1893.] Recent Literature. 811 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
Conquest of the Vegetable World.— This volume forms one 
or the series Etudes d' Histoire Générale. The author, M. Louis Bour- 
deau, treats the subject under twelve different heads, classifying plants 
according to the use made of them by man. The introduction gives a 
general theory of the increase of plants, both naturally and by cultiva- 
tion. Following this are successive chapters on plants used directly as 
food and those from which food is manufactured in the form of liquors, 
oils and sugars ; the fodder plants and those from which extracts are 
made, to be used medicinally, or as perfumery; plants useful for the 
arts and industries, and those which subserve merely ornamental pur- 
ses. The work concludes with a chapter on the creation and pres- 
ervation of artificial varieties of some types of plants. 
Report of the Minnesota Geological and Natural History 
Survey for the Year 1891.'—This quarto publication of 344 pages 
comprises reports on the crystalline rocks and the oxide of manganese, 
by Mr. N. H. Wilson ; the Mesabi iron range, by H. V. Winchell ; a 
record of field observations in four granite areas, with a catalogue of 
rock specimens, by Mr. U. S. Grant ; a sketch of the costal topography 
of the north side of Lake Superior, with special reference to the 
abandoned strands of Lake Warren, by Mr. A. C. Lawson; a com- 
posite paper on the Diatomaceae of Minnesota Inter-glacial peat ; and 
the usual lists of additions to the Museum and library. 
The iron-ore interests have developed so rapidly that the Survey has 
found it incumbent to pay close attention to the geographic distribu- 
tion of the rocks carrying this ore, and to the questions relating to 
their geology. Hence the more important papers in this report are the 
ones bearing upon those subjects. 
The Vertebrate Paleontology of the Llano Estacado.’— 
This report embraces the determination of the species, from the most 
available parts of the skeleton, of the vertebrata found by the party 
1 Conquête du Monde Vegetal. Par Louis Bourdeau, Paris, 1893. M. Felix 
Alcan, Editeur. 
?'The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota. The Twentieth 
Annual Report, for the year 1891, Minneapolis, 1893. : 
3 A Preliminary Report, by E. D. Cope. From the fourth Annual Report of the 
Geological Survey of Texas (1892); published July Ist, 1893. 
