January 29, 1892.] 



SCIENCE. 



67 



elaborate the modem catnip leaf, tliough we recognize its superi- 

 oritj' over our own shape and appreciate the fact that the most 

 advanced, progressive leaves are those most deeply notched. We 

 are reversions to a more ancient, primitive type of leaf, like those 

 borne by our ancestors. When our environment is sucli that we are 

 starved, even at the threshbold of life, we cannot adorn ourselves 

 with the modern improvements, now so commonly worn." "You 

 will notice," the leaves continued, ' ' that we grew on branches 

 of the summer's seed-stalk. The upper part of it was already 

 dead, but the lower portion'had still sufficient vitality to send out 

 these feeble branches; they were only able to follow in the old, 

 old rut, worn by preceding^'generations, and therefore we are 

 simply what you might^with propriety denominate vpry old-fash- 

 ioned catnip leaves." 



I was muchMrapressed by this explanation, but, even though the 

 leaves themselves had answered my query, like Thomas of old, I 

 still doubted. 



leaf; but, after studying the variation of leaves, who can^doubt 

 that the present crenate leaf is the result of evolution. 



Mrs. W. a. Kellerman. 



Columbus, O., Jan. 18. 



NEPETA CATARIA. 



Scores and scores of plants were questioned in regard to the 

 cause of this variation from the normal type, and in every case 

 the same story was told. The leaves borne by the branches of the 

 old seed-stalk were often wholly entire, or crenate only towards 

 the base. 



All the leaves which grow on the radical shoots are perfected 

 in their crenate outline to the apex; and, while the leaves of the 

 radical shoots are green, even at this season (January), these "old- 

 fashion-leaved " branches have long been frozen and dead. 



All things unfold according to their environment, directed by 

 heredity. In geologic times the ancestral hereditary force pushed 

 on the conditions; plants and animals responded by adaptation; 

 or, where they could not adapt themselves to their ever changing 

 environment, they were left behind, and became extinct. The 

 law of evolution says: "Advance with me, or fall from the ranks ! " 

 Plants and animals, races, nations and tribes, are yet falling out 

 of rank because they cannot comply with the requirements nec- 

 essary to endure or cope with the constantly changing conditions. 



It took the catnip we know not how long to overstep the entire 



AMONG THE PUBLISHERS. 



Outing readers will welcome back to its pages the now re- 

 nowned world traveller and explorer, Thomas H. Stevens, who with 

 his cycle girdled the world for Outing, and who has just achieved 

 a successful expedition from the German Ocean to the Black Sea 

 in a steam launch, despite the dangerous rapids of the Iron Gates. 

 Outing for February opens with a charming description of "Cycling 

 in Mid-Pacific," by Charles E. Trevathan, in which the author 

 draws a pleasant picture of the natives, foliage, flowers, and the 

 delights of wheeling over the snow-white coral roads of dreamy 

 Tahiti. 



— D. Appleton & Co. announce a new book by Arabella B. 

 Buckley, author of "The Fairyland of Science," "Life and Her 

 Children," etc. The title of this work will be " Moral Teachings 

 of Science," which the author is said to have invested with special 

 interest. 



— Macmillan & Co. announce for publication early in February 

 a practical work on electric lighting. The full title of^the book 

 is "A Guide to Electric Lighting for Householders and Ama- 

 teurs," and the author is S. R. Bottone, well known by his pre- 

 vious books on electrical subjects. In order to make the book 

 thoroughly serviceable to readers in this couatry the proofs^have 

 been read by an American scientist, for the purpose of supplying 

 any needed explanation of merely local usage. 



— Longmans, Green, & Co. have iu press a work by the late 

 Ferdinand Praeger, entitled " Wagner as I Knew Him.'' The 

 book, which is the outcome of Dr. Praeger's life-long intimacy 

 with Wagner, is a remarkably dear, sympathetic, and junpreju- 

 diced history of the man and the composer, especially valuable 

 for its frank discussion of episodes in his life usually treated with 

 hesitation by his biographers. Dr. Praeger had the privilege of 

 reading Wagner's autobiography in manuscript, and thus verify- 

 ing his own observations by Wagner's own statements. 



— The latest publication of Professor Eben N. Horsford con- 

 cerning the ancient settlements of the Norsemen in the territories 

 of the New England States was published in large quarto^size by 

 Damrell & Upham, Boston, and bears the title, " The Landfall of 

 Leif Erikson, A.D. 1000, and the Site of his Houses in Vineland, 

 1893." Leif's houses are placed on the Charles River, below the 

 Fort Norurabega, and a short distance above Boston, Mass. The 

 book is very profusely illustrated with photographic views and 

 with the maps which have come down to us from the earliest ex- 

 plorers of the sixteenth century, and so on to the end of the nine- 

 teenth. This collection alone makes of the volume a thesaurus 

 of cartographic informatian surpassed by no other recent publica- 

 tion. The amount of historic and topographic information gath- 

 ered from all the earlier historians and other authorities on New 

 England matters is enormous, and they are classed under^appro- 

 priate headings, of which the principal are as follows: ;The Land- 

 fall, Expedition of Bjarni, Thorwald's Expedition to Vineland, and 

 Sketch of the Thorfinn Expedition to Vineland. Then come a 

 resume, an appendix, and notes. This volume of 147 large quarto 

 pages is printed with wide margins, holds 39 maps and illustra- 

 tions, the typographic execution being of the most splendid. 

 Simultaneously with the above was issued a pamphlet in a smaller 

 quarto size, also provided with maps of the New England coast, 

 entitled, " Sketch of the Norse Discovery of America at the Festi- 

 val of the Scandinavian Societies, assembled May 18, 1891, in 

 Boston, on the Occasion of presenting a Testimonial to Eben Nor- 

 ton Horsford in Recognition of the finding of the Landfall of Leif 

 Erikson, the Site of his Vineland Home and of the Ancient Norse 

 City of Norumbega, in Massachusetts, in the Forty-third Degree." 



— The literature of South American ethnology has just been en- 

 riched by a fine pictorial publication in folio, being Nos. 1 and 2 

 of the second volume of the " Veroffentlichungen," issued from 

 time to time by the direction of the Royal Museum of Ethnography 



