694 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 853 



university efficiency which can not be meas- 

 ured by any mechanical tests, but which has 

 its root in the personality of the professors. — 

 The Neiv Yorlc Evening Post. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 A Directory of American Museums. Com- 

 piled by Paul Marshall Eea. Being No. 1, 

 Volume X., Bulletin of the Buffalo Society 

 of Natural Sciences. 8vo, pp. 360. Buffalo, 

 N. Y. 1910. 



The object of this directory is to give, as far 

 as possible, a complete list of the museums of 

 America, using the word in its broad sense, 

 with information as to their purposes, char- 

 .acter and extent of their collections, mode of 

 ■support, manner of administration, staff and 

 publications, with a brief sketch of the his- 

 tory of each institution. It is arranged 

 alphabetically by states and cities, and, with 

 the index, comprises 360 pages, 313 being de- 

 voted to the museums of the United States. 

 The collections are listed mainly under cer- 

 tain specified headings; anthropology, art, 

 botany, geology, paleontology, zoology, and the 

 approximate number of specimens on exhibi- 

 tion «nd in the study series is stated. Great 

 pains have been taken to have this information 

 as exact as possible, and it will be found that 

 in many eases there is a very considerable 

 reduction in the size of collections from that 

 noted in the list prepared by F. J. H. Merrill 

 and that in a few instances there is stated to 

 be " no museum," where one was said to exist 

 in 1903. 



The data given, checked by the character of 

 the financial support, and a knowledge of the 

 •staff, will furnish a pretty good idea of the 

 rsize and importance of the institutions noted. 

 The preparation of the work was authorized 

 in 1908 at the second meeting of the Associa- 

 tion of American Museums and the arduous 

 duty of gathering the information and making 

 it ready for publication was performed by 

 'Paul M. Eea, secretary of the association. 

 The cost of issuing the work, which has been 

 considerable, was generously borne by the 

 Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences. It was 

 Tioped to have had the directory issued as a 



memorial of the Buffalo meeting of the asso- 

 ciation, but owing to inevitable delays in se- 

 curing needed information it did not appear 

 until late in 1910. 



As the only directory of American museums 

 previously issued is that prepared by F. J. H. 

 Merrill and published in 1903, by the educa- 

 tion department, state of New York, this vol- 

 ume is very welcome. We should have been 

 glad of a brief summary, giving the number 

 of museums in the United States, their total 

 annual expenditure and the number of their 

 staff, but this may well be left for some one 

 interested in the study of statistics. 



In conclusion it may be said that if, as Dr. 

 Goode considered, the museum is the most ad- 

 vanced of institutions for the education of the 

 public the United States stands well to the 

 fore. F. A. Lucas 



Studies on the Structure and Affinities of 

 Cretaceous Plants. By Marie G. Stores 

 and K. Fujn. Phil. Trans. Eoy. Soc, Lon- 

 don, Series B, Vol. 201, 1910, pp. 1-90, pis. 

 1-9. 



A glance at the above somewhat impressive 

 title might lead one to presume that we have 

 to do with a paper of broad, possibly world- 

 wide, scope, and it is not until we reach page 

 4 that we learn incidentally that it deals ex- 

 clusively with material from Hokkaido, north- 

 ern Japan. Here the authors have been ex- 

 ceedingly fortunate in securing nodules — pre- 

 sumably silicified — in which are preserved 

 fragments of vegetation which indicate the 

 presence of a varied and interesting flora, and 

 suggest, in the manner of occurrence, the Eng- 

 lish Carboniferous nodules which have yielded 

 such splendid results to Williamson, Scott 

 and others. It is much to be regretted, how- 

 ever, that the present paper does not give more 

 explicit information regarding the geological 

 position of the material, the only data on this 

 point consisting of the following statement : 

 " In nearly every case there are parts of shells 

 of Ammonites in the nodules. These have 

 been described by Yabe, and there is no doubt, 

 as a consequence, that the plants are of Cre- 

 taceous age." That the description of the 



