152 The American Naturalist. [February, 
Zimmermann’s Botanical Microtechnique.’—In bringing 
out so promptly an English translation of this useful work, the Ger- 
man edition of which reached American workers a little more than a year 
ago, both translator and publisher have rendered a good service to the 
laboratory botany of the country. The original was so well received, 
and had proved itself to be so useful in the laboratory, that this neatly 
printed and bound volume must at once find wide and general use. 
The beginner will find here a work which he may follow implicitly 
without fearing that he will laboriously learn some method, only to 
find a little later that it is an antiquated or discarded one. 
In order to give those who have not seen the original an idea of the 
scope of the work we reproduce the contents of Part I. 
General Methods. 
1. The Observation of Living Plants and Tissues. 
2. The Investigation of Dead Plants. 
3. Maceration. 
4. Swelling. 
5. Clearing. 
A. Chemical Clearing Methods. 
B. Physical Clearing Methods. 
I. The Ordinary Method of Transfer from Water to Canada 
II. The Transfer from Water to Canada Balsam without Alco- 
ol. 
III. The use of other Strongly Refractive Mounting Media. , 
6. Live Staining. 
7. Fixing and Staining Methods. é 
A. Fixing. B. Removal of Fixing Fluids. C. Staining. 
D. Fixing and Staining Microscopically small Objects. 
8. Microtome Technique. 3 The 
I. Imbeddingin Paraffine. II. Imbedding in Celloidin. HMI. 
Attachments of Sections. 
9. Making Permanent Preparations. nead 
From the foregoing it will be seen that every point under the py 
of general laboratory methods is taken up, and an examination oh g7 
paragraphs shows the thoroughness of the work. The illustrati 
of which there are many, add much to the usefulness of the work. 
"Botanica Microtechnique. A handbook of methods, for the preparation, ye 
ing and microscopical investigation of vegetable structures by Dr. y Ziom 
Privat-Docent in the University of Tübingen. Translated from the ages 
James Ellis Humphrey, S. D. New York, Henry Holt and Company» 
XII, 296. 
