1918] BRIEFER ARTICLES 457 
of his subject for high school work led to the writing of his ‘‘ Elements of 
Botany”’ in 1896. The practicable way in which the main features of 
the newer botany with its greater emphasis on the physiological aspects 
of the subject were brought out in text instruction and directions for 
laboratory study went far to make the book an important influence in 
turning botanical instruction in secondary schools away from the 
rather dry descriptions of form, to the more interesting and equally 
valuable study of the activities of life. This book and its successors, 
the “Foundations of Botany” (1901) with keys to the commoner plants 
of the great divisions of the country prepared by Miss ALicE Eastwoop, 
Professor S. M. Tracy, and by himself, the “Principles of Botany” 
written in collaboration with Dr. BrapLey M. Davis in 1906, “ Essen- 
tials of Botany” (1908), “Practical Botany” in collaboration with 
Dr. Otts W. CALDWELL in 1911, and “Introduction to Botany” by the 
same authors in 1914, have provided a series of elementary texts which 
have kept abreast of the newer movements in botanical development 
and have served to induct a vast host of young Americans into the study 
of plants. . The success of these books brings sufficient evidence of a 
wise choice of material and of clearness and adequacy of presentation. 
While Mr. BERGEN is perhaps most widely known as a teacher and 
writer of books, he was also a genuine investigator. Both by early 
training and by inclination a man of out-of-doors, he found his instincts 
for the field leading him toward the problems of ecology, and his per- 
haps equally strong inclination toward the precision of the laboratory 
investigator led him when opportunity presented itself to a fruitful 
application of laboratory methods to the study of plants in their en- 
vironment. His opportunity came when in rgor he retired from teach- 
ing and went to southern Italy, where in the neighborhood of Naples he 
spent some 4 years. Here he made use of the rich facilities of the 
Biological Station and made the valued acquaintance of FEDERICO 
Detpino, Professor of Botany at Naples University, and of other 
members of the botanical faculty. He found great delight in tramping 
with Professor MATTEI, now of Palermo, who at that time was mapping 
the flora on the Solfatara, the partially active volcano near Pozzuoli. 
After a midday dinner at the Bergen residence they would “tramp off 
over that wonderful phlegrain plain, perhaps through a basaltic paved 
Greek lane, perhaps passing some wonderful ruined Greek temple or 
haunt of Horace or Virgil on their way out into the country.” The 
results of this happy time found their way to the botanical world chiefly 
through short articles printed in the Boranicat Gazette and in Plant 
