736 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 123. 



adapted to students of various grades in various 

 subjects. They may be useful for giving sug- 

 gestions to teachers who are themselves poorly 

 prepared, but are not of the character to be 

 placed in the hands of the beginning pupil. 

 The pupil, to again quote the sentiment of the 

 author, should be taught without books. 



Treated, however, as a book for the instruc- 

 tion of teachers, this work possesses many 

 meritorious features, among which we may men- 

 tion : 



1. It outlines work that can be accomplished 

 without the aid of a compound microscope. 

 This is highly important, because many schools 

 cannot be equipped with compound microscopes, 

 and what is a better reason, because a pedagog- 

 ical one, it will prevent pupils becoming famil- 

 iar with the compound microscope before they 

 have exhausted the possibilities of the simple 

 one. Botanical perspective cannot be attained 

 by looking down the tube of a compound 

 microscope alone, and the failure to learn how 

 to use the unaided eye or a simple lens has been 

 responsible for some of the lack of perspective 

 in the rising generation of botanists. 



2. It emphasizes the ecological sideof botany, 

 which is destined to be the next ruling feature 

 of elementary botanical instruction. 



3. Its list of required laboratory books for 

 the teacher is short but excellent, and empha- 

 sizes the feature last named in such books as 

 those of Kerner and Selina Gaye, and rigidly 

 excludes manuals and other works on system- 

 atic botany which belong to a later stage in 

 the evolution of botanical students. 



Besides the general criticism given above, 

 which falls on this book only as one of a special 

 class, there are features peculiar to itself that 

 could be improved. For example, it combines, 

 among many suggestions suitable to the age of 

 the pupils for which the work is intended, some 

 that seem infantile and others that savor of 

 pedantry or at least belong to children of a 

 larger growth. Such expressions as ' strophi- 

 ole,' 'phytomer,' ' reclinate prsefoliation ' and 

 'indeterminate anthotaxy,' might well be de- 

 ferred to a later stage of instruction, if in- 

 troduced at all. Then the work gives a more 

 fragmentary treatment of the spore-producing 

 plants than would be expected from a spe- 



cialist in cryptogamic botany, tending, as was 

 the case with Dr. Gray's text-book, on which 

 this is quite closely patterned, to create the im- 

 pression that all plants produce flowers or at 

 least all that are worth considering. Besides 

 leaving out a half of the plant world, and an 

 important half at that, this plan hides away 

 from the student the great principle of evolution 

 of plant life which would be impressed upon 

 him unconsciously were the study to commence 

 with lower forms or at least give them a fair 

 amount of attention. It is amazing how much 

 knowledge of these lower plants can be gained 

 by means of a simple magnifier, and it is un- 

 fortunate, to say the least, to prevent the 

 student, however young, from getting a well- 

 rounded conception of the whole subject. 

 There are some few obsolete expressions in the 

 book like ' stomata or breathing pores ' and 

 occasional typographical slips that it is always 

 difiicult to avoid in a first edition. On the 

 whole, the merits of the work are much greater 

 than its demerits, and if used by teachers alone, 

 and not by students, it is probably as good or 

 better than most the books of its type. 



L. M. Underwood. 



Essai critique sur I'hypothese des atomes dans 

 la science eontemporaine. Arthur Hanne- 

 QXJIN. Annales de I'Universite de Lyon. 

 Tome Septieme. Paris, G. Masson. 1895. 

 Pp. 419. 



This is an interesting and important book of 

 its kind, but it is also a kind of book which to 

 many physicists will need justification. It is a 

 serious attempt to form a philosophy of atom- 

 ism, and as such will be found to contain too 

 much physics to please most metaphysicians 

 and too much metaphysics to please physicists. 

 That each party in the case may take his own, 

 the book is frankly divided into two parts, the 

 first having to do with atomic theory as actu- 

 ally found in science, and the second with the 

 metaphysics of this theory. But it would be 

 too much to hope that the physics and the 

 metaphysics of atomism had actually been dis- 

 entangled and separated. Whatever the meta- 

 physician may do the wise physicist will read 

 the whole book if he wishes to get M. Hanne- 

 quin's complete message. 



