548 . Scientific Intelligence. 



formation' in Mississippi is the product neither of Pleistocene 

 icy floods from the north nor of a marine invasion ; it is not a 

 Pliocene blanket of waste from the Appalachians gradually 

 spread over the State by streams ; and it does not consist alto- 

 gether of parts of pre-Pliocene formations, with their .surface 

 residuum. It is -believed to be made up of unrelated or dis- 

 tantly related materials that have been erroneously grouped 

 together and to consist in the main of more or less modified parts 

 of the underlying formations, including some residuum and 

 colluvium, and of terrace deposits of Pliocene and Quater- 

 nary age." c. s. 



III. Miscellaneous Scientific Intelligence. 



1. Chemistry of Food and Nutrition; by Henry C. Sher- 

 man, Ph.D. Second Edition. Pp. xiv, 454. New York, 1918 

 (The Macmillan Co.). — With the science of nutrition bringing 

 new and epoch-making contributions at exceedingly short inter- 

 vals in the past few years it is difficult, if not impossible, to find 

 any dependable account of the newer results at a time when w*e 

 begin to realize that "food will win the war." Doubly difficult 

 is the task set for anyone who ventures to present the story of 

 food and metabolism in its newest and changing aspects. The 

 comparison of the two editions of Professor Sherman's book 

 shows how much has needed to be expressed anew within a few 

 years. The changes are, perhaps, less conspicuous in the inter- 

 pretation of intermediary metabolism and the energy problems 

 than in the discussion of the protein factor, the novel features 

 of the little understood vitamines and the so-called "balancing" 

 of the diet. The revision is both timely and well done. There 

 is an historical perspective, a balancing of evidence and a sane 

 judgment on many debated topics. The new edition will be 

 quite as helpful as was the earlier one. l. b. m. 



2. The Physical Chemistry of the Proteins; by T. Brailsford 

 Robertson. Pp. xv, 483. New York, 1918 (Longmans, Green 

 & Co.). — In the early periods of the modern popularity of colloid 

 chemistry the tendency was to treat all of the representative 

 substances that belong in this domain in a uniform fashion and 

 to attempt to make their phenomena conform to relations 

 observed to hold for some special group. Robertson quite 

 properly insists that the colloids represent an exceedingly 

 heterogeneous group — hence the justification for independent 

 consideration of the illustrative type seen in the proteins. 

 This A^olume is a new edition of the author 's ' ' Die physikalische 

 Chemie der Proteine," published in 1912. It deals extensively 

 with the descriptive chemistry of the proteins, in so far as this 



