SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
207 
passage quoted from liis work “How Crops Grow,” in Mr. A. W. Bennett’s 
aidicle on “ Spontaneous Movements in Plants,” in the number for Oct. 
1872, p. 372, the writer of that article has omitted to complete the quotation, 
which should have run thus : — “ It is in this way that we have a rational 
and adequate explanation of the selective power of the plant, as mamfestea 
in its deportment towards the medium that invests its roots.” To the words 
italicized, omitted in Mr. Bennett’s quotation. Prof. Johnson attaches con- 
siderable importance, remarking that “ the selective power of the plant as 
manifested towards the medium that invests its roots is one thing, and the 
selective powers of the tissues towards the substances dissolved in the cell-, 
juices is, in many cases, or may be, another j ” and wishes it to be understood 
that it is of the former and not the latter phenomenon that he has proposed 
what he considers an “ adequate and rational explanation.” The misrepre- 
sentation is, we are assured, quite unintentional, the immediately succeeding 
sentence in the book, “ the same principles govern the transfer of matters 
from cell to cell, or from organ to organ within the plant,” appearing to 
, Mr. Bennett to remove the effect of the limitation conveyed in the words 
quoted above. There appears also to be some difference between the two 
writers in the use of the word “tissue,” the English writer using it in the 
ordinary sense of agglomeration of cells, the American apparently in some 
slightly different sense. Prof. Johnson also points out that in “ How Crops 
Grow ” he has adduced evidence which appears to show conclusively that 
silica is unessential to the growth and perfect development not only of 
leguminous plants, but of all its various cereals. 
Sachs's Lehrhuch der Botanik. — We are glad to hear that an English trans- 
lation of this most important work is about to be published by the Claren- 
don Press, Oxford. The translation will be made from the third edition, 
just published at Leipzig, and greatly enlarged, as compared with previous 
editions, by Mr. A. W. Bennett, assisted by Prof. Thiselton Dyer ; and the 
I translators will also annotate the work on those points where the German 
author does not appear to have taken fully into account the most recent re- 
searches of French or English workers. All the beautiful woodcuts illus- 
I trating the original work will be reproduced in the English translation. 
The “ Lehrhuch ” was among the works recently recommended by the 
Board of Studies of the Natural Science School at Oxford. 
CHEMISTBY. 
The Chemistry of Safranine. — Dr. Hofmann and Herr A. Geyger have 
recently presented a paper to the Boyal Society (“P. K. S.” No. 140), 
in which they have given us nearly the entire chemical history of this im- 
■ portant body. With regard to the substance itself, apart from its salts, they 
j say that it occurs in commerce either as a solid body or en pate. In the 
solid state it forms a yellowish-red powder, in which, together with con- 
siderable quantities of chalk and common salt, the chlorhydrate of a tine- 
