Older Mesozolc Flora of Vir- 

 ginia." By William Morris Fontjine. Monographs of tbe U. S. Geological 

 Survey, Vol. VI., Washington, 1883, p. 120. 



5 " The Potomac or Younger Mesozolc Flora." By William Morris Fon- 

 taine. Monographs of the U. S. Geological Survey, Vol. XV., Washington, 1889. 

 Text, pp. 1S6-193; AUas, pi. clsxlv-clxxx. 



