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SCIENCE. 



[N. S, Vol. XXII. No. 555. 



international commission; he had compiled, 

 translated into French, and arranged for com- 

 parison all the numerous propositions relative 

 to plant nomenclature published since the 

 congress held in Paris in 186Y, including the 

 laws of nomenclature adopted by that body, . 

 and the general features of the code of botan- 

 ical nomenclature adopted at the International 

 Zoological Congress held at Berlin in August, 

 1901 ; this great work entailed the study of 

 over forty printed documents, many of them 

 of considerable length. Dr. Briquet's com- 

 pilation was published under the auspices of 

 a bureau established by the Paris congress of 

 1900 and by the local committee of the Vienna 

 congress of 1905, under the title ' Texte 

 Synoptique des Documents destines a servir 

 de base aux debats du Congres International 

 de Nomenclature Botanique de Vienne 1905,' 

 a quarto book of 160 pages. This was dis- 

 tributed to the members of the international 

 commission for their preliminary yes or no 

 votes on the numerous and widely differing 

 propositions, late in December, 1904, with the 

 requirement that the votes must be received by 

 the reporter general at Geneva not later than 

 January 20, 1905; this requirement allowed 

 very little time for members of the commis- 

 sion distant from Europe to consider the rela- 

 tive value of the propositions as presented 

 by Dr. Briquet, a copy reaching New York 

 only on January 18; thus no votes were in- 

 cluded of members of the commission resident 

 in South America, Asia or Australasia, and 

 from only two of the four members each from 

 Eussia and the United States. For this rea- 

 son, and for others, only 31 members voted 

 out of the 47 appointed at Paris in 1900, and 

 of these, 15 were German, Austrian, Belgian 

 or Swiss. 



Using the vote thus obtained as a basis. Dr. 

 Briquet formulated a series of rules and 

 recommendations for debate at Vienna, 

 omitting in this, however, any cases in which 

 he could not fairly figure out a majority of 

 the 31 commissioners voting. The rules and 

 recommendations thus obtained, were printed 

 in a column reserved for them in the pages 

 of the ' Texte Synoptique,' which had mean- 



while been held in type, together with re- 

 marks and observations of the reporter gen- 

 eral in another column similarly reserved; the 

 document, thus increased, was again trans- 

 mitted to the members of the international 

 congress, as well as to all delegates from in- 

 stitutions and societies accredited to take part 

 in the nomenclature debate at Vienna of 1905 

 under the conditions prescribed at the Paris 

 congress of 1900, and these rules and recom- 

 mendations thus submitted became the actual 

 topics of debate at Vienna, little attention 

 being paid there to any other propositions. 

 I have described the prelimjinaries of the 

 method of reaching the votes actually cast at 

 Vienna in this detail as a matter of general 

 interest; it will at once be seen that the 

 method was well calculated to bring out 

 opinions, and 31 out of 47 votes in the inter- 

 national connnission was in a measure suc- 

 cessful; no attempt was made, however, to 

 hold a meeting of the international commis- 

 sion in advance of the congress to aid the 

 reporter general in framing the rules and 

 recommendations for discussion, and thus no 

 opportunity for any preliminary agreement 

 was provided. 



The section of the Vienna congress which 

 occupied itself with the discussion of the 

 rules and recommendations thus enunciated, 

 held its sessions every afternoon of the con- 

 gress week in the lecture hall of the univer- 

 sity botanical garden, under the able presi- 

 dency of Professor Plahault of Montpellier, 

 assisted by Professor Mez of Halle and Mr. 

 Rendle of the British Museum of Natural 

 History as vice-presidents; Dr. Briquet acted 

 as the mentor of the meetings, doing much 

 of the translation required and recapitulating 

 the discussions in advance of the vote; there 

 were three secretaries representing the French, 

 English and German languages; the official 

 language was French. The conditions pre- 

 scribed for the voting on motions and prop- 

 ositions enabled a delegate to vote on behalf 

 of a number of societies or institutions, if he 

 was properly accredited by them to the con- 

 gress; the number of delegates present was 

 about 75, casting nearly 200 votes ; of these 



