1881.] Recent Literature. 129 
of our native bees, wasps, flies, beetles, butterflies and moths, bugs 
and grasshoppers and Neuroptera, an immense impetus would 
be given to the study of entomology As it is, we fear that the 
twentieth century will be far advanced before these desirable 
works will be published. 
RosInson’s FLora oF Essex county, MAssAcHusEtts.\—Essex 
county enjoys the distinction of being at an early date one of the 
botanical centers of the United States, as it was the home of Dr. 
Manasseh Cutler, Dr. George Osgood, Dr. Andrew Nichols, Dr. 
Charles Pickering and, more particularly, of William Oakes, to 
whose memory the genus Qakesza has recently been dedicated by 
Mr. Sereno Watson. The names also of Rev. John L. Russell 
and Mr. Geo. D. Phippen, Mr. S. B. Buttick,and of others, should 
be mentioned ; while Mr. C. M. Tracy, in his Flora of Lynn, 
was the first to publish a list of Essex county plants. These and 
other facts are related by our author in the historical introduc- 
tion to his Flora. It appears that originally almost the only ex- 
tended collection of dried Essex county plants were those of the 
late Mr. Oakes, but the list before us is based upon the herbarium 
recently collected by Mr. Robinson, and nearly all of which is re- 
presented in that of the Peabody Academy of Science, at Salem. 
‘he notes under the specific names are quite full and interesting 
as regards the flowering plants; the enumeration of mosses and 
thallophytes, in which the author was assisted by other botanists, 
is less complete. We would like to have seen a more detailed 
biblioyrapy, z. é., the titles given in full, with complete references 
to articles by the earlier botanists, of which the titles and dates 
are not always given; only the name, without the date, of the 
magazines or transactions containing them. But this is a minor 
blemish. The undertaking has been well carried out, the volume 
is a handsome one, and it will be a vade mecum to the herbalist of 
eastern New England. 
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE ON 
_ ANALYSES OF INKs.—A committee of the Franklin Institute was 
appointed by a vote of that body at its November meeting, for 
the purpose of examining into the truth of certain statements 
made and the value of certain tests proposed for the detection of 
ironininks. The object of the appointment was stated to be that 
during the interval of time which should elapse between now and 
the legal remedy of the expert abuse in court, an extra judicial 
court might criticise all statements professing to be scientific and 
the fear of reversal before their peers might be an additional se- 
curity for the value of expert statements. 
he committee resolves ‘that inasmuch as the methods for the 
“detection of iron in inks and for the identification of inks are 
“described in numerous and well-known works on. chemistry ; 
“and inasmuch as the chemical expert testimony in the Whittaker 
‘The Flora of Essex county, Massachusetts, JoHN Rosinson, Salem. Essex 
Institute, 1880. 8° pp. 200, 
