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IT has long been a cherished ideal of the Texas Academy of Science to give to the public and to scientists a series of treatises on the natural history of the state: the animals, the plants, the rocks, minerals, soils, geography and climate. The preparation of such a series of treatises, involving long periods of research and the use of substantial sums of money, must necessarily extend over many years. Several valuable scientific articles of more than casual interest have been published by the Academy in the ten years of its revived life since 1929.

In order to prepare the way for the more pretentious series of treatises which it is hoped will some day be forthcoming, the Academy has now carried out a plan which in a measure achieves its ideal. A group of some thirty brief summary articles has been prepared to cover the field of the more interesting and important subjects and these will now be published in volume form. These articles are written in plain language so that both scientists and the public may profit by their account of the present state of knowledge in this field, pending the time when investigators may be stimulated to complete the full scientific treatises which the Academy hopes to see published on the realm of Texas.

Since it takes some time to prepare for printing and publication even this series of brief articles, the Academy has arranged with the publishers to offer, as advance chapters, one by one as they can be gotten ready, the most attractive and timely articles of the thirty. It is planned for these chapters to appear as individual brochures at intervals of a few weeks while the collected work is being prepared,