Plants and Animals of the DesertReview by: Forrest ShreveThe Scientific Monthly, Vol. 48, No. 6 (Jun., 1939), pp. 563-564Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/16689 .

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BOOKS ON SCIENCE FOR LAYMEN THIS EARTH OF OURS'

THIS book is almost all that its pub- lisher claims for it. It is well written for its particular audience and is un- usually well illustrated both by photo- graphs and diagrams which are equally expository. I can not think of a better traveling companion for the non-profes- sional man who has any interest at all in his environment and it even might in- trigue a non-interested person into a cumulating interest.

It discusses in easily understandable language the origin of the earth and its early history; how scientists compute its age; the various kinds of rocks of which it is composed; volcanoes, geysers and springs; the formation of mountains and other natural wonders; as well as such topics as the origin of life and the pano- rama of life that has passed across the stage during the earth's long history.

It is written, it seems to me, with more of a feel for the physical than for the organic side of geology, but the latter topics are good. as far as they go. There is one blemish, which is that it appears to have been written for a particular kind of layman, namely, the Catholic layman. While I do not take exception to any specific statement, I certainly am not in the least interested in the official position of the Catholic Church with re- spect to any biological or geological hypothesis, and think such statements have no place in a book with the avowed purpose of this book.

One need not consider publishers' blurbs too seriously, but when we are told the author's "whole life's work has been dedicated to geology" one expects a reasonable maturity, at least some loss of hair or wrinkled brow or whiskers,

1 This Earth of Ours. By Victor T. Allen. Illustrated. xvii +364 pp. $3.50. Bruce Pub- lishing Company.

and it is somewhat disconcerting to find that the author is in his early forties.

EDWARD W. BERRY THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

PLANTS AND ANIMALS OF THE DESERT'

POPULAR interest in natural features of the desert has grown rapidly as the southwestern states have become more and more accessible to motor travel. Agencies for guidance of the interest have been few. In an ample book entiled "Deserts" Gayle Pickwell has supplied an attractive guide to desert plant and animal life, popular in style and reliable in its facts. The essential geographical and biological features of deserts are briefly described and attention is drawn to the small desert-like areas which oc- cur far outside the continental deserts. Much more could have been said about the physical conditions, and the author's previous book "Weather" is an assur- ance that he could have added a long and interesting chapter on the climatic features of desert.

The treatment of desert life is based almost entirely on the Colorado and Mojave Deserts of California. South- western Arizona is designated as a part of the Sonoran Desert. There are very few respects in which the areas on the two sides of the Colorado River differ, and the Colorado Desert is essentially a subdivision of the Sonoran Desert.

A few paragraphs are devoted to each of the outstanding plants and animals. The examples are well selected and the comment on them will; answer just the questions that the inquiring mind is apt to raise. Many ardent devotees of the desert will find the discussions far too

IDeserts. By Gayle Pickwell. xvi+174 pp. Octavo. $3.50. Whittlesey House, McGraw- Hill Book Company.

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564 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

brief. The sumptuous illustrations are the commanding feature of the book and do as much as the text to describe land forms, animals and plants. The pictures of the reptiles are particularly fine. Those of the scorpion and centipede have been enlarged almost to the scale of the popular dread of them. Some of the plants have been enlarged more than is necessary for the best effect.

It is obvious that Professor Pickwell is a keen and patient observer. He knows the desert well, and betrays his admira- tion for the markings of the rattlesnake, the flowers of the desert lily and the rip- ples on the dunes. His statements of fact are authentic, without the exagger- ation so common in popular books on natural history, and give the reader the impression that he knows a great deal more than he is telling-as an author should. The ocotillo (Fouquieria) is not the only member of its family, although it is the only one in the United States. Ocotillo does not mean "little pine" but "little torch," although the torch pine of Mexico is commonly called "ocote.y" There are few such mistakes. The book is a fine example of the better sort of natural history, and helps to mark the advance that a more exacting audience now demands.

FORREST SHREVE

THE STORY OF A CENTURY' THIS encyclopedic work is the second

volume of the author's History of Sci- ence, the first volume having covered under a similar title the sixteenth and seventeenith centuries. If the author car- ries out his evident intention to continue his work with a corresponding history of the nineteenth century, it will be inter-

1 A History of Science, Technology and Phi- losophy in the Eighteenth Centuiry. By A. Wolf, Professor and Senator, University of London, and Head of the Department of His- tory and Philosophy of Science. 345 Illustra- tions. 814 pp. $8.00. The Macmillan Com- pany.

esting to find how many volumes will be required.

Before undertaking such a monumen- tal work as the history of the science of the eighteenth century, an author must adopt some systematic approach to the task, for otherwise the reader would be- come lost in the endless details of, and interrelations among, scientific and tech- nological advances. For fairly obvious reasons, Professor Wolf has not followed the chronological order of events. In- stead, he discusses the different phases of his subject in the order of "diminishing generality (or abstraction), beginning with mathematics and ending with the biological sciences." Without contend- ing that he has not chosen wisely, it may be noted that psychologists often point out that we normally proceed from the particular to the general and from the concrete to the abstract. If an au- thor should discuss astronomy, "in the order of diminishing generality," he would start with a mathematical theory of the universe and end with descriptions of the planets and methods of observing them. To present the history of science during the eighteenth century is a for- midable task. The science of this cen- tury had its roots in earlier periods; it developed with unparalleled diversity and speed; and it is to be interpreted in the light of nearly a century and a half of later developments.

In conformity with his general plan of beginning with the most general and abstract subjects, Professor Wolf treats in order mathematics, mechanics, astron- omy, astronomical instruments, marine instruments, light, sound, heat, elec- tricity, etc., through a total of thirty- two chapters, the last two of which are on philosophy. It will be at once evi- dent that the arrangement is not with- out difficulties, for many men contrib- uted to several of the fields into which Professor Wolf divided the history of science. For example, Gauss made last-

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