Botany. 151 



13. Handbuch der Miner alchemie ; von C. F. Rammelsberg, 

 Zweite Erganzungsheft zur zweiten Auflage. 8vo, 478 pp. 

 Leipzig, 1895. (Wilhelm Engelmann.) — This second supplement 

 to the second edition of Rammelsberg's great work on Mineral- 

 chemie, follows the first after the long interval of nearly ten 

 years. Daring this period many important additions have been 

 made to the literature of mineral chemistry and much progress 

 has been made in the knowledge of the composition of rare spe- 

 cies. All of this material has now been collated and worked 

 over by the veteran mineral chemist. The work follows the same 

 line as its predecessor by the same author. His suggestions are 

 based in each case on careful thought and new calculations and 

 always deserve respectful consideration, but many will not follow 

 him in some of his conclusions ; for example, in his sweeping 

 refusal to accept the idea that hydroxy 1 (OH) may replace 

 fluorine in a mineral compound, nor his explanation that in such 

 cases the water yielded on analysis (e. g. topaz, herderite, amblyg- 

 onite) is due to gradual alteration. 



III. Botany. 



1. Plant-breeding. Being five lectures upon the amelioration 

 of domestic plants ; byL. H. Bailey. (Macmillan & Co., 1895.). 

 — Professor Bailey, of Cornell University, gives in this handy 

 work, of less than three hundred pages, sufficiently explicit direc- 

 tions to guide any person of ordinary judgment in the interesting 

 task of crossing plants. While we miss in its pages references to 

 the very important work by Nageli, we find enough of essentially 

 the same method of treatment to give the volume high value, not 

 only as a practical treatise, but also as stimulating speculation. 

 The hand-book can be heartily recommended to all classes of 

 persons interested in living plants. g. l. g. 



2. Tubercles on the roots of the Soja bean. — Professor Kirch- 

 ner (Cohn's Beitrage zur Biol, der Pflanzen, xvii, 2, 1895) has con- 

 ducted a few remarkably interesting experiments in regard to the 

 production and character of these swellings. When the Soja 

 beans were cultivated in good soil, such as one would ordinarily 

 employ for experimental purposes, no conspicuous tubercles were 

 formed, but when to this soil was added a small amount of earth 

 brought from Japan, and presumably infected with the bacteria 

 associated with the plant, tubercles were abundantly formed, and 

 the plants grew more thriftily than under previous conditions. 

 The soil came from Japan in well-soldered metallic boxes. It 

 was black, uncommonly light, volcanic ash. It was moist when it 

 arrived, and contained fragments of the roots of the Soja plants 

 which had been cultivated therein. 



While the observation is not wholly new, it confirms some 

 kindred results, and tends to open up still farther the possibility 

 of more successful cultivation of Papilionaceaz in infected soil. 

 Oonnermann (Land w. Jahr b. xxiii, 1894) has apparently 



