any, of the characteristic plants found in the lower strata of the Potomac of Virginia, while angiosperms overwhelmingly predominate in each. Until the Japanese beds show angiosperms they cannot be considered as young as the uppermost portion of the lower Potomac, which, in the Brooke locality, Virginia, and at Baltimore, Maryland, show many angiosperms.

Prof. Yokoyoma has followed Prof. Nathorst in changing from Dioonites to Zamiophyllum, the name of a cycad that, so far, is confined to the lower Cretaceous. This is the species known as Dioonites Buchianus. This change does not seem to be called for. The reason assigned by Prof. Nathorst does not seem weighty enough to remove a name so well fixed as this, and, if a change be made, the name Zamiophyllum seems open to more objections than Dioonites. The leaflets of Zamia are articulated at their junction with the rachis and deciduous, characters which are decidedly not found in Dioonites Buchianus. These features seem to be of more importance than the obliquity of the leaflets and their narrowing towards the base, which characters in Dioonites Buchianus Professor Nathorst presents as objections to regarding this plant as a Dioonites. Wм. M. FONTAINE.

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

Repetitorium der Chemie. By DR. CARL ARNOLD. Sixth Revised and Enlarged Edition. Hamburg and Leipzig, Leopold Voss. 1894. 8°. Pp. x+613. Paper. Price, 6 marks.

This book has been written for medical students and is intended to be used by them as a convenient reference book in connection with lectures upon inorganic and organic chemistry and in preparing for examinations. That there is a demand for such a book is shown by the fact that since it first appeared, in 1884, six editions have been called for.

The work is divided into three sections. In the first one of fifty pages the general principles of the science are considered. Such topics as the laws of stoichiometry, the atomic and molecular theory, the determination of molecular and atomic weights, theory of valence, constitutional formulas and the periodic classification of the elements are here discussed. The treatment of these subjects is necessarily very brief and is not intended to be exhaustive. As far as it goes, however, it is clear and concise, and, on the whole, the views of the author represent fairly well the present position of the science. To a few statements, such as those on pages 6 and 31 that heat, light, electricity and chemical affinity are known to be different forms of motion (bekanntlich nur verschiedene Bewegungsformen darstellen), one is inclined to take exception.

The second section of 216 pages deals with descriptive inorganic chemistry. The elements are arranged under two heads, first the non-metals, then the metals. The more important facts as to the occurrence, preparation and properties of each element and its chief compounds are here systematically and concisely presented. Newly discovered facts in this field of chemistry have not been overlooked. Thus, for example, we find here described the preparation of azoimide, H N3, from inorganic substances; the electrolytic preparation of aluminium and magnesium; the statement that red phosphorus is crystalline, etc.

as in the earlier ones, the author has endeavored to keep abreast of the times, and we find mentioned here the results of recent synthetical experiments, such as those upon the sugars; and many new substances that in recent years have become prominent because of their medicinal properties have been introduced. While the book is not intended to be a text-book in the ordinary sense, nor to serve as an introduction to the science, it can, nevertheless, be strongly recommended to all students of chemistry, who, in connection with their lecture and laboratory courses, desire to have a convenient and compact reference book-a book containing all the more important facts of general and descriptive chemistry clearly stated and provided with an excellent index. EDWARD H. KEISER.

Field, Forest and Garden Botany. A simple introduction to the common plants of the United States east of the 100th Meridian, both wild and cultivated. By ASA GRAY. Revised and extended by L. H. BAILEY. American Book Co. 1895. 8vo. pp. 519. The first edition of this useful popular botany was issued in 1868 as a companion book to the author's 'Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States.' The present revision is planned to fill the same place as relates to the sixth edition of the 'Manual,' giving, as it does, concise descriptions of the more common native plants, and of the large number of species cultivated for use or ornament. The number of the latter category has greatly increased during the twenty-seven years which have elapsed since the first issue of the work, and as regards these the treatment is exceedingly complete. The selection of the common native species has been a matter of great difficulty, and in this the book will probably be found unsatisfactory. The more usual plants of the region north of Virginia and Tennessee are for the most part in

6

cluded, but the Southern native flora is almost wholly omitted, so that in this respect the title is misleading. As a guide to the cultivated species it will find its greatest value. It is our opinion, however, that if the scope of the work had been restricted to the domesticated flora, and the descriptions of these plants been more fully drawn out, it would have been more generally serviceable than by treating them with the native species.

The necessity which has been felt of making the book a companion to the 'Manual' has kept up the old and unfortunate arrangement of groups which we find in that work, although we are pleased to find that the Gymnosperms have been brought into their logical position.

N. L. B.

Description des ravageurs de la vigne. Insects et champignons parasites. HENRI JOLICOEUR. 4°. Riems et Paris. 1894. Pp. viii., 236, pl. 20.

This sumptuous volume with large pages and wide margins is one of the latest contributions to the rapidly increasing literature of disease of plants. The French have always taken the greatest interest in diseases of the vine, and quite naturally, because of the extent of the industry in their country. The author of the present volume is the general secretary of the Society of Viticulture and Horticulture of Reims, and while he brings to the subject a knowledge of what various French authors have to say upon the subjects discussed, from its pages there never could be gleaned the fact that the English speaking races had ever done any work upon the various diseases. This is, perhaps, a general fault of the French, since they are so imbued with admiration for their own country that other countries hold a very subordinate place.

The work under notice is divided into two parts, one treating of parasitic ani

mals, the other of parasitic plants. The 'animals' treated of are mainly insects, and the various orders taken up are Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Hemiptera and Arachnida. Under each of these heads the species belonging to the orders are discussed, and facts are given regarding their life history, geographical distribution, natural enemies, influence of external conditions on development, means of destruction and bibliography. The cryptogamic enemies of the vine form the subject of the second part, and we have here discussions of Oidium, mildew, anthracnose, pourridie (caused by Agaricus melleus), Vibrissea hypogea, melanose, black rot and one or two others. There are no especially new facts given in the volume as far as observed. The plates are beautifully drawn and colored and have the merit of being mainly new, only a very few figures having been copied from other authors.

J. F. JAMES.

Icones fungorum ad usum Sylloges Saccardianæ Accommodate. A. N. BERLESE. Vol. 2, fasc. 1, pp. 28, pl. 45.

This, the first part of a new volume of this sumptuous work, has just been published. It sustains the high character of the first volume. In it Dr. Berlese discusses the species of Saccardo's section Dictyospora of the Sphaeriacea, giving diagnosis of the species of Pleomassaria, Karstenula and Pleospora. Only two new species are described, viz., Pleospora parvula on stems of Berberis vulgaris, and P. magnusiana on culms and leaves of Glyceria vahliana. The latter name is proposed for P. pentamera of Berlese's monograph, as the form is now considered distinct from Karsten's species of this name. Pleospora carpinicola Ell. & Ever. is transferred to the genus Karstenula; and P. hysteroides Ell. & Ever. is regarded as a sub-species of P. andropogonis Niessl. These are all the changes proposed,

which seems quite remarkable in these days. The illustrations are excellent, and while some species seem to be perilously near others, doubtless a carefully discriminating eye would be able to separate them. JOSEPH F. JAMES.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

NOTES AND NEWS.

GENERAL JOHN NEWTON, U. S. A., engineer, died on May 1, at the age of seventytwo years. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1876. DR. KARL LUDWIG, professor of physiology in the University of Leipzig, died on April 27, at the age of seventy-nine years.

THE Johns Hopkins University Circular for April contains the address made by President Low on the Nineteenth Commemoration Day, February 22. The address was entitled 'A City University,' and gives an admirable review of the scope of a great university and its relation to the city in which it is situated. After describing the different plans of the American, German, French and English university, Mr. Low continued: "The aim which the German university has set before itself and which it has very largely realized under the conditions natural to German life, is the aim, in my judgment, which the American university also should set before itself, and which it must realize under the conditions natural to American life. Because, after all has been said, the world is ruled by its thinkers, and civilization is carried forward by the patient investigators of natural laws; the lives of men are largely shaped by the teachings of experience as revealed by historic study; and the literature of men is enriched by every addition to our knowledge of the literature and language of the past. Nature's craftsmen in all these directions will produce results according to their gifts outside of a university if they get no opportunity within it. But the history

of Germany clearly shows that the opportunity to serve mankind along such lines is much enlarged if to train such men is the chosen aim of the university; in part, because, in that case, the university affords the material apparatus by the aid of which the natural thinker or investigator can best do his work, and, most of all, because, in a university so constituted, the atmosphere of the place and the spirit of the men who work there are friendly to such labors."

THROUGH the courtesy of the Assistant Secretary of the Royal Meteorological Society, we are informed that at the meeting of that Society on April 17th Messrs. A. C. Bayard and W. Marriott communicated a paper on 'The Frost of January and February, 1895, over the British Isles.'

It was stated that the cold period

which commenced on December 30th and terminated on March 5th was broken by a week's mild weather from January 14th to 21st, otherwise there would have been con

tinuous frost for 66 days. Temperatures

below 10° Farenheit, and in some cases be

low zero, were recorded in parts of England and Scotland between January 8th and

13th, while from the 26th to the 31st, and from February 5th to 20th, temperatures below 10° occurred on every day in some part of the British Isles. The coldest days were February 8th to the 10th. The lowest temperatures recorded were -17° at Braemar, and -11° degrees at Bucton and Drumlanrig. The mean temperature of the British Isles for January was about 7°, and for February from 11° to 14°, below the average, while the mean temperature for the period from January 26th to February 19th was from 14° to 20° below the average. The distribution of atmospheric pressure was almost entirely the reverse of the normal, the barometer being highest in the north and lowest in the south, the result being a continuance of strong, northerly and easterly winds. The effect of the cold on

the public health was great, especially on young children and old people. The number of deaths in London due to diseases of the respiratory organs rapidly increased from February 2d to March 2d, when the weekly number was 1448, or 945 above the average. From a comparison of previous records the authors are of opinion that the recent frost was more severe than any since 1814.

THE Popular Science Monthly for May prints an interesting account of the naturalist Conrad Gesner, by Professor W. K. Brooks. It is illustrated by twelve photo-engravings taken from the original wood cuts in his work, Historia Animalium, published in the latter half of the sixteenth century.

cival Lowell begins a series of articles on IN the Atlantic Monthly for May Mr. Perthe planet Mars. He concludes that we have proof positive that Mars has an atmosphere, that the air is thinner at least by half than that on the summits of the Hima

layas, that in constitution it does not differ greatly from our own, and that it is relatively heavily charged with water vapor.

Professor Holden, on the other hand, in the May number of the North American Review, concludes from the observations on the spectrum of Mars made by Professor Campbell, and printed recently in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, that there is no more evidence of aqueous vapor nor of an atmosphere in Mars than there is in the case of the Moon.

THE American Academy of Medicine met at Johns Hopkins University on May 4th and May 6th, under the Presidency of Dr. J. McF. Gaston.

MR. HENRY SEEBOHM will write the text for a new work on the eggs of British Birds, to be published by Pawson and Brailsford, of Sheffield, England. The work will contain colored illustrations of the eggs of 400 species.

PROFESSOR F. N. COLE, now of the University of Michigan, has been appointed Professor of Mathematics in Columbia Col

lege and Barnard College, filling one of the three new chairs recently endowed in Barnard College.

PROFESSOR FRANZ POSEPNY, known for his researches on mineral deposits, died on March 27th, at the age of fifty-nine years.

THE Association of Military Surgeons of the United States will meet at Buffalo, New York, on May 21st, 22d and 23d, under the Presidency of Dr. George M. Sternberg.

THE twenty-second National Conference of Charities and Correction will be held in New Haven during the week beginning May 24th.

Gov. MORTON has signed the bill incorporating the New York Zoological Society and providing for the establishment of a Zoological Garden in New York.

MR. ROBERT FITCH, antiquarian and geologist of Norwich, England, died recently at the age of 93 years.

THE death is announced of Lothar von Meyer, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Tübingen, at the age of 65.

THE presidential address delivered before the recent meeting of the American Society of Naturalists by Professor C. S. Minot on The Work of the Naturalist in the World is

sition of the Hudson River Palisades by the United States.

MR. M. S. READ, now of Cornell University, has been appointed Professor of Philosophy in Colgate University.

THE departments of Mining and Geology of Columbia College will hold their annual summer school in Colorado. The School in Practical Mining will be in Central City under the charge of Professor Peele, and the Geological School will meet at Golden under the charge of Professor Kemp.

DR. HANS THIERFELDER has been appointed Director of the Chemical Department of the Physiological Laboratory in Berlin.

THE Amherst Summer School of Library Economy, under the direction of Mr. William I. Fletcher, will be in session from July 1 to August 3.

THE April number of the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club contains a biographical notice of John H. Redfield by Mr. William M. Canby. There is an excellent portrait and a bibliography containing fifty-four titles.

THE presidential address on 'The United States Geological Survey,' given before the Geological Society of Washington, on December 18, 1894, by Mr. Charles D. Walcott, and published in the February number of the Popular Science Monthly, has been

THE tenth annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education was held at the Teachers' College, New York, on April 25, 26 and 27. The program included a large number of papers of scientific interest.

DR. KURT RUMKER has been called to a professorship of agriculture in the University of Breslau.

COMMISSIONERS are being appointed by Governor Morton with a view to the acqui

who are interested in the great work accomplished and in progress under the direction of the United States Geological Survey.

WITH the permission of the Prussian Minister of Education the University of Göttingen has conferred the degree of doctor of philosophy on Miss Grace Chisholm. This is a first degree conferred on a woman since Göttingen became a Prussian university.

PROFESSOR HALSTED writes to Garden and Forest that the late winter has been very