REVIEWS. 
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REVIEWS. 
Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases. By Erwin F. Smith. Volume 1. 
Publication Number 27 of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 
September, 1905. 
The science of plant pathology is not old, and the knowledge of the 
relation of bacteria to the diseases of plants is the youngest part of this 
science. Less than ten years ago, the bacterial origin of disease in plants 
was very much doubted or denied outright. The view that bacteria' may 
enter the plant and be the active agent in the production of pathological 
conditions is now generally established and this is due in no small meas¬ 
ure to the careful and painstaking work of the foremost American student 
of phytopathological bacteriology, Dr. Erwin F. Smith. It is very fitting 
that Dr. Smith should undertake to write an elaborate treatise upon the 
matter with which he is so familiar and in which he has been so active, 
and the first volume of this work is to hand. This deals with the methods 
of operation in the study of bacterial disease in plants, and includes also 
a very exhaustive bibliography. It will be readily understood that there 
is a good deal of compilation, but this is of a critical and exhaustive kind 
which in this day of vastness of literature is of very great importance to 
other students in the same field. 
The second volume, which is to appear, will no doubt be descriptive of 
the diseases themselves, and this will naturally be the more interesting to 
the general botanist. There can be no doubt that this work of Dr. Smith’s 
will lay the foundations for thorough-going study of the subject of which 
he is so able a master. 
Botanical science is to be congratulated that through the unstinting 
editorship of the Carnegie Institution such a memoir as the above may 
be published in a worthy manner. Aside from the beautiful typography 
is to be noted that the paper used is of a very excellent quality which 
makes the printing of half-tones possible without the use of the usual 
clay-laden paper of the evanescent magazine. The zeal which has led to 
this end is much to be appreciated and commended. L. 
The New Knowledge. By Robert Kennedy Duncan. 8vo. Pp. xviii + 
263. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. 1905. $2.00 net. 
While this book is “ A popular account of the new physics and the new 
chemistry in their relation to the new theory of matter,” we review it here 
because we believe every teacher of botany, as of every other science, 
ought to be familiar with its contents. The boundary line between biol¬ 
ogy and chemistry grows fainter and fainter in the light of the more 
recent researches, and as a result of these investigations our conception, 
not only of non-living matter, but of matter in the living state as well, 
must be profoundly modified. 
The facts presented in this volume will soon be, if indeed they are not 
already, fundamental to any intelligent conception of plants and of all life 
processes. The statements of fact are clear and accurate, the style un- 
