652 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 356. 



convenient shelf of the student ; and the second 

 edition, now in distribution, seems still more 

 useful. Primarily the book is a biographic dic- 

 tionary of a perfection approaching the ideal, 

 in which the lives of prominent Americans are 

 written in sufficient fulness for practical pur- 

 poses ; it is also a directory to prominent Amer- 

 icans by full names and present addresses. 

 Naturally the first question as to the value of 

 such a book connects itself with the classifica- 

 tion, i. e., with the definition of prominence 

 and with the editor's success in equitably cleav- 

 ing the mass of 80,000,000 into portions of 12,- 

 000 and 79,988,000, respectively, along the 

 precise lines of the definition. Of course the 

 performance of this task would out-Hercules 

 the classic hero ; it can never be done with 

 mathematical precision, and even if it were 

 made right for one day it would be wrong for the 

 next ; yet the chief excellence of ' Who's Who 

 in America ' lies in the truly remarkable meas- 

 ure of success with which the editor has estab- 

 lished and maintained his 'primary definition. 

 It is this measure of success in classifying 

 prominence which gives the work its greatest 

 utility ; for the user may be reasonably certain 

 of finding within it desired facts relating to any 

 celebrity, and this without undue labor of 

 search through irrelevant biographic material. 

 The 1899 edition contained 8,602 names, of 

 which 752 are omitted in the 1901 edition, 498 

 by reason of known death, and the remaining 

 254 for various reasons ; the later edition in- 

 cludes 11,551 names. Classified by residence 

 (as they are in the introductory pages), these 

 celebrities are distributed throughout the 45 

 States, 6 Territories and 1 District of the 

 United States, and 47 foreign countries ; 11,187 

 reside in the United States, 370 live perma- 

 nently abroad, and 44 do not report. Of those 

 resident in the United States 2,849 are credited 

 to New York, 1,010 to Massachusetts, 889 to 

 District of Columbia, 880 to Pennsylvania and 

 704 to Illinois; then follow Ohio, 422; New 

 Jersey, 314 ; California, 291 ; Connecticut, 266 ; 

 Missouri, 222 ; Maryland, 205 ; and the remain- 

 ing States and Territories yielding less than 200 

 each of the aggregate. It would not be easy to 

 class the celebrities by vocation, and the editor 

 has not attempted to do so ; but scientists may 



feel gratification in the fact that their impor- 

 tant class has received especial care and effort, 

 and that scientific eminence seems to have ade- 

 quate recognition — indeed, scarcely a page is 

 without one or more names distinguished in 

 some line of scientific activity. Withal the 

 book is a model of condensation and — consider- 

 ing the extreme difficulty of attaining accuracy 

 in details of biography, bibliography, nomen- 

 clature, residence, etc. — a marvel of accuracy. 



The new edition, like the old, is enriched by 

 a readable prefatory narration of editorial ex- 

 perience, and still more by suggestive statistical 

 tables, of which that entitled ' Educational Sta- 

 tistics ' is a real contribution to knowledge. 

 Of the 11,551 persons biographed, 9,760 fur- 

 nished educational data, and in 8,141 cases the 

 data permit useful classification. Of these 

 8,141 persons, 5,775 are collegians and 4,810 

 out of these graduates ; 808 were educated only 

 in common schools, 282 were privately edu- 

 cated, while 31 were self-taught. These fig- 

 ures, with the carefully selected data on which 

 they rest, afford America's strongest argument 

 in favor of higher education ; at the same time 

 they reveal the country's unparalleled element 

 of strength in the possibility of eminence to those 

 helped only by the public schools, and even to 

 those not helped at all, along educational ways. 



The book is notably fit in size, weight, qual- 

 ity of paper, typography, abbreviations, bind- 

 ing, and other matters which go to make up 

 satisfactory book-making. 



W JM. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 

 The Botanical Gazette for July contains the 

 following papers : Charles E. Allen writes ' On 

 the Origin and Nature of the Middle Lamella.' 

 The general conclusion is reached that this 

 structure is not merely the partition wall as 

 laid down, either as a single or a double layer ; 

 nor is it merely an intercellular substance or 

 cement, a means for binding the cells together. 

 It is a wall layer with a complicated history, 

 undergoing after its appearance changes in 

 form, in mass, and in chemical composition. 

 Carleton E. Preston has written upon ' Struc- 

 tural Studies of Southwestern Cactacese.' From 

 a study of eight representative forms various 



