November 1, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



689 



lar bud lateral and the primary root bud 

 often internal. 



As regards the genetic relations of the 

 various groups into which the two classes 

 are divided, Professor Balfour believes that 

 there is "no evidence to sanction the belief, 

 or even the expectation, that there is extant 

 any family of Dicotyledons or Monocoty- 

 ledons which represents, even approxi- 

 mately, a primitive type in either class. 

 The stem in each has gone. We have the 

 twigs upon a few broken branches." 



The list of papers presented to the Section 

 was somewhat extensive and mention can 

 be made of only a few. Professor Letts 

 and Mr. John Hawthorne submitted a re- 

 port on some observations they had made 

 upon the absorption of ammonia by Ulva 

 latissima. They found that this sea-weed 

 could absorb within twenty four hours all 

 the ammonia from a sample of rather highly 

 polluted sea-water (containing 0.046 parts 

 of ammonia per 100,000) and suggested the 

 possibility of this characteristic of the Ulva 

 being turned to practical account. Profess- 

 or Marshall Ward presented the results of 

 his observations on the brown rust of the 

 brome grasses. The seeds of the grasses 

 could be treated antiseptically and sown in 

 nutritive solutions and when inoculated 

 with uredospores would give rise to pure 

 cultures of the rust. The results gave no 

 support to the idea that there might be an 

 internal or seminal infection and it was 

 found that although the uredo was in all 

 morphological respects the same in all spe- 

 cies on which they were grown, the spores 

 grown on B. sterilis would never infect a 

 plant of B. mollis, although they could be 

 readily transferred to other plants of B. 

 sterilis. Spores from B. mollis would infect 

 its allies such as B. secalinus and other spe- 

 cies of the Serrafalcus group, but failed on 

 members of the Stenobromus group and so 

 with other cases. 



Mr. A. C. Seward described some sections 



of jet from Yorkshire which he had 

 studied in the British Museum. Sections 

 cut from specimens which consisted partly 

 of petrified wood and partly of jet showed 

 a gradual transition from Araucarian wood 

 to pure jet lacking all indications of lig- 

 neous origin. It would seem from these 

 sections that the Whitby jet was formed by 

 an alteration of coniferous wood. 



Other papers presented were on ' The 

 Structure and Morphology of the Flowers 

 of Cephalotaxiis,^ by Mr. W. C. Woodsell ; 

 ' The Histology of the Sieve-tubes of Fi- 

 nns,' by Mr. A. W. Hill ; * A Contribution 

 to our Knowledge of the Gametophyte in 

 the Ophioglossales and Lycopodiales, ' by 

 Dr. W. H Lang ; ' The Vascular Anatomy 

 of the Cj^atheacese, ' by Mr. D. T. Gwynne- 

 Vaughan ; 'The Anatomy of Dancea and 

 other Marattiacese, ' by Professor Brebner ; 

 ' Spore Formation in Yeast ' by Mr. T. 

 Barker ; and on ' A Diplodia Parasitic on 

 Cacao and on the Sugar Cane,' by Mr. A. 

 Howard. 



J. Playfaib McMurrich. 



Univeesity of Michigan. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 Monographieen aus der Geschichte der Chemie her- 

 ausgegeben von George W. A. Kahlbaum, IV. 

 and VI. Eefte. Christian Friedrich Schon- 

 BEiN, 1799-1868. Ein Blatt zur Geschichte 

 des 19. Jahrhunderts von GeorgW. A. Kahl- 

 baum, Ed. Schaer und Ed. Thon. Leipzig. 

 1899 and 1901. 2 vols. 8vo. Portraits. 

 The previous volumes of this series of ' Mono- 

 graphs ' have dealt with ' Lavoisier's Theory 

 and its Acceptance in Germany,' ' Dalton's 

 Theory of Atoms in Modern Light,' ' Berzelius' 

 Growth,' and the 'Correspondence of Liebig 

 and Schonbein,' by divers writers; the vol- 

 umes before us deal with the scientific labors 

 and personal character of the eminent chemist 

 and physicist Schonbein by one who enjoyed 

 superior opportunities for his undertaking, oc- 

 cupying a chair in the University of Basel anal- 

 ogous to that held by the famous man, and 

 favored with the friendship of his living heirs. 



