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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
evidence bearing upon all these points is given very fully by Prof. Dawkins, 
who also deals in a similar spirit with a host of correlative details, tending to 
show the conditions which must have surrounded our early ancestors, and 
influenced them in their progress towards civilization. Nor does he forget 
the influence exerted upon the population of Britain, and, indeed, of western 
and northern Europe generally, by the more advanced peoples of the 
Mediterranean region. Thus his book furnishes an admirable picture of the 
history of man in this part of the world, prior to the existence of written 
documents, so far as it can be made out from the occasional glimmerings of 
evidence which shine upon us through the twilight of the distant past. We may 
add, in conclusion, that this word-picture is copiously and well illustrated with 
pictures of another sort, which place before the student the actual repre- 
sentations of many of the more important objects to which the author has 
occasion to refer. 
A TEXT-BOOK OF BOTANY.* 
N UMEROUS as are the extant manuals and text-books of Botany, English 
students of that science certainly owe a considerable debt of gratitude 
to Dr. Vines for the production of a translation of Dr. Prantl’s text-book. 
The original work was built up on the same lines as the well-known 
treatise of Prof. Sachs, with the purpose of furnishing a smaller and less 
elaborate Manual of Botany than the Lehrhbuch , and one which, while it 
might suffice for all the requirements of many students, would, at the same 
time, serve as an introduction to the larger work. We are not acquainted 
with the German original, but, so far as we can judge, the translation has 
been very carefully made, and the treatment of the subject is so concise and 
simple that the book cannot but exercise a most beneficial influence on those 
who use it as a guide in their botanical studies. 
The author commences with a short chapter on the general morphology 
of plants, and then, in his two succeeding sections, treats of their minute 
anatomy and physiology. The special morphology of the various types 
of plants is relegated to the sections treating of classification, in which the 
structure and relations of the different parts of plants are described in some 
detail under the heads of the great divisions of the vegetable kingdom. 
This arrangement of the subject is very advantageous, and leads the student 
directly to a more philosophical conception of the subject than was generally 
attainable from the older manuals. 
The section on classification, enlarged as above indicated, occupies more 
than two-thirds of the volume. The classification adopted differs in some 
particulars from the ordinary one in use in this country, especially in the 
wider limits of the orders adopted, which are, consequently, reduced in num- 
ber, while some groups of plants are referred to somewhat different positions 
from those usually assigned to them by English writers. The translator has, 
* An Elementary Text-Book of Botany . — Translated from the German of 
Dr. K. Prantl, Professor of Botany in the Royal Academy of Forestry, 
Aschaffenburg, Bavaria. The Translation revised by S. H. Vines, M.A., 
D. Sc., F.L.S. 8vo. London : Sonnenschein & Allen, 1880. 
