NOVEMBEE 20, 1896.] 



SGIENGE. 



765 



enemy of Ms kind." This glossary is to a cer- 

 tain extent based upon Loewinson-Lessing's Pe- 

 trographisclies Lexikon and the index of Zir- 

 kel's Lehrbuch der Petrographie, but contains 

 many additional names of American origin. 

 As an index of rock names it is very full and 

 correct, although a few unimportant slips were 

 observed. The name Anarthosite, for instance, 

 was proposed by Hunt as far back as 1863 (See 

 Geology of Canada, p. 22), six years before the 

 publication of the paper in the American Journal 

 of Science, to which reference is made. Per- 

 thite again was not named by Hunt, but by Dr. 

 Thompson, of Perth, while composite dykes are 

 not in all cases formed by two intrusions of dif- 

 ferent age occupying the same fissure, but in 

 some cases result from magmatic differentiation 

 in a single injection. 



The book is clearly written, and the fact that 

 it deals chiefly with American rocks and Ameri- 

 can localities gives it for American students a 

 distinct advantage over many of the text-books 

 which are published abroad. 



Frank D, Adams. 

 McGiLL University. 



PrantVs Lehrbuch der Botanik, herausgegeben 

 and neu arbeitet von Dr. Ferdinand Pax, 

 ord. Professor der Botanik und Direktor des 

 botanischen Gartens in Breslau. Mit 397 

 figuren in Holzschnitt. Zehnte, verbesserte 

 und vermehrte Auflage. 8vo., pp. x+406. 

 Leipzig, WilhelmEngelmann. 1896. Brosch. 

 M. 4 ; gebund. M 5. 30. 



A text-book of botany which has passed into 

 its tenth edition has demonstrated its fitness to 

 meet existing conditions in its native country. 

 Whether those conditions are good or bad is 

 quite another question. They certainly seem to 

 demand in Germany a book largely devoted to 

 an account of the various groups of plants. 

 Indeed courses upon Systematik are much com- 

 moner in German universities and Hochschulen 

 than in this country, given over as its ele- 

 mentary instruction has been to ' analysis. ' It 

 would almost appear that classification there 

 takes the place of ' analysis ' here, with little 

 advantage, if any, in favor of the German 

 student. 



The tenth edition, the reviser tells us, has 



been augmented both in text and illustrations, 

 and many of the older figures replaced by better 

 ones. This appears chiefly in the systematic 

 part, for which the treasurers of the Pflanzen- 

 familien have been drawn upon ; but no strik- 

 ing novelties appear in the other parts, where 

 the good old ' stand-bys ' are much in evidence 

 still. 



The ' tief greifende Veranderungen in der 

 Anordnung des Stoffes,' which Dr. Pax did not 

 think it wise to make, because the present ar- 

 rangement had been approved by use, seem to 

 us the very changes which were most called for 

 in order to make the tenth edition as valuable 

 to this generation as the first was twenty-two 

 years ago. For according to modern ideas a 

 text-book which devotes 100 pages to morphol- 

 ogy, 47 to physiology and 237 to classification, 

 is badly balanced ; it is overdoing system at the 

 expense of life. This is all the more striking 

 when two-thirds of the classification is of the 

 'dry bones ' order. Of the 237 pages of ' syste- 

 matische Uebersicht des Pflanzenreiches,' 

 164 are devoted to the phanerogams, and in 

 them one finds the same dreary iteration of the 

 details of flower structure that has been our por- 

 tion these many years. In the 73 pages on 

 cryptogams comparative special morphology is 

 given chief attention, but the parts shift as soon 

 as the phanerogams are reached. Though Dr. 

 Pax naturally wished to keep as close to 

 Prantl's plan as possible, who would have 

 found fault had he shown the courage to main- 

 tain the same plan for the phanerogams as for 

 the cryptogams ? Possibly the publisher; hardly 

 the readers. 



Part II. , on physiology, is much too short for 

 a satisfactory account of plant functions, and it 

 might have been further revised to advantage 

 in many particulars which we cannot specify. 

 The account of molecular structure (if it is to 

 be given at all) and the section ou water move- 

 ment are two notable examples. Sex terms 

 and the sexual and non-sexual phases are prop- 

 erly explained in the very brief chapter on re- 

 production, but when the unsuspecting reader 

 reaches the angiosperms he will be bewildered 

 by the application of the same terms to the 

 flowers and even to the sporophyte ! 



In anatomy the Gaul-like division of all tis- 



