118 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 656 



mainder are now assigned to eight widely 

 separated genera. Of these the two belong- 

 ing to Tropidonotus are the only ones which 

 fail to correspond to the generic character 

 quoted above. No matter, says the extremist 

 in priority, under the rules they must furnish 

 the type! 



It has by now become quite clear that uni- 

 formity is not to be reached through any of 

 the codes in use, if indeed it ever can be 

 retroactively established by any other not yet 

 constructed, for there will always be some who 

 will not purchase it at too high a price, and 

 the prevailing demand of the moment forgets 

 that there is value also in diversity. Then 

 again, the uncertainty attending the practical 

 application of some of the rules now most 

 advocated precludes denial. 



A high authority in matters of nomencla- 

 ture, whom we all respect and esteem, has 

 lately said in Science that even elimination 

 can lead to only one result when properly ap- 

 plied — but the trouble is that each eliminator 

 thinks that his way of applying it is the 

 proper one. It is easy to get men to agree to 

 abide by law, but another thing to get agree- 

 ment as to how the law works. 



The devious paths to diverse goals followed 

 by those who have attempted the elimination 

 of Coluber Linn, is illuminating as to the 

 certainty of the method — but who shall say, as 

 yet, which one is right? 



Cope in 1886 was led by the "rules" to 

 Natrix as the proper name for Coluher. In 

 1888 the " rules " led him to substitute it for 

 Tropidonotus. 



The fact is that meaningless conglomerates' 

 such as Natrix and many other genera of the 

 early dqys of zoological classification can not 

 be used now under the rules for determining 

 types without doing occasional violence to 

 intelligence. They never did represent defi- 

 nite conceptions and they ought not to be con- 

 sidered in nomenclature. By consent we allow 

 them to Linnaeus, but there is no reason why 

 the privilege should be extended to his suc- 

 cessors. Arthur Erwin Brown 



The Zoological Gardens, 

 Philadelphia, 

 July 9 



THE DISTANCES OF THE FIXED STARS 



In various astronomical and other scientific 

 publications misleading statements are fre- 

 quently made concerning our knowledge of the 

 distances of the fixed stars. In parallax work 

 practically all reliable observations are of a 

 differential nature, and the interpretations of 

 the resulting measures for distance are largely 

 dependent upon preconceived views as to the 

 arrangement of the stars in space. 



For some years past I have been engaged 

 in observational and theoretical work on that 

 intricate problem — where is the origin and 

 what is the physical structure of our sidereal 

 system? The results so far obtained are 

 novel, since they indicate that the structure is 

 radial, in other words the stars and nebulas of 

 our system are moving either directly towards 

 or directly away from our sun; the observed 

 derivations from radial motion being at- 

 tributed to the unsymmetrical distribution of 

 the attracting masses, and also to the presence 

 of bodies having a secondary origin. 



The indications also point to the conclusion 

 that, as seen from our sun, a vast majority of 

 the stars and nebulas are confined to a region 

 whose radial depth is much less than the dis- 

 tance of this region from our sun. Since 

 bodies so situated may be comparatively near 

 to us and still have various radial velocities 

 without causing sensible changes in the eon- 

 figuration of the heavens, the seemingly un- 

 changing aspect of the Milky Way' and other 

 celestial regions is explained without the 

 necessity of assigning such great distances 

 (and consequently such great masses) to the 

 bodies of our system. 



Considering the still undetermined con- 

 stants entering into the problem, and the lack 

 of a rigorous method for making direct meas- 

 ures, it surely is no exaggeration to say that a 

 trustworthy value of a star's parallax has not 

 yet been obtained. 



The award of the Boyden Premium by the 



' Whether the theory is in agreement with the 

 actual facts or not, I demonstrate that the inclina- 

 tion of the plane (?) of a Milky Way to the plane 

 of the sun's equator is a necessary consequence of 

 such a structure. 



