No. 396.] REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 981 
papers was very high. The presidential address, by Sir George 
King, was an able review of the history of Indian botany, and an 
added interest was given by the presence of Sir Joseph Hooker, 
who proposed the vote of thanks for the section. 
The masterly address of the president of the chemical section, 
Dr. Horace J. Brown, on the assimilation of carbon by the higher 
plants, was quite as much botanical as chemical in nature, and was 
a real contribution to this important subject. 
The following were some of the papers presented: Professor 
Marshall-Ward, “Methods in the Culture of Alge”; Sir W. T. 
Thistleton-Dyer, “The Influence of the Temperature of Liquid 
Hydrogen on the Germinating Power of Seeds”; Professor Harold 
Wager, “Lecture on the Sexuality of Fungi”; Professor F. Darwin, 
‘“ On the Localization of the Irritability of Geotropic Organs”; Pro- 
fessor D. H. Campbell, “Studies on Araceæ”; Mr. J. C. Willis, 
“The Morphology and Life-history of Ceylonese Podostemonacez ” 
Professor F. O. Bower, “ Remarks on Fern-sporangia and Spores”; 
Professor A. C. Seward, “ The Jurassic Flora of Britain” ; Professor 
E. G. Bertrand, “Sur le structure d’une sigillaire cannelée” ; Mr. 
L. A. Boodle, “The Stem-structure in Sena: Ciuchaniates, 
and Hymenophyllacez.” 
Perhaps the most sensational paper presented before the botanical 
section at Dover was the one by Sir William Thistleton-Dyer, on the 
power of seeds to resist extremely low temperatures. Carefully 
selected seeds of several kinds were exposed to the temperature 
of liquid hydrogen; in one set of experiments they were actually 
placed in liquid hydrogen for six hours! In spite of the extraor- 
dinary ordeal to which they had been subjected, the seeds subse- 
quently germinated almost without exception. 
A New Book on Ecology. — Modern text-books are conceived in 
so many spirits and shaped in so many forms that little except the 
personal bias of the individual teacher would seem necessary to 
influence a selection. Some are purely didactic categories of fact, 
some, mechanical guides for laboratory manipulation, and some are 
readable essays paving the way for pleasant and profitable hours in 
the laboratory and the field. Professor Coulter has written one of 
the happiest books of the latter class, in his Plant Relations,’ which 
is intended to serve as the eye-opener for a half-year’s course in 
1 Coulter, J. M. Plant Relations. A first book of botany. New York, 
D. Appleton & Co. x, 264 pp., 2 
