jANtTAEY5, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



25 



stones of Iowa ; * and lastly that of Mathews 

 and Merrill on those of Maryland. f 



The volume noted at the head of this article, 

 bearing the date 1898 but seemingly not issued 

 till the latter part of 1899, is the latest and 

 most pretentious of them all, with the excep- 

 tion of that of the 10th Census, comprising 

 some 566 pages with 49 full-page plates and 

 four figures in the text. The plates include a 

 colored geological map of the State and seven 

 others in which the natural colors and textures 

 of the stone are approximately reproduced by 

 lithographic processes, the remainder being 

 half-tone reproductions of quarry views and 

 stone structures. The work is divided into 

 three parts : (1) Demand, Uses and Properties of 

 Building and Ornamental Stones ; (2) Geolog- 

 ical History of Wisconsin and Description of 

 Areas and Quarries, and (3) Appendix, On 

 The Composition and Kind of Stones. 



The chief interest and value of the work 

 center in part II. (pp. 75-357 inclusive), since 

 the only information heretofore available on 

 these points has been that given in the 10th 

 Census report above referred to, and Merrill's 

 Stones for Building and Decoration. The work 

 has apparently been well and thoroughly done. 

 By far the most interesting stones described, 

 and the ones which on account of color may 

 hope to find a market beyond the State limits, 

 are the Montello, Waupaca, Waushara and 

 Wausau granites, and the Berlin rhyolites. 

 The brown sandstones of the Lake Superior 

 region should, in the- Middle and Western 

 States, fill the place of the red brown Triassic 

 stones in the Eastern. In nearly every instance 

 samples of the stone described have been sub- 

 mitted to laboratory tests and their crushing 

 strength, absorptive and general weathering 

 properties ascertained, so far as is possible by 

 these methods. It is a trifle discouraging to 

 note that it was considered necessary to go to 

 the expense and trouble of making over 100 

 tests of crushing strength on rocks which even 

 a casual inspection would have shown to be 

 sufficiently strong for all practical purposes. 

 Concerning the value of such tests the present 

 writer has expressed himself elsewhere. 



* 8th Ann. Rep. Geol. Survey of Iowa, 1898. 

 tVol. II., Eep. State Geol. Survey, 1899, pp. 241. 



If one were disposed to be critical he might 

 call attention to the carelessness manifested in 

 some of the very few references given, and to 

 the tendency to ignore the work of others. 

 Professor A. D. Conover's paper of fifteen 

 quarto pages in the report of the 10th Census, 

 not even being mentioned. There is, further, 

 a non-convincing air of freshness in the expla- 

 nation put forward on p. 383, to account for the 

 unfavorable action of freezing temperatures on 

 newly quarried material. 



Colored illustrations add to the attractiveness 

 of the book, but are to some extent misleading, 

 giving a perfection of surface and brightness 

 of color, which the materials themselves do not 

 possess. This is particularly the case with the 

 red and pink granites. Plate 34 of the Lake 

 Superior sandstone is also disappointing, as, 

 indeed, is plate 45 of a similar subject in the 

 10th Census report, and plate 27 in that of the 

 Maryland Survey. The attempt is instructive, 

 as showing the relative merits of lithographic 

 reproductions from colored drawings, as com- 

 pared with the tricolor photographic process 

 used in the Maryland report, the advantage 

 however, being wholly with the latter. 



Very poor taste has been shown in the ar- 

 rangement of the views of quarries and struc- 

 tures in the half-tone plates, and particularly 

 those numbered 4, 17, 24, 42 and 47. A pic- 

 ture which does not illustrate some definite 

 feature is out of place in a work of this nature, 

 and, if of value, it should be so oriented on the 

 page as to be easy of reference. The fad for 

 placing the several vievrs on one page at vary- 

 ing angles with one another is not readily ex- 

 cusable, and in this particular case the eflFect 

 is very inartistic as well. 



There is much to be commended in the work, 

 but it is not too much to say that it would 

 be more useful if of half the size. The amount 

 of paper involved is out of all proportion to the 

 information contained therein. 



George P. Meerill. 



Untersuchungen iiber die Vermehrung der Laub- 

 moose durch Brutorgane und Stecklinge. By 

 Dk. Carl Coeeens, a. 6. Professor der Bot- 

 anik in Tiibingen. Jena, Gustav Fischer. 

 1899. Pp. xxiv + 472. 187 figs. Price, 15 M. 



