is occupied with he presents no bare outline, but fills up his picture with a wealth of interesting details. And his good-natured fun is continually peeping out from some comer. The first group of letters concern various undertakings between the twenty-first and twenty-eighth years of his life, and are mostly addressed to his father and mother and to Dr. John Torrey. In them he speaks frankly of his plans and aspirations, saying in one place, "I am determined to persevere for a little while yet before I give up all hopes from science as a pursuit for life." His journeys by stage-coach and steamboat to various places in the State of New York and one to Detroit are graphically described. His account of his first journey in Europe, given in letters home which took the form of a journal, is also very graphic. We find in the early pages of this chapter enthusiastic references to twenty days of study among Sir William Hooker's botanical collections, closely followed by a description of Edinburgh and references to lectures by the famous men in its university. Here he does not neglect to note that Dr. Hope, who lectured on chemistry, "did not wear his gown or ruffles at the wrist," also that the class in anatomy "behaved shockingly, even for medical students." In London, through his letters of introduction and the good offices of Hooker and his son "Joe," who were there at the same time. Gray made many pleasant and useful acquaintances. Busy days those spent in the "modern Babylon" must have been, for a bewildering number of persons and places were visited. Proceeding to France, Dr. Gray made the acquaintance of Jussieu, Decaisne, Seringe, Delile, and other botanists. He then crossed Italy and visited parts of Austria, turned back through Switzerland and Germany, and finally sailed from Hamburg for London. His journal describes his meeting with the celebrated botanists of all the places visited, and contains the traveler's impressions of the usual "sights," besides notes of miscellaneous incidents of travel. The year in Europe is followed by a decade of work at home, in the early part of which Dr. Gray was appointed to the Fisher professorship in Harvard College, which he retained for the rest of his life. The letters of this period speak of work on Torrey and Gray's Flora of North America, the arrangements for the new labors at Harvard, and work on various publications. One of his first discoveries in Cambridge was that "there's nothing like Down East for learned women," and he gives instances. A second trip to Europe was made in 1850-'51; old friendships were revived and new ones made. One of the new friends was Charles Darwin, and a large part of the letters in the next division of this collection were addressed to him. The letters in the remaining divisions tell of new publications and revisions of old ones, the examination of collections and single specimens from all quarters of the globe, further journeys to Europe and elsewhere, and miscellaneous matters. One of the most valuable features of these two volumes are the opinions and bits of information about prominent botanists that are scattered through them. Prof. Gray was not oblivious to affairs of moment outside the field of botany; thus his letters during the time of the civil war contain many vigorous comments upon passing events, and we are informed in a foot-note that he enlisted and drilled with a company raised for service in Massachusetts. He was then over fifty years of age. The playful turns of thought already referred to are frequent. Now the subject is the German feather-stuffed bedcovering, again it is the simian ancestry implied in Darwin's books, but nothing is more delightful than the burlesque botanical description of the piece of wedding cake that he sends to the Torreys. The two volumes contain three portraits of Dr. Gray, a picture of him in his study, and a view of the range of buildings in the Harvard Botanic Garden. A brief autobiography prefixed to the first volume gives an account of Gray's ancestry and his early years.
A Class in Geometry: Lessons in Observation and Experiment. By George Iles. New York and Chicago: E. L. Kellogg & Co. Pp. 46. Illustrated. Price, 25 cents.
"Can dry bones live?" is apt to be one's thought in taking up a book on lines, surfaces, and angles. That the dry bones of geometry can live Mr. lies proved to the readers of The Popular Science Monthly in November, 1890. He then told in part a story which here is told in full. Taking an
