77? THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vor. XXXIV. 
is unwarranted by the facts cited or actual sections shown. Illus- 
tration of the descriptive geology would be improved with more 
diagrammatic figures in the text. There is a prejudice among sci- 
entists against text-figures in monographs ; it seems to the writer 
that brevity and precision are the first requirements of a modern 
scientific work, and sometimes a text-figure will save referring to a 
remote plate, or reading a page of otherwise obscure statement. 
EAT I 
Maryland Weather Service.!— If the plans of the Maryland 
Weather Service and Geological Survey are carried out to a finish, 
that state will in a few years have the most complete record of natural 
resources ever made for a single area. The Weather Service pro- 
poses to investigate land forms, weather, water, climate, soil, forestry, 
crops, fauna, and flora; the Geological Survey is studying earth 
physics, rocks, and minerals. Both organizations are under the effi- 
cient management of Professor William Bullock Clark, supported by 
state funds and by a corps of scientific assistants picked from Johns 
Hopkins University. 
The first volume of the Maryland Weather Service is issued in the 
same size and style as the Geological Survey, with lavish illustration 
in the form of maps, charts, half-tones, heliotypes, and colored plates. 
The colored cloud pictures of the Hydrographic Office are reproduced. 
In the introduction Professor Clark states the plan and organization 
of the service. Cleveland Abbe, Jr., has a chapter on the physiog- 
raphy of the state. Meteorology is treated by Cleveland Abbe, of 
the U. S. Weather Bureau, F. J. Walz, and O. L. Fassig. The same 
thorough reconnoissance of the field is shown in this volume as 
in the early volumes of the Geological Survey. Professor Abbe's 
chapter on Aims and Methods of Meteorological Work is a complete 
statement of modern methods of studying the weather, with illustra- 
tions of all the instruments used. Other chapters are historical, 
statistical, and bibliographical. T. A. J., JR 
Experimental Geology.* — The course of public lectures given by 
M. Stanislas Meunier in the Natural History Museum of the J ardin 
des Plantes in 1898 has been published in a small volume in popular 
form. The work is divided into two parts; the first deals with 
experimental imitation of surface processes in geology, denudation, 
1 Maryland Weather Service, vol.i. Johns Hopkins Press, 1899. 
? Meunier, Stanislas. La géologie expérimentale. Paris, 1899. 
