261 



probably a popular treatise is not the place to argue the question 

 in detail, yet the other side, as an alternative possible conception, 

 ought to be clearly stated. The author's advice (p. 15) to the 

 reader to read this chapter last, or to re-read it after he has 

 finished the rest of the book, is a wise one. 



The reviewer has dwelt, perhaps over long, on these philo- 

 sophical aspects of the book, because he personally feels that the 

 real importance and value, as well as the real weaknesses, of 

 popular science lie in what it does for the lay mind in just this 

 connection. It is more important to be intelligently and (so far 

 as possible) correctly informed with reference to these larger and 

 fundamental problems than m^erely to know the wild flowers, or 

 to understand the "facts" of physiology and ecology. Correctly 

 to orient the reader on such questions is one of the most important 

 services that "popular" science can render. 



The book Is well knit together, admirably illustrated with cuts, 

 mostly either new or original with the author, and where the 

 reviewer feels that the interest of the lay reader might possibly 

 lag, he feels that the reason is to be found in the nature of the 

 materials with which the author is dealing, rather than with the 

 method of treatment. In fact, the reviewer believes that the 

 first 223, out of a total of 445 pages, are devoted to those phases 

 of plant life that are of least popular interest. It was almost 

 humiliating to be forced to the conviction that respiration, 

 photosynthesis, transpiration, etc., are not of great popular 

 interest. The reviewer would like to think otherwise, and once 

 did, but experience with classes has forceed him to a change of 

 view. 



The author himself seemed aware (cf. pp. 37, 73, 97, and 194) 

 that the chapters were, in general, too long, and in many instances 

 they could have been divided naturally and to great advantage. 



In light of the general high excellence of the hook as a whole, 

 it seems almost puerile to call attention to the fact that "cells" 

 are defined (p. 20) as "always compartments of some sort"; 

 that radium "emanations" (there is only one radium emanation) 

 are referred to (p. 251); that capillarity is defined (p. 179) as a 

 force; that chromosomes are said to "embody within themselves 



