308 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 634 



sound to me, less euphonious and distinctive 

 than the forms in use. Again, there are two 

 important names, Nepisiguit and Shippegan, 

 ■which the board decides must be spelled 

 Nipisiguit and Bhippigan, despite the fact 

 that in both cases the former are in best ac- 

 cord with the history of the words, with the 

 best maps, with the common local usage, and, 

 as it seems to me, with a greater symmetry 

 of construction of words. In fact in this 

 case, while the board's forms can be found 

 upon some maps, I can not find a single rea- 

 son, even in theory, for their adoption in 

 preference to the others. I can not take space 

 to cite further examples, but these are the ex- 

 treme cases of a number of similar sort. 



The first thought of any geographer on 

 reading these observations will be that the 

 board has made these decisions in ignorance 

 of local usage and will reconsider them when 

 the facts are placed before it. Unfortunately, 

 this supposition would not be correct. In the 

 first place, the board has a New Brunswick 

 representative to whom it can turn for local 

 information ; but I have in my possession evi- 

 dence which shows that some at least of these 

 decisions have not the approval of the New 

 Brunswick representative. In the second 

 place, when these decisions were announced 

 by the board four years ago, they were fully 

 discussed and the facts stated at length in a 

 local newspaper, of which copies were sent 

 the board, and to which indeed the board pub- 

 lished a reply, though, in my opinion, an in- 

 sulficient one. Further, within a year past, 

 the facts were fully restated in a new com- 

 munication sent through a prominent member 

 of the board who agreed to, and doubtless did, 

 lay it before the board. Since the new report 

 affirms all the old decisions without change, we 

 can only conclude that they represent the delib- 

 erate judgment of the board, and embody the 

 methods which they propose to apply to Can- 

 adian geographical nomenclature. How dif- 

 ferent this position is from that of the United 

 States board will be evident to every person 

 concerned with geography. The United States 

 board places convenience above all, adopts the 

 best local usage, attempts no reforms upon 

 theoretical grounds, and is steadily reducing 



confusion in the nomenclature of its territory. 

 The Canadian board disregards local usage 

 and convenience, attempts to reform nomen- 

 clature to accord with abstract principles, and 

 is steadily increasing the confusion it was 

 organized to lessen. It will be interesting to 

 observe the comparative worth of the two 

 methods in the geographical development of 

 the future. 



W. F. Ganong 

 Northampton, Mass. 



elimination vs. the first-species rule 



Now that both sides of this controversy have 

 presented their arguments, it appears desirable 

 to briefly state the case and give a recital of 

 the principal facts brought out by this dis- 

 cussion. 



Briefly speaking, the point at issue is this: 

 In every case where a new genus was founded 

 on two species, neither of which was desig- 

 nated as the type, the advocates of the first- 

 species rule claim that the first species cited 

 or described under such genus is the de facto 

 type, and can not become the type of any 

 subsequently established genus. In opposition 

 to this view the advocates of the elimination 

 rule hold that in a case of this kind the action 

 of a later author in selecting the first sjpecies 

 as the type of a new genus is regular, and that 

 the remaining species thereby becomes the 

 type of the original genus. In case that the 

 original genus contained three or more species 

 and the later author selected any two of them 

 to form a new genus, only one of them (the 

 one that is the type of the new genus) is 

 eliminated, and the remaining species may be 

 designated the type of the original genus, or 

 it may be subsequently selected as the type of 

 a second new genus. 



The advocates of the first-species rule claim 

 for their method that it is the easier of the 

 two and that it always leads to the same re- 

 sults, whereas the elimination method, by re- 

 quiring a greater knowledge of the literature, 

 is liable to lead to different results in the 

 hands of different persons, according to 

 whether they had consulted a greater or lesser 

 number of publications on the subject. 



The principles involved and facts estab- 



