146 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 265. 



KEEWATIN OF EASTERN CENTRAL MINNESOTA. 



C. Wi Hall, Minneapolis, Minn. 



KEWEENAWAN OP EASTERN CENTRAL MINNE- 

 SOTA. 



C. W. Hall, Minneapolis, Minn. 



GEOLOGY OF QUEBEC CITY AND ITS ENVIRONS. 



Henry M. Ami, Ottawa, Canada. 



GAS-WELL SECTIONS IN THE UPPER MOHAWK 

 VALLEY AND CENTRAL NEW YORK. 



Charles S. Prosser, Columbus, Ohio. 



VERTEBRATE FOOTPRINTS IN CARBONIFEROUS 

 ROCKS OF WRENTHAM, MASS. 



J. B. Woodworth, Cambridge, Mass. 



About seventy fellows were in attendance 

 and the meeting was a large and in every 

 way an eujoyable one. The Fellows resident 

 in Washington spared neither effort nor 

 expense in entertaining the visitors, and 

 the vote of thanks passed at the final 

 session was a very sincere expression of a 

 deeply felt sentiment. 



In the above report the notes for the first 

 three days were prepared by J. F. Kemp, 

 those for the last day by A. S. Eakle. 



J. F. Kemp. 



Columbia Univeesity. 



A. S. Eakle. 



Harvard University. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 Electro physiology. By W. Biedermann. Pro- 

 fessor of Physiology in Jena. Translated by 

 Frances A. Welby. Macmillan & Co. Vol. 

 II., pp. 500. 



Miss Welby's translation of the first volume 

 of this well-known work was reviewed some 

 time ago in these columns. It treated of the 

 structure, contraction, and electrical stimula- 

 tion of muscle, and of the electromotive phenom- 

 ena of muscle, epithelium and glandular tissue. 

 The second volume, comprising the structure, 

 conductivity, excitability and electrical stimu- 

 lation of nerve and the electromotive phenomena 

 of nerve, electrical organ and vegetable cells, 

 has now appeared. 



When a physiologist of Professor Bieder- 

 mann's eminence sums up the results of that 

 department of the science which he has so bril- 

 liantly illustrated by the labors of a lifetime, 

 and, knowing well how comparatively narrow 

 will be the circle of his readers, lays his contri- 

 bution at the feet of his fellow-workers, it may 

 seem ungracious to criticise the gift. Yet we 

 are bound to say, if criticism is not to abdicate 

 its function, that praise must be tempered with 

 censure in passing judgment on this book. That 

 it is full of interesting and important observa- 

 tions, it is unnecessary to say. Even if the 

 author had contented himself with an account 

 of his own experiments this could not fail to be 

 the case. But the treatment of the subject is 

 not always so clear as might have been ex- 

 pected from so great a master. Unnecessary 

 difficulties are placed in the way of the reader 

 by the intricacies of a somewhat diffuse and 

 ponderous style. The lack of proportion and 

 perspective is conspicuous. The author, while 

 doubtless himself well able to discriminate be- 

 tween the importance of weighty generalizations 

 and that of petty experimental details, appar- 

 ently makes little effort to help his reader to 

 do so, and the student sometimes rises from the 

 perusal with the feeling that he cannot see the 

 wood for the trees. 



The author naively admits, in the preface to 

 his first volume, that he has not attempted to 

 avoid partisanship in the treatment of certain 

 topics which have given rise to the liveliest dis- 

 cussion and have separated electro-physiologists 

 into warring camps. He has preferred, as he 

 says, to present these thorny problems from the 

 point of view of his master Hering, which hap- 

 pens also to be his own. The candor of this 

 avowal almost disarms criticism. Yet we must 

 say that although in a sketch such an attitude 

 might be entirely excusable and even praise- 

 worthy, it is to be doubted whether in a pro- 

 fessedly exhaustive treatise like the jjresent it 

 is well to skate so lightly over the thin ice of 

 controversy. For it is often impossible to thor- 

 oughly understand a question without a knowl- 

 edge of the history of the disputes that have 

 arisen in regard to it. 



Like most of his countrymen, the author 

 scarcely does justice to foreign and especially to 



