REVIEWS. 31 



extract, syrup, and decoction, which should be administered with due 

 regularity, and discontinued by degrees. Taken warm, sarsaparilla is 

 decidedly sudorific ; but for this purpose it is unfrequently employed. 



The appearance of the radix sarsse of commerce is familiar to all. It 

 is in round bundles of uniform size, and is exhibited in numbers of 

 druggists' shop windows. After the root is collected, and when it is 

 somewhat dried for the convenience of stowage and carriage — an item 

 hated by the trader — it is necessary to have uniformity of parcels. The 

 parcels or packages of sarsaparilla are formed by laying the roots side by 

 side, and doubling in the ends of the longer ones. A bundle of the 

 proper size for stowage contains an arroba of twenty-five pounds, but the 

 weight varies with the wet or dry state of the root. Each bundle is tied 

 round with a " sipo," or creeping plant. * — ' Chemist and Druggist.' 



SU&ietos. 



A Manual of Botany, including the Structure, Functions, Classifi- 

 cation, Properties, and Uses of Plants. By Robert Bentley, 

 F.L.S., M.R.C.S.E., &c. Illustrated by nearly 1,200 Woodcuts. London : 

 Churchill. 



Before the reader has proceeded many pages in this work, he becomes 

 cognisant, from internal evidence of the fact, that he is in communication 

 with an author who is also a thoroughly practical teacher. Too many 

 writers of elementary scientific works seem to forget that they are not 

 addressing individuals of equal attainments to themselves, and whilst 

 professing to initiate their readers into the mysteries of the subject they are 

 treating of, make no effort to smooth the way by intelligible or systematic 

 explanations. From this fault Professor Bentley is at least free : he never 

 seems to forget that, besides the enunciation of facts, he is moreover 

 striving to teach, and that to succeed he must avail himself of a long 

 experience to systematise his teachings so as to make them attain that end. 

 In his preface, he declares one of his prominent motives to be " to furnish 

 the pupils attending his lectures with a class-book, in which the subjects 

 treated of should be arranged, as far as possible, in the same order as is 

 followed by him in the lectures themselves. It may be noticed that this 

 order differs in several respects from that commonly followed, but long 

 experience as a teacher has convinced him that it is the most desirable one 

 to be followed by the student." 



Half the book now before us is devoted to Organography, and the 



* It is stated that this sipo is a root of the sarsaparilla, with the bark scraped 

 off; in which statement we quite concur, as the root of sarsaparilla is very flexible 

 and tough when this operation is performed. 



