260 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 660 



DR. MAXWELL T. MASTERS 



The July number of the Journal of Botany 

 (liOndon) contains a portrait and short ac- 

 count of the life of the late Dr. Maxwell T. 

 Masters, the well-known English botanist, who 

 died on the thirtieth of May last, at the age 

 of seventy-four years. He wrote " Vegetable 

 Teratology," a book that for nearly forty years 

 has been the standard and practically the only 

 work on the subject. He was also the editor 

 of the Gardeners' Chronicle, perhaps the fore- 

 most horticultural journal in the world. 



PROGRESSUS HEI BOTANICAE 



AifOTHER Hefi (3) of Dr. Lotsy's "Prog- 

 ressus Rei Botanieae " (pub. by Fischer, Jena) 

 has made its appearance. It carries the first 

 volume from, page 533 to its conclusion (p. 

 642), and contains but one article (by E. P. 

 van Calcar) " Die Portschritte der Im- 

 munitats- und Spezifizitatslehre seit 1870." 



NEW EDITION" OF CAMPBELL'S BOTANY 



After five years the Macmillans bring out 

 a second edition of Campbell's well-known 

 " University Text-book of Botany." So well 

 written was the first edition that it was not 

 necessary to make many changes in the text; 

 in fact the new book is so little different from 

 the old that it may be used in the same class 

 with no inconvenience. It is practically the 

 best general text-book to-day for the American 

 student of advanced botany. 



EXPERIMENTS ON THE INFLUENCE OF LIGHT 



In the October Annals of Botany Professor 

 Peirce records certain experiments made by 

 him to determine the kind and amount of 

 irritability of certain young plants in rela- 

 tion to light. Although his experiments were 

 interrupted before completion (by the San 

 Prancisco earthquake) he shows that as the 

 direction of illumination is usual or unusual 

 certain plants have their normal form, or some 

 other wholly different. " It is evident," he 

 says, " that unless the young plants develop- 

 ing from the spore are exposed to influences 

 like those under which their parents developed, 

 they will be unlike their parents." A broader 



statement of this conclusion is that " certain 

 physical factors of the environment, constant 

 or periodic but unchanging, constitute means 

 of repeating parental characters generation 

 after generation, and these environmental in- 

 fluences are as essential as the substance. 

 Given the same chemical compounds and the 

 same arrangement of these in the fertilized 

 egg as in the parents, the young must be like 

 the parents if their environment is the same." 

 The paper is well worth careful reading, and 

 it is to be hoped that Professor Peirce will 

 be able soon to resume his abruptly inter- 

 rupted experiments. 



Charles E. Besset 

 The University of Kebraska 



CONCILIUM BIBLIOGBAPHICUM 

 Dr. Herbert Haviland Field is visiting 

 this country in connection with the Zoological 

 Congress and the interests of the Concilium 

 Bibliographicum of Zurich. Visitors to the 

 Congress will find a set of the cards of this 

 great zoological catalogue on exhibition in the 

 Harvard Medical School. There is also a 

 complete set arranged to date in the American 

 Museum of Natural History. A duplicate set 

 in the American Museum is available for im- 

 mediate orders. 



Dr. Field is seeking to organize the business 

 affairs of the Concilium on a somewhat more 

 permanent basis by the appointment of a di- 

 rector, on a salary to be fixed by American 

 trustees, the director to administer the affairs 

 of the Concilium without any pecuniary in- 

 terest in its profits or losses, but solely with 

 the interest of maintaining the high character 

 of the bibliographical work which it has al- 

 ready accomplished. For this purpose and for 

 the general expenses of the Concilium an an- 

 nual sum of $5,000 is needed either from an 

 endowment fund of $100,000 or from a special 

 annual subscription fund. 



It seems appropriate that a special effort 

 should be made by American zoologists to 

 raise such a fund in order to further the in- 

 terests of the Concilium, which reflects such 

 great credit upon this country as well as upon 

 the Swiss government, which has so cordially 



