 _ 
May 16, 1884.] 
development. which the utility of the exchange 
system warrants. Partly to meet this want of 
a handy guide for his own students, Professor 
Penhallow, now of McGill college, Montreal, 
prepared a work under the somewhat mislead- 
ing title, ‘ Vegetable histology.’ ‘This little 
treatise deals only indirectly with histology. 
Its real design is to furnish a student, whether 
working alone or under guidance, with sug- 
gestions as to the use of the principal media 
in which to examine objects, the reagents for 
detecting the more common contents of cells 
and for recognizing the chief modifications 
which the cell-wall undergoes. In this it suc- 
ceeds. The directions are clear, and sufficient- 
ly full to satisfy any beginner. 
To meet the same demand among students in 
his own country, Poulsen of Denmark has pub- 
lished a handbook, which has been received with 
marked favor. The translations into German 
and French are widely known as useful labor- 
atory guides. The recent translation into 
English, by Professor Trelease, has been neat- 
ly and carefully done, and embodies various 
suggestions by the translator, most of which 
are improvements. ‘The work treats first of 
the reagents, their preparation, impurities, 
and employment. To this part is added a 
useful chapter on the media for mounting, and 
the safest cements. ‘The directions for using 
the newer staining-agents are not always so 
explicit as to leave no room for further ques- 
tions on the part of the student who is working 
by himself, but they are full enough to indicate 
the wide applicability of this group of chemi- 
cals. It is interesting to note how important 
a part staining-processes — which, within the 
memory of some of us, were wholly relegated 
to amateurs who desired to make pretty speci- 
mens for the sake of exhibiting their skill in 
manipulation — now play in the most recondite 
researches as to the behavior of the nucleus, 
and the growth of the cell-wall. It is cdoubt- 
ful whether these methods are not capable of 
much wider development. 
Part second of Poulsen’s book is devoted to 
the examination of vegetable substances. The 
SCIENCE, 
605 
author has included in his work upon this, 
some substances which might as well have 
been left out as some which do not find a 
place; but, as will be seen by a glance at the 
comprehensive treatises of Ebermeyer and of 
Husemann and Hilger, the task of selection is 
not an easy one. Professor Trelease has 
placed American teachers under obligations by 
the excellent translation which he has given 
them. 
With a much wider scope, but covering 
within its range the materials made use of 
both by Penhallow and by Poulsen, Behrens’s 
work upon the microscope and its use in 
laboratories of vegetable physiology, is a wel- 
come addition to botanical literature. It is 
rather fussy in some of its particularities, but 
even this extreme of minuteness will be useful 
to many people into whose hands it is likely to 
fall. The naive honesty of the author is well 
shown in some of the striking cuts: for in- 
stance, a couple of finished slides are deline- 
ated with cover-glass and cement and labels 
all in place; but the cement, instead of being 
laid on as evenly as an engraver would natu- 
rally depict it, has been represented with a 
charming and comforting irregularity which 
will be sure to be followed. In this work 
Behrens has given exhaustive details as to the 
selection and employment of all the appliances 
required in the histological laboratory, and 
has, for the most part, expressed his critical 
views with clearness and decision. ‘The ref- 
erences to the literature of the subject are 
very copious. It is to be earnestly hoped that 
the announcement is true that the book is 
soon to be translated into English by a com- 
petent person, who has evinced much enthusi- 
asm in microscopical matters. In such a 
translation it might be well to incorporate a 
part of the material which was intrusted to 
the more ephemeral microscopical journals, 
and which, useful at the time, is in danger of 
being lost. And such a translation would, 
doubtless, give less prominence to a few of the 
excerpts which Behrens himself has made from 
such journals. 
INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 
GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. 
U. §. geological survey, 
Work in West Virginia. — The wisdom of the 
general government in lending its aid to the develop- 
ment of the wealth and natural resources of the 
country is nowhere, perhaps, better illustrated than 
in the work being carried on by the survey in that 
portion of the Alleghany coal-field that lies between 
the Great Kanawha and Chattarawha (or Big Sandy) 
Rivers in West Virginia. Topographical work in this 
section has been in charge of Mr. W. A. Shumway. 
