March 7, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



369 



leave for France. The fellowships carry with 

 them stipends of $3,000 and no obligations 

 other than that of making a year's trip around 

 the world and the rendering of a report 

 thereon to the trustees. 



An anonymous donor has offered to the 

 University of Cambridge £10,000 towards the 

 endowment of a chair of astrophysics. 



The University of Birmingham having re- 

 ceived an offer from the Board of Agriculture 

 of a grant-in-aid, to be expended in carrying 

 on a research department in agricultural zo- 

 ology, has appointed Professor F. W. Gamble, 

 F.E.S., as director of the new department. 



De. Wallace W. Atwood, associate pro- 

 fessor of physiography and general geology in 

 the University of Chicago, has been appointed 

 professor of physiography in Harvard Uni- 

 versity. 



VISCVSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



CYTOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE 



The only possible use for a system of nom- 

 enclature is to secure accuracy and conveni- 

 ence in its application. So soon as it pro- 

 duces confusion and becomes unwieldy and 

 cumbersome it defeats its purpose. The real 

 reasons for applying a name to an object are 

 to secure its accurate identification and to fa- 

 cilitate description. It is entirely secondary 

 whether this name is descriptive or not. This 

 fact is fully recognized among biologists in 

 establishing the rule of priority, the sole pur- 

 pose of which is to secure a definite and 

 permanent relation between an object and 

 its name. 



Considerations of this sort apparently have 

 no appeal to cytologists, whose nomenclature 

 is accordingly falling into lamentable confu- 

 sion. This has resulted very largely from an 

 evident desire to make each term descriptive 

 rather than precise. The same object, whose 

 common identity is recognized by every ob- 

 server, may, in each study, receive a different 

 name because some real, or supposed, char- 

 acteristic appeals to the describer. The final 

 result of this practise is easily foretold and is 

 even now making itself manifest. The be- 



ginner, instead of being able to acquaint him- 

 self with the known facts, is obliged to spend 

 a large part of his time in untangling a com- 

 plicated terminology; and, unless he has the 

 help of some one personally familiar with the 

 varied career of each term employed, is 

 very apt to go astray. Much time and trouble 

 are also expended by the initiated in discus- 

 sing the relative descriptive values of the 

 names given to the same object. 



It should be the purpose of every investi- 

 gator to make the machinery of his science as 

 simple as possible and to subordinate every- 

 thing to the main aim of discovery. The rea- 

 sonable way to accomplish this is to profit by 

 the experiences of workers in other and older 

 fields and to make such applications of gen- 

 eral principles as have been found desirable 

 and necessary in actual practise. It is of 

 little moment whether we are endeavoring to 

 discriminate between two organisms or be- 

 tween two structural elements of these or- 

 ganisms — in either case it is necessary for us 

 to designate the contrasted objects by names 

 which apply to them alone. At the same time 

 it very much simplifies the discussion if but a 

 single term is used for each. Systematists 

 have found that the only way to secure this 

 precision is to insist that the first name ap- 

 plied to any kind of organism be its designa- 

 tion, whether descriptive or not. It seems to 

 me that cytologists may well profit by the 

 hard-earned experiences of the taxonomists 

 and avoid the difiiculties of an ineffective 

 terminology. Another practise of systematists 

 that is suggestive of simplicity is the use of 

 qualifying prefixes to well-established words 

 where a new term is called for in the discus- 

 sion of a subgroup. I feel convinced that a 

 recognition by cytologists of these two prin- 

 ciples of nomenclature would do much toward 

 reducing the confusion now existing. 



There may be some who do not agree with 

 me regarding the subordinate value of the 

 descriptive element in terminology and who 

 would cite the B E" A system of anatomists as 

 a support of their view that terms should be 

 descriptive. The conditions confronting the 

 two classes of workers are, however, entirely 



