Miscellaneous Intelligence. 555 



scientific geography, gives all its 100 pages to eight essays on 

 selected topics especially studied by the eight French members of 

 the Transcontinental Excursion by which the American Geo- 

 graphical Society of New York celebrated its sixtieth birthday 

 last summer. Bastian describes the canals of New York ; 

 Demangeon, Duluth and the Minnesota iron district; de Martonne, 

 the Yellowstone National Park ; Baulig, the lava plateaus and 

 the Grand Coulee of Washington ; Herbette, the Ports of the 

 Northwest ; de Margerie, Crater Lake and Meteor Crater ; and 

 Gallois, Utah ; and Vacher, Phoenix, Ariz., and the Roosevelt 

 dam. The illustrations are well chosen and exceptionally well 

 reproduced. w. m. d. 



4. The Plant Alkaloids; by Thomas Anderson Henry. 

 Pp. viii, 466. Philadelphia, 1913 (P. Blakiston's Son and Co.). — 

 With the development of organic chemistry groups of chemical 

 compounds once regarded as well-differentiated have been shown 

 to possess relationships hitherto unsuspected. The word alkaloid 

 was originally used to describe all organic bases, including the 

 natural alkali-like substances which occur in plants. This defini- 

 tion can no longer be maintained in its original interpretation. 

 Compounds of closely related character not found in nature have 

 been synthesized in the laboratory and put side by side with the 

 vegetable products. Basic nitrogenous substances of all degrees 

 of complexity are now known ; and obviously these cannot be 

 grouped under a common head. The physiological action, once a 

 feature strongly emphasized, can now scarcely be used as a dis- 

 tinguishing character. It will be seen, accordingly, that a rigid 

 definition of an alkaloid cannot be formulated. The author uses 

 the term to refer to " a relatively complex basic substance, occur- 

 ring naturally, and possessing some physiological action." Under 

 this definition the compounds are reviewed in chapters on : the 

 pyrrole group, the pyridine group, diheterocyclic nuclei, the 

 quinoline group, the isoquinoline group, the glyoxaline group, 

 the purine group, and other less well-defined groups. The treat- 

 ment is both historical and descriptive ; and one learns that the 

 literature on the subject has become little short of bewildering 

 without the aid of a guide like this reference work which has few 

 competitors at present. l. b. m. 



5. Household Bacteriology for students in domestic science / 

 by Estelle D. Buchanan and Robert E. Buchanan. Pp. 

 xvi + 536. New York, 1913 (The Macmillan Co.).— Until very 

 recently bacteriology has been presented almost solely as a sci- 

 ence having its chief applications in medicine and surgery. This 

 attitude is now rapidly changing ; and the relations of bacteriol- 

 ogy to other problems of everyday life are better appreciated. 

 The present volume is one of the pioneer attempts to emphasize 

 the place of bacteriology in the study of domestic science. Mor- 

 phology and classification, methods of cultivation of microorgan- 

 isms, etc. form the introduction, as it were, to a consideration of 

 their role in fermentations of various sorts, as well as their rela- 



