480 Scientific Intelligence. 



and regeneration will serve to indicate the range of the lectures. 

 The chapters on tropisms, for example, are of exceptional gen- 

 eral interest and show how trenchant the author's critique may 

 become at times. In discussing a theme upon which so widely 

 divergent views are held, he wisely says: "The more fertile a 

 principle is, the more we can afford to be conservative in apply- 

 ing it." (p. 159.) Loeb mountains that the tropisms and trop- 

 ism-like reactions will one day form the main contents of a scien- 

 tific psychology of lower forms. The subject of fertilization, as 

 might be anticipated, is discussed in a comprehensive way. 

 Indeed the writer is far moi - e successful in the treatment of gen- 

 eral topics of this character than of more specific problems like 

 those of secretion, for instance. The volume will be fruitful in 

 awakening further interest in general physiology, and cannot 

 fail to add to the author's influence on the progress of biological 

 research and teaching in America. l. b. m. 



4. Carnegie Institution of Washington. — The following are 

 recent publications of the Carnegie Institution : 



No. 9. — The Collected Mathematical Works of George William 

 Hill. Volume II, pp. 339. Containing memoirs Nos. 37-49. 

 Volume III, pp. 577. Memoir No. 50, A new theory of Jupiter 

 and Saturn. 



No. 40. — The Nucleation of the Uncontaminated Atmosphere ; 

 by Carl Barus. Pp. xii, 152 ; with 104 figures. 



5. Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. — Science Bulletin, 

 vol. I, No. 7 (pp. 141-1 86) contains two papers by Chas. 

 Schaeffer. The first describes some new Coleoptera from 

 Brownsville, Texas, with notes on species now first recorded 

 from the United States chief! y from the Huachuca Mts.. Arizona ; 

 the second paper gives a list of Bombycine moths collected in 

 1905 in the Huachuca Mts. A third paper by H. S. Dyar 

 describes some new moths from Arizona. 



Der Ablauf des Lebens ; Grundlegtmg zur Exakten Biologie ; von Wilhelm 

 Fliess. Pp. 581. Leipzig iind Wien, 1906. 



Obittja by. 



Professor Nathaniel S. Shaler, whose death on April 10 was 

 announced in our last number, was born near Newport, Ky., on 

 Feb. 20, 1841. He went to Harvard in 1859, enrolling in the 

 Lawrence Scientific School and studying chief!}'' with Louis 

 Agassiz. After receiving the degree of S.B. in 1862, he enlisted 

 in the Fifth Kentucky Battery and saw active service in the 

 Union army for two years. On returning to Harvard he was 

 appointed lecturer in ]864, professor of paleontology in 1869, pro- 

 fessor of geology in 1888, and dean of the Lawrence Scientific 

 School in 1891. He was given the degree of LL.D. by Harvard in 

 1903. Shaler's lectures on geology were always popular; it is 

 believed that he thus addressed some 7,000 students, probably a 

 larger number than were ever taught geology by any other man. 

 He was of marked individuality, inventiveness and activity, of 



