72 Scientific Intelligence. 



great wonder is, considering the abundance of Calamites every- 

 where in the coal measures, that its fruits should be of such rare 

 occurrence. It is needless to say that these fruits are strictly 

 cryptogamic, and contain spores only. l. f. w. 



7. Eirdeitung in die Palaophytologie vom botanischen Stand- 

 purikt ecus. Bearbeitet von H. Grafex zu Solms-Laubach. Leip- 

 zig, 1887. — This work, although it bears evidence of wide re- 

 search and much original investigation, is nevertheless, to the 

 working paleophytologist, something of a disappointment. What 

 is needed is a logical and systematic presentation of the best 

 results of all the numerous and widely scattered investigations 

 into the meaning of the multiform structures and objects that 

 have been studied and separately made known. Count Solms- 

 Laubach has proved by this work that he possesses the qualifica- 

 tions for conducting such an enterprise, but has preferred, Ger- 

 man fashion,. to give it the form of an original investigation and 

 a decidedly subjective stamp, for which he was not qualified by 

 a life-long devotion to the subject, such as gives so great weight 

 and value to the researches of Williamson, Renault, and Schenk. 

 The book, moreover, lacks entirely the symmetry and evenness of 

 treatment so much to be desired at this time in paleobotany, and 

 plainly shows that its author was impelled rather by the impulse 

 to probe to the bottom a few such questions as chanced specially 

 to interest him, leaving other equally essential ones nearly or 

 quite untouched. But it should not be inferred that this work is 

 devoid of value. To him who desires to attack the problems of 

 paleobotany it will be found to contain a thorough and exhaus- 

 tive treatment of many of the most knotty and puzzling questions, 

 and it has the great merit of furnishing a clear guide to the en- 

 tire literature of every subject treated. 



The interest manifested by so excellent a botanist in paleon- 

 tology is a hopeful sign as tending to reconcile the two depart- 

 ments, and while there is danger that the recent appointment of 

 Count Solms-Laubach to the botanical chair made so celebrated 

 by De Bary may not leave him time to continue the work 

 to which this book is confessedly only an " Introduction," the 

 science of botany proper is to be congratulated on having in such 

 a prominent place one who is fully capable of weighing the facts 

 furnished by the geological history of plants. l. f. w. 



8. Das Arditz der Erde von Eduard Suess. Yol. ii, 704 pp., 

 8vo. Vienna, 1888. (F. Dempsky). — The first volume of the great 

 work by Professor Suess, noticed in this Journal in 1884, 1885 

 (xxvii, 151, xxix, 418), covered, first, the discussion of the move- 

 ments in the exterior crust of the earth and, secondly, of the moun- 

 tain systems. The second volume, now published, is devoted to 

 the great oceans, treating of them first geographically as at pres- 

 ent developed, and later with regard to the extent of the seas dur- 

 ing the successive geological periods, from the paleozoic down to 

 the changes of level noted in historic times and more broadly with 

 respect to the cause of the oceanic depressions. The different fea- 



