Mr. _Seward_ excuses himself in rather an apologetic way for undertaking to write a book on _Fossil Plants_[14] for the Cambridge Natural Science Manuals--a task which Professor Williamson, a founder of modern palæobotany, had considered too serious; but students of botany and geology have cause to thank him for having consented to attempt the writing of a book intended to render more accessible some of the important facts of the science, and to suggest lines of investigation in it. The botanist and geologist, not being always acquainted with each other's subjects in a sufficient degree to appreciate the significance of palæobotany in its several points of contact with geology and recent botany, the subject does not readily lend itself to adequate treatment in a work intended for students of both classes, and the author has accordingly tried to shape his treatment with this point in view, and so as to adapt it to both non-geological and non-botanical students. As a possible aid to those undertaking research in this field he has given more references than usually seem appropriate in an introductory treatise--often to specimens of coal-measure plants in the Williamson cabinet of microscopic sections, now in the British Museum--and has dealt with certain questions in greater detail than an elementary treatment of the subject requires. His plan has been to treat certain selected types with some detail, and to refer briefly to such others as should be studied by any one desiring to pursue the subject more thoroughly, rather than to cover a wide range or to attempt to make the list of types complete. The book opens with a sketch of the history of palæobotany, which is followed by a discussion of the relation of palæobotany to botany and geology. A succinct review of geological history is then given, in which the several principal formations are briefly described. The theory of the process of the preservation of plants as fossils is explained, the difficulties and sources of error in the determination of fossil plants are pointed out, and the rules for nomenclature and of priority in it are explained. The systematic part follows these introductory chapters, giving as full descriptions as the condition of the fossils admit, with illustrations--one hundred and eleven in all--of those belonging to the orders _Thallophyta_, _Bryophyta_, and _Pterodophyta_, carrying the subject as far as the _Sphenophyllales_. Technical as the subject necessarily is, the treatment is clear and, where the matter admits, fluent, so that no student need complain of difficulties in that line. FOOTNOTES: [13] The Historical Development of Modern Europe from the Congress of Vienna to the Present Time. By Charles M. Andrews. Vol. II, 1850-1897. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 467. Price, $2.50.