238 



The terminology employed is about as simple and non-tech- 

 nical as accuracy would permit. For example, we read (p. 191) 

 of club-mosses "with spores of one kind," where it would have 

 been so easy to use the less-desirable technical adjective, homo- 

 sporous. Especially valuable in a popular scientific work is 

 the author's caution in inductive inference (g. g., pp. 224, 228, 

 230, 237, and 239), emphasizing for the reader the necessity of 

 suspending judgment in the light of insufficient data. 



A genealogical tree would have added greatly to the already 

 clear Conclusion, and two or three (at least) illustrations of 

 fossil plants as they are found, imbedded in the rock, would have 

 added much to the interest and value of the text, especially to 

 the layman who is not already familiar with these in technical 

 publications. 



On page 135, we read that the old Linnean name. Cryptogams, 

 indicated that the sexual reproduction of these plants was hidden, 

 "which is no longer the case" ! This last clause implies a sweeping 

 morphological change which the author probably did not intend. 

 The last sentence on page 189 reads as follows (italics mine): 

 "On the other hand, nothing could be more different than the 

 habit — tall trees on the other hand, and dwarf -water plants with 

 a flat disc for a stem on the other.'' On page 7 evolution is 

 defined as coextensive with organic evolution. Tillandsia 

 usneoides ("old man's beard," or Florida Moss), ascribed on 

 page 31 to "Western South America," is found from Eastern 

 Virginia to Florida and Texas, and abundantly throughout 

 tropical America. 



In view of the fact that the book is issued by both an English 

 and an American publisher, and therefore presumably intended 

 for American as well as British readers, it is unfortunate that 

 American geological formations are almost, if not quite, ignored. 

 There is also no reference in the book to American paleobotanical 

 contributions. 



It is a pity that the publisher's work falls so far below the 

 author's in point of merit. The book is printed on miserable 

 paper, and either the proof-reading or the proof-correcting was 

 not carefully done. The jumble of words composing most of 



