Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
November,  1900.  J 
Technical  Chemistry. 
545 
The  second  edition  of  Wiesner's  "  Die  Rohstoffe  des  Pflanzen- 
reichs"  has  been  begun  and  is  coming  out  in  parts.  The  book  is 
to  be  revised  by  Prof.  Julius  Wiesner,  with  the  assistance  of  a  num- 
ber of  botanists,  chemists  and  others. 
A.  Meyer  and  K.  Schumann  are  continuing  the  publication  of  the 
new  edition  of  Berg  and  Schmidt's  "Atlas  der  officinellen  Pflanzen.'r 
The  work  of  Engler  and  Prantl,  "  Die  naturlichen  Pflanzenfamilien,"' 
is  appearing  in  parts  as  heretofore. 
Several  works  have  been  published  by  American  authors : 
"  Morphology  and  Histology  of  Plants,"  by  H.  H.  Rusby  and  S.  E. 
Jelliffe;  "Microscopy  and  'Micro-Technique,"  by  A.  Schneider;  and 
the  second  edition  of  Sayres'  "  ManuaPof  Organic  Materia  Medica 
and  Pharmacognosy,"  which  contains  a  section  on  histology  and 
micro-technique,  by  Wm.  C.  Stevens. 
Several  pharmacognostical  works  have  also  appeared  abroad,  the 
most  important  being  another  Lieferung  of  Oesterle  and  Tschirch's 
"  Anatomischer  Atlas  der  Pharmakognosie  und  Nahrungsmittel- 
kunde."  L.  Braemer  and  A.  Sins  have  also  issued  an  "  Atlas  de 
Photomicrographie  des  Plantes  Medicinales."  A  work  upon  "  Die 
Mikroskopische  Analyse  der  Drogenpulver,"  by  Ludwig  Koch,  is 
also  appearing  in  parts. 
THE  YEAR'S  ADVANCE  IN  TECHNICAL  CHEMISTRY.1 
By  Albert  W.  Smith. 
The  year  just  passed  has  been  perhaps  the  most  important  of  the 
whole  century  in  the  advance  made  in  all  manufacturing  industries, 
especially  those  having  a  chemical  basis.  This  advance  has  been 
brought  about,  in  a  few  instances,  by  the  application  of  radically 
new  methods,  but  more  often  by  a  wonderful  enlargement  of  the 
scale  of  operations  of  well-tried  processes,  and  by  the  general  intro- 
duction of  automatic  mechanical  devices  and  labor-saving  machin- 
ery. Everywhere  the  striving  for  increased  tonnage  and  for  get- 
ting the  very  largest  possible  yield  out  of  each  piece  of  apparatus 
employed  has  been  more  intense  than  ever  before. 
Considering  first  the  industry  which  is  of  greatest  commercial  and 
economical  importance  in  the  United  States,  the  metallurgy  of  iron 
xAmer.  Chem.  Jour.,  1900,  p.  520. 
