ination of the structural features and glacial deposits of the Danbury region, has demonstrated that "the lower Housatonic has always maintained its course diagonal to the strike of formations and that differential erosion which reaches its maximum expression in limestone areas is responsible for the impression that the Still River lowland and other valleys west of the Housatonic may once have been occupied by the later stream". -a conclusion opposed to the views of Hobbs (Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., vol. 13, pp. 17-26, 1901) and of Crosby (Tech. Quart., vol. 13, p. 120, 1900). The paper by Dr. Harvey has much more than local interest for the physiographic history of the region which includes the Housatonic, the Croton, and the Saugatuck drainage systems involves the interpretation of the topographic features of southern New England. Bulletin 31. A Check-List of Connecticut Insects; by W. E. BRITTON. 397 pp., 1920. The collections of Connecticut insects at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station are the most important in existence. Dr. W. E. Britton has listed these collections in systematic order, following a plan which will make this bulletin an indispensable handbook for professional entomologists and for amateurs interested in the insect life of their home region. The list includes 6,781 species and varieties grouped in 2,946 genera and 333 families. H. E. G. 4. The Erosional History of the Driftless Area; by ARTHUR C. TROWBRIDGE. University of Iowa, Studies in Natural History, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 127, figs. 35, 1921.-The contribution of Professor Trowbridge to the knowledge of the unglaciated "island" surrounded by glacial drift and lying at the junction of the States of Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota is interesting in method and conclusions. Part I is an analytical discussion of the principles of multiple erosion cycles in which the value of "sets of evidences" is emphasized. "The total number of distinguishable cycles is the number of sets of evidences plus one.' In Part II, the author applies his principles in writing the physiographic history of the "driftless area" as a whole after detailed study of its parts. The events are: formation at the close of the Paleozoic era of an anticline, the south limb of which was a monoclinorium; making of the Dodgeville plain or peneplain in late Tertiary time; followed by an uplift of about 180 feet; making of the Lancaster peneplain in pre-Kansan Pleistocene; uplift of 600 feet inaugurating a third cycle of erosion which with various episodes continues to the present. 5. Geological Survey of Western Australia; A. GIBB MAITLAND, Government Geologist.-The Annual Progress Report of the Western Australia Geological Survey for 1919 (48 pp., 1 map) is chiefly a record of reconnaisance in areas from which minerals of economic value have been reported. Summary reports are given for the goldfields on Coolgardie, Yalgoo, Yilgarn, Mont Margaret, Murchison, including the newly discovered lodes at Wallangie, and on the valuable deposits of residual clays at Bolgart and Clackline. Along the Ponton streamway, Mr. Talbot found bowlders which are believed to have been carried inland by icebergs after the manner of those in the Wilkensen Range (Bulletin 75). Publications for the year include: Bulletin 77. Sources of Industrial Potash in Western Australia: E. S. SIMPSON, I. H. BOAS, and T. BLATCHFORD. Bulletin 82. The Magnesite Deposits of Bulong: F. R. FELDTMANN. Memoir No. 1. The Western Australian Mining Handbook, which is being issued in sections as they are received from the Printing Office. Twenty-one chapters, chiefly description of mineral deposits, have been received. Papers on petrology, prospecting and similar topics are also included in these separate chapters. H. E. G. 6. Tenth Annual Report of the Director of the Bureau of Mines, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1920; FREDERICK G. COTTRELL, Director. Pp. 149 with 3 plates and 2 text figures.The most important accomplishment of the year has been the completion and dedication of the station and central laboratories of the Bureau at Pittsburgh. This gives it an adequate establishment and headquarters for field and investigative work. The special work carried through is connected with the transition from war to peace conditions. The study of accidents and rescue in mines with the health of the miners is one to which the Bureau has always devoted much attention. During the year, 10,177 miners were trained in first aid and rescue work and assistance was rendered in 27 mine accidents. The activities of the Bureau are so varied and comprehensive that it is only possible to briefly allude to them in the present place. It is a matter of regret that Dr. Cottrell has been compelled to withdraw as director to take up his duties as chairman of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Technology of the National Research Council. Dr. Cottrell recommends as his successor H. Foster Bain of California, who during the war served as assistant director. III. MISCELLANEOUS SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 1. The System of Animate Nature; by J. ARTHUR THOMSON. Two vols.; vol. 1, The Realm of Organisms as it is, pp. xi, 347; vol. 2, The Evolution of the Realm of Organisms, pp. v, 353-687. New York, 1920 (Henry Holt & Co.).-These volumes comprise the Gifford lectures, twenty in number, delivered in the University of St. Andrews in 1915 and 1916. In them the reader will find a broad and sympathetic survey of the entire field of biology, leading from the unfathomed universe to the psychical, ethical, and spiritual nature of man. Every one of the outstanding generalizations in modern biology is examined in a critical but kindly spirit and brought into harmony with the rest of the system of animate nature. The author shows how some of the most divergent and apparently irreconcilable theories of vital processes, which have so often led to bitter controversies, may be harmonized without injustice to either side. This attitude is well illustrated in the discussion of the age-long controversy as to whether the living world is ruled by mechanistic or vitalistic forces, for the author's conclusion (p. 133) is that "Our study has led us away from the view that there is only one science of nature, consisting of precise chemico-physical descriptions which have been, or are in process of being, summed up in mechanical or mathematical terms. As it seems to us, there is greater utility and accuracy in frankly recognising successive orders of facts, each with its dominant categories. There is the domain of the inorganic, the physico-chemical order, where mechanism perhaps has it all its own way. There is the realm of organisms, the biological order, where mechanism is checkmated by organism. There is the kingdom of man, the social order, where mechanism is transcended and personality reigns." The first volume, of ten lectures, treats of the living world as it exists today, including the activities of the living substance, the behavior of animals, the problem of body and mind, the fact of beauty, aesthetic emotion, the issues of life, the tactics of animate nature, adaptiveness and purposiveness. In the second volume the evidence as to the origin and evolution of organisms is presented, with particular reference to man. Five of these lectures deal with variation, evolution, and heredity; the others with the evolution of mind and mind in evolution, phylogeny of man, disharmonies, parasitism, senescence, death, control of life, healing power of nature, the moral and aesthetic development in man and the religious interpretation of nature. This work will take a leading place among the few books which will give the general reader an intimate, yet sufficiently broad, view of the greatest problems of life and lead him toward a sympathetic understanding of his own relation to the universe. W. R. C. 2. Mechanismus und Physiologie der Geschlechtsbestimmung; VON RICHARD GOLDSCHMIDT. Pp. viii, 251, with 113 figures. Berlin, 1920 (Gebrüder Borntraeger).-The elucidation of the sex-determining mechanism forms one of the most important biological contributions of the present century. Since it has been shown that the differences which distinguish the sexes in man, animals, and plants are normally dependent upon a definite chromosomal complex in the fertilized egg, it is of importance to understand the means by which these sexual characteristics become stamped upon the body. The author presents experimental evidence to show that in some animals, at least, every fertilized egg possesses both of the alternative sex factors, the predominating activity of one producing the male sex and that of the other the female. These factors are of the nature of enzymes associated with the so-called sex chromosomes. Each of them, male and female determining, is necessary for a reaction the products of which are the internal secretions (hormones) of sexual differentiation. Goldschmidt's theory of this antagonistic hormone, or endocrine, action is, briefly, that if the potency of the male differentiating hormone exceeds that of the female activator by a certain amount the individual develops the sexual characteristics of the male, and vice versa. An approach to equality of hormone potency results in sterile, intersexual (hermaphroditic) individuals. He shows from experimental data that by mating animals selected for a particular sex potency any desired preponderance of either sex or of exclusively intersexual offspring can thus be obtained. The book contains an excellent summary of our present knowledge of the sex-determining mechanism and its action in the various groups of animals. W. R. C. 3. Biology, General and Medical; by JOSEPH MCFARLAND. Fourth edition, thoroughly revised; 473 pages, with 151 illustrations. Philadelphia and London, 1920 (W. B. Saunders Co.).— The wide usefulness of this college text-book, in which the general principles of both plant and animal biology are correlated with such more distinctly human applications as blood-relationship, infection, immunity, parasitism, inheritance, mutilation, regeneration, grafting and senescence, is shown by the fact that three complete editions have been exhausted in the ten years since the book first appeared. This, fourth, edition has received such. revision as was necessary to keep the work in line with recent discoveries. W. R. C. 4. An Introduction to the Study of Cytology; by L. DONCASTER. Pp. xiv, 230, with 24 plates and 31 text-figures. Cambridge, 1920 (University Press).-Inasmuch as all biological phenomena are dependent upon the activities of the individual cell, or cells, of which the various organisms are composed, the search for an explanation of any of these phenomena leads directly to the study of the cell. In the past few years the discoveries in this field have been so numerous and so important that the subject of Cytology is now recognized as a special science and as one of the most important branches of biology. The phenomena of heredity, of development, of sex determination, growth, metabolism, reproduction, disease and death can, in many cases, be associated with certain of the wonderful mechanisms of the cells. The determination of the sex of an individual, for example, appears to depend upon the presence or absence in the fertilized egg of a particular one of the many chromosomes. In fact, many of the hereditary characteristics in various groups of organisms have been shown to be the result of the actions of genes situated in more or less definitely localized portions of the individual chromosomes. Only from the study of such cell mechanisms do the observed facts of heredity become intelligible. The general structure and activities of each of the numerous organs of the cell are described in this book and the function of each of the cell mechanisms are explained as fully as is possible in a limited space and in the present state of our knowledge. In all cases the bearing of the cytological facts on problems of general biological interest is emphasized. The chapters on natural and artificial parthenogenesis, sex determination, germ-cell determinants, development and heredity show not only how these phenomena are associated with definite cell organs, but also how little is yet known of the many subtle problems involved. The evidence on which the author's conclusions are based is supported by excellent reproductions of the figures of the original investigators. W. R. C. 5. A Laboratory Manual of Invertebrate Zoology; by GILMAN A. DREW. Third edition, revised; pp. ix, 229. Philadelphia and London, 1920 (W. B. Saunders Co.). This well-seasoned work is the outcome of the experience in teaching large classes at the Marine Biological Laboratory for many years. It represents the combined efforts of a number of instructors, for the original manual has been modified from time to time and new topics added until the present edition contains carefully prepared and really usable directions for the laboratory study of nearly a hundred different animals, embracing all the invertebrate phyla. With so large a number of types for selection, the book can be adapted to the needs of both extensive and briefer courses in any part of the country simply by omitting those forms which are unavailable or thought to be less essential for study. W. R. C. 6. Considérations sur l'Etre Vivant: première partie, Résumé Préliminaire de la Constitution de l'Orthobionte; par CHARLES JANET. Pp. 80, with 1 plate. Beauvais, 1920 (A. Dumontier).— This is a brief summary of the hypotheses relating to the origin of life and the phylogenetic evolution of the primitive living substance into the various groups of plants on the one hand and into the metazoa on the other as indicated by their reproductive processes. The ingenious schematic diagrams make the author's conclusions easy of comprehension. W. R. C. 7. Collection les Maitres de la Pensée Scientifique; publiés par les soins de M. SOLOVINE. Paris, 1920 (Gauthier-Villars et Cie). -The object of these publications is to make available in inexpensive form (about 3 franes) the classic works on which the various sciences are founded. The list will include the most famous productions of all times and of all countries, those originally written in other languages to be faithfully translated into French. A brief biograhical notice accompanies each work. Two of the volumes already issued are reprints of Spallanzani's Observations et Expériences faites sur les Animalcules des Infusions from the Geneva edition of 1786. A third includes the Lavoisier's classic Memoires sur la respiration et la transpiration des Animaux (1777). W. R. C. 8. Practical Bacteriology, Blood Work and Animal Parasitology. Sixth Edition; by E. R. STITT. Pp. xi, 633. Philadelphia, 1920 (P. Blakiston's Son & Co.).-This is a manual for laboratory workers which has proved its usefulness in five pre |