JuDE 28, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



1001 



ornamental purposes, but for the real illustra- 

 tion of the text. The book is well printed 

 and bound and with no undue share of typo- 

 graphical errors. 



While the different topics discussed in this 

 work have been treated in more or less detail 

 in official reports and in special articles. Dr. 

 Eies's book will be welcomed by all interested 

 in the subject of clays, as being certainly the 

 most comprehensive and evenly balanced, if 

 not the only, presentation of the subject as a 

 whole that we have. And though written 

 primarily for American geologists, chemists, 

 and engineers, the introductory part, being of 

 a general nature, should be equally useful to 

 men of all nationalities. 



Eugene A. Smith 



Unitebsitt or Alabama 



Biochemie der Pflanzen. Bd. II. By Fried- 

 rich CzAPEK, Ph.D., M.D. Gustav Fischer 

 in Jena. 1905. Pp. xii + 1027. 

 The second volume of this important work 

 on the chemistry of plants has fully sustained 

 the high expectations excited by the first vol- 

 ume. In something over a thousand pages, 

 the author brings his account down to the 

 state of our knowledge as it existed in June, 

 1905. It is impossible in the space available 

 for this purpose to give more than a most 

 meager outline of the contents of this volume 

 of this truly great work. A general discus- 

 sion of the biochemistry of plant albuminoids 

 is followed by a treatment in some detail of 

 the phenomena connected with this class of 

 bodies as seen in the physiological processes 

 of various groups of plants from bacteria to 

 phanerogams, and as seen in the various 

 organs and structures of these plants. 



The second large division deals with th« 

 nitrogen-containing end products of plant 

 metabolism. The discussion is one of rare in- 

 terest, especially as dealing with the chemical 

 physiology of hydrocyanic acid and with the 

 plant alkaloids. We have had chemical dis- 

 cussions and botanical discussions on these 

 subjects, but the author has here succeeded in 

 making the facts of either category illuminate 

 those of the other, an observation that applies 



to a remarkable degree to all parts of the 

 book. 



The chapters on the physiology and chem- 

 istry of the relation of plants and plant 

 products to oxygen is succeeded by a treat- 

 ment of the part played by ash constituents 

 in plant metabolism in its widest relations. 

 A chapter of unusual interest on the chemical 

 aspects of plant irritability concludes the 

 body of the work. 



It would be hard to speak in too high praise 

 of this work. It comes into a place in botan- 

 ical literature that has never been filled here- 

 tofore, and as the drift of plant study in re- 

 cent years has been strongly in this direction, 

 the need of such a work has been more and 

 more keenly felt. This book will go on to the 

 same shelf of indispensables on which Pfeffer's 

 ' Physiology,' Goebel's ' Organography ' and 

 Haberlandt's * Anatomy ' are to be found. 



It is to be strongly hoped that the author 

 may find opportunity from time to time to 

 revise the work as the progress of science 

 makes necessary, and thus provide investiga- 

 tors with a ready means of keeping in close 

 touch with the progress of physiology. The 

 author gives evidence of a desire to do this by- 

 providing in an appendix references to litera- 

 ture appearing after the body of the work was 

 completed. 



This book should be translated into Eng- 

 lish, and that at an early date. 



E. H. True 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES 

 The American Naturalist for May opens 

 with an article by Herbert W. Eand on ' The 

 Functions of the Spiracle of the Skate,' the 

 conclusion being that it serves chiefly as an 

 in-take for the respiratory stream, and that 

 the reversal of the stream, or spouting, may 

 serve to clear out the gill chambers and be 

 analogous to taking a deep breath. F. H. 

 Pike presents ' A Critical and Statistical 

 Study of the Determination of Sex, Particu- 

 larly in Human Offspring.' Among the con- 

 clusions are that in man there is a slight 

 excess in the number of male offspring; that 

 sex determination probably occurs before the 

 fertilization of the ovum and that sex is 



