October 13, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



469 



ican botanists. The failure to recognize the 

 basic principle of generic types, and the ab- 

 surd recommendation to make exceptions from 

 the rules adopted in the case of over 400 gen- 

 eric names, make it raorally certain that these 

 rules will not be final and will not settle the 

 vexed question of nomenclature. It also 

 seems morally certain that these rules will not 

 be even temporarily accepted by the majority 

 of American systematic botanists. I have 

 read Dr. Britton's paper carefully in the hope 

 that I could find either in or between the lines 

 some hint of the position that he, as chairman 

 of the American Nomenclature Commission, 

 intends to take with reference to these really 

 extraordinary rules. I confess, however, that 

 his purpose has been well veiled. The ques- 

 tion is one of such immediate interest and 

 importance in view of the publication of the 

 new ' Flora of North America ' that I venture 

 to ask for an expression of his views in your 

 columns as to what shall be done next. For 

 my own part I am free to express the opinion 

 that any attempt to conform to the Vienna 

 rules would be most unfortunate and would 

 only serve to postpone still farther the much- 

 desired attainment of practical stability in 

 the use of plant names. 



Fortunately for those of us who are inter- 

 ested in the lower cryptogams, the congress 

 has saved us from the necessity of breaking 

 its pUles. If it had confessed its incapacity 

 in regard to the higher plants as well, the 

 situation would be far simpler. 



F. S. Earle, 



Santiago de las Vegas, Cuba, 

 September 7, 1905. 



' CLON ' VERSUS ' CLONE.' 



I RECUR to this subject merely to correct 

 the misunderstanding under which Professor 

 Eastman labors, as shown in his recent com- 

 munication to Science (XXII., p. 206). In 

 my note setting forth the reasons for prefer- 

 ring the spelling clonCj I did not state the 

 chief fact on which the argument was based, 

 inasmuch as I assumed that any one interested 

 in the subject would undoubtedly consult Mr. 

 Webber's article,^ in which the word was orig- 



^ Science, XVIII., 501-503, 1903. 



inally published. Let it be clearly understood, 

 therefore, that viewed in the abstract, one 

 spelling is as good as another, and Professor 

 Eastman's reasons for preferring don would 

 be quite cogent if it were not for the fact that 

 Mr. Webber expressly states that the word is 

 to be pronounced with the long sound of o. 

 This being the case, I think no one will ven- 

 ture to dispute the point I have already made, 

 that by the requirements of English speech it 

 must be written clone or treated purely as a 

 transliteration from the Greek and written 

 clon (preferably Mon). Every one of the ex- 

 amples adduced by Professor Eastman (eon, 

 pseon, autochthon, halcyon) affords proof of 

 this, as they are all pronounced with a short 

 0. It is quite true, as Professor Eastman 

 states, that ' linguistic usage does not require 

 that loan words and derivatives from other 

 languages should always preserve the same 

 vowel quantities.' But it does require that if 

 the vowel quantity is to be definitely indicated 

 in pronunciation, as Mr. Webber desires in 

 the case of this word, it must be also indicated 

 by the orthography or by some graphic mark 

 of quantity. Hence the word must be treated 

 lexicographically as either clon or clone. If 

 written simply clon, everyone would be justi- 

 fied in pronouncing it clon. 



Charles Louis Pollard. 

 Springfield, Mass. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES. 



A DIAGRAM OR CHART FOR FINDING THE SUN's 



AZIMUTH. 



In Science for July 24, 1903, under the 

 title ' On Uses of a Drawing Board and Scales 

 in Trigonometry and Navigation,' I have 

 briefly described such simple apparatus as 

 seemed to be most serviceable in the solution 

 of spherical triangles. What is written here 

 may be regarded as a continuation of that 

 article, because the apparatus there described 

 can be used in place of the azimuth diagram 

 and in ways quite analogous to those here 

 outlined. 



Given two sides of a spherical triangle and 

 the included angle, to find one of the remain- 

 ing angles without first finding the side op- 



