74 Scientific Intelligence. 



Blakiston's Son & Co. Price $2 net). — This book, published 

 originally in London, is the first laboratory manual, or collection 

 of practical exercises dealing with this rapidly developing and 

 important branch of chemistry. It gives accurate and very 

 detailed directions for carrying out the fundamental operations, 

 for making a number of representative preparations and for 

 examining them by the standard methods. 



There is no doubt that the book presents a very satisfactory 

 course of laboratory work, and at the same time gives excellent 

 explanations of the principles of the subject. Since many of the 

 methods and materials of colloid chemistry are peculiar, and 

 strange even to students who are well trained in other branches 

 of chemistry, the course presented here appears to be a very 

 desirable one in connection with a good modern chemical educa- 

 tion, h. l. w. 



II. Geology and Natural History. 



1. The Brachiopoda of the N amy an Beds, Northern Shan 

 States, Burma; by S. S. Buckman. Mem. Geol. Survey India, 

 Palaentologica Indica, new ser., vol. 3, No. 2, 299 pp., 21 pis. 6 

 text figs., 1917 [1919]. — The next generation of paleontologists 

 will hail this volume as one of the leading paleontologic studies 

 of the early part of the twentieth century ; the present genera- 

 tion of workers will as a rule either fail to praise it or silently 

 pass it by. All who have studied Buckman 's results know that 

 he is a very detailed worker, applying to fossil forms the bio- 

 genetic law phis chronogenesis. In addition, he is familiar with 

 the best work in paleontology. His methods are not only mod- 

 ern and correct, but he is the seer who leads into new though 

 difficult paths of study. His entire tendency is toward discern- 

 ing the major and minor genetic lines of organisms, seizing upon 

 all characters, however trivial they may appear to others, with 

 the result that he is our chief ' ' splitter ' ' of genera, species, and 

 stratigraphic time divisions. The present Avork is a morpho- 

 genetic study carried out in detail. 



The seemingly monotonous and endless array of rhynchonel- 

 lids and terebratulids forms the basis of the present study. They 

 have long been known to contain a host of parallel developments 

 in external expression. Buckman has for years been a student 

 of brachiopods, fossil and recent, and of the methods adopted 

 by Hall and Clarke in their study of this class of animals, with 

 the result that to the 18 genera heretofore known from the Jur- 

 assic and Cretaceous he here adds 66 new ones ! A study of the 

 internal characters — other than crura and loops — combined with 

 the external ones, and a detailed analysis of the stages of growth 

 have brought about this great number of new genera. Even so, 

 it is only the beginning of what is to come, for he says (pp. 133- 



