THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



39 



issued monthly at Calcium, New York, which is designed to 

 throw a strong light on the subject. 



After fourteen years' work as the editor of the Nature and 

 Science Department of St. Nicholas, Dr. Edward F. Bigelow 

 has decided to combine his nature interests and will hereafter 

 conduct a similar department in his own publication, The Guide 

 to Nature. Dr. Bigelow is a live individual and may be de- 

 pended upon to do something out of the ordinary in all that he 

 attempts. The story of his founding a school of nature study 

 at Sound Beach, Conn., is well known and we are glad to note 

 these further activities in promoting a study of nature. 



Percy E. Rowell, whose ''Introduction to General Science" 

 has had a second printing, has planned a series of four more 

 elementary texts on the same general subject, the first of which, 

 entitled ''Science for the Fifth Grade" has recently appeared. 

 In this book, nearly 100 topics, taken mostly from physics and 

 chemistry, are discussed and experiments to illustrate them out- 

 lined. The reviewer questions whether fifth grade students 

 can apprehend much of the work outlined. An intelligent 

 teacher, however, should be able to select many that might be 

 used, though in view of the number of other studies now being 

 loaded on these small students one sometimes wonders how 

 time is to be secured for the essentials. The book is published 

 by the author at Berkeley, Calif., at 60 cents. 



To one whO' would thoroughly understand the life pro- 

 cesses of plants a knowledge of chemistry is indispensible. A 

 plant is not the inert object it often appears to be; in fact, 

 probably a greater number of chemical reactions go on in plants 

 than in the bodies of animals. Unfortunately the kind of 

 chemistry offered in the average school is not calculated to 

 enable students to investigate the problems of biological chem- 

 istry, and to supply this lack, Paul Haas and T. G. Hill have 

 ' brought out an "Introduction to the Chemistry of Plant 

 Products." It may be said at the outset that the book some- 



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