Abstract
AN unfavourable impression of this little book is created at first sight by the obvious imitation, in the style in which it is got up, of Macmillan's series of “Science Primers.” Such a plagiarism may generally be taken as a confession on the part of author or publisher that the work has not sufficient merits of its own to stand without adventitious assistance. This, however, is not the case in the present instance; and our depreciatory criticisms are almost exhausted. We had, it is true, marked certain passages in the margin for correction; but they are but few. The most important is the resurrection of the old blunder (twice over) of the existence of “spongioles” at the extremities of the root-fibres; and this is the more remarkable as the work from which the illustrative woodcut is copied does not make this mistake. The statement in the preface, however, that the book “contains all the subjects required for the First B.Sc. Examination in the University of London,” must be taken cum grano. There is no index; and the deficiencies have therefore to be made out by careful inspection; but we find no description whatever of the process of fertilisation (although there is a diagram to represent the entrance of the pollen-tube into the embryo-sac), and no adequate one of that of respiration, this term being erroneously applied, as is so often the case, to the process of assimilation. But what can you expect for eightpence? You get, at all events, a great deal for your money; and the morphological and structural portion is on the whole so well done as to render the little book of great use to the beginner. Indeed we do not know any purely elementary work in which this part is more satisfactory. A few technical errors will doubtless be noticed and corrected in future editions. The illustrations, seventy-six in number, though not new. are very good and serviceable.
Elementary Science Manuals. Botany for Schools and Science Classes.
W. J.
Browne
By Lond. (Belfast: W. Mullan, 1875.)
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B., A. Elementary Science Manuals. Botany for Schools and Science Classes . Nature 13, 85 (1875). https://doi.org/10.1038/013085b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/013085b0