696 



SCmNGE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 122. 



of the Mississippi I should have been only too 

 ready to accept the lacustrine hypothesis. 



J. E. Todd. 



A 'driftlbss' eidge. 



To THE Editoe of Science : In reviewing, 

 in the April 9th number of your journal, Pro- 

 fessor Todd's report on the quaternary geology 

 of Missouri, I mentioned a certain ' driftless ' 

 ridge in Pike and Calhoun counties, in Illinois, 

 and referred its study to Mr. Frank Leverett. 

 My attention has been called to the fact that the 

 driftless nature of this ridge was discovered by 

 Professor R. D. Salisbury (see Proc. A. A. A. S. , 

 Washington meeting, 1891, pp. 251-253), and 

 that its study was largely accomplished by him. 



In reference to the sections of the old and 

 new gorges of the Mississippi river, between 

 Montrose and Keokuk, Iowa, I wish to add to 

 what I have said previously, that they were 

 published through the courtesy of the Iowa 

 Geological Survey, to which institution their 

 preparation should be credited. 



O. H. Heeshey. 



SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

 Diseases of Plants Induced by Oryptogamic Para- 

 sites. An Introduction to the Study of Path- 

 ogenic Fungi, Slime-Fungi, Bacteria and 

 Algae. By De. Kael Feeiheee von Ttj- 

 BEUF. English edition by William G. 

 Smith. Longmans, Green & Co., London, 

 New York and Bombay. 1897. 

 The German edition of this work appeared 

 in 1895 and was the first attempt at a compre- 

 hensive treatment of the diseases of plants 

 caused by parasites of the class Thallophyta, 

 chiefly parasitic fungi. Such a work has been 

 long needed, but there have been many diffi- 

 culties in the way of the successful preparation 

 of it. The fact that many of the diseases were 

 but little known, that the organism causing 

 them had been but little studied, and that im- 

 portant contributions were constantly being 

 made to our knowledge of these forms, made it 

 exceedingly difficult to get a book of such di- 

 mensions through the press before important 

 changes would be necessary in order that it 

 should properly represent the then status of 

 the subject. While the German edition when 



it appeared was welcomed because of the mass 

 of information which was here for the first time 

 brought together in a single book, it was nota- 

 ble for some important omissions, especially of 

 work done in the United States. This was 

 probably due in part to the fact that some of 

 the investigations had not come to the notice of 

 the author, and partly to a failure on his part 

 during the press of the work to consult the 

 American journals like the Botanical Gazette a,ni 

 the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club. 

 While it is evident there was no intent on the 

 part of the author to ignore American work, 

 the edition would have been more valuable had 

 a little more time been given to investigations 

 of this portion of the literature of the subject. 

 Since, however, the work was intended pri- 

 marily for the German-speaking people there 

 is here some partial defence of the omissions. 



The chief difficulty, however, that of keeping 

 the work up to date while going through the 

 press, was, from the very nature of the state of 

 our knowledge of these subjects, an insur- 

 mountable one. This is forcibly illustrated in 

 the fact that in the English edition, which ap- 

 pears within two years after the first edition, it 

 was necessary to recast and rewrite the whole 

 portion of the book which treats of the family 

 Exoascese and the genus Gymnosporangium, so 

 rapidly have investigations in these groups fol- 

 lowed each other, and so greatly have the limita- 

 tions of species been changed by a study of the 

 physiological effects on the hosts on the one 

 hand and of biological studies on the other. 



In the preparation of the English edition the 

 author, Dr. von Tubeuf, privatdocent in the 

 University of Munich, has added much that 

 was omitted from the first edition and has re- 

 written the sections already alluded to above. 

 The English translator, William G. Smith, lec- 

 turer on plant physiology in the University of 

 Edinburgh, has also assisted in enhancing the 

 value of the work in some additions for which 

 he alone is responsible. It is not often that an 

 author is so fortunate in the selection of his 

 translator as Dr. v. Tubeuf has been. Dr. 

 Smith was at one time a pupil of the author in 

 the laboratory of the University of Munich, and 

 at the very time when the book was being pre- 

 pared for the first edition, so that he was 



