Mat 26, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



813 



embellishment of the campus and grounds. 

 These grounds are located in Manoa, a sub- 

 urban valley with both mountain and sea 

 views, and comprise about ninety acres. 

 Sixty acres were purchased and thirty acres 

 were set aside by the government. The total 

 grounds with its water has a market value of 

 about $125,000. 



M. Albert Kahn, of Paris, who has estab- 

 lished traveling fellowships in several foreign 

 countries, has given $2,500 for such a fellow- 

 ship in the United States. It is expected that 

 the fellow selected will travel around the 

 world giving a year to the trip. Selection of 

 the fellow will be made by the trustees, who 

 are Edward D. Adams, Nicholas Murray 

 Butler, Charles W. Eliot, Henry Fairfield Os- 

 born and Charles D. Walcott, and they are to 

 choose preferably professors in isolated south- 

 ern and western institutions. 



Dr. H. T. Benedict, professor of applied 

 mathematics and director of the department 

 of extension of the University of Texas, has 

 been made dean of the College of Arts. 



At the University of Pennsylvania Dr. 

 Richard M. Pearce has been transferred from 

 the chair of pathology to that of experimental 

 pathology, and Dr. Allen J. Smith has been 

 transferred from the chair of tropical diseases 

 to that of pathology, formerly occupied by 

 him. 



Dr. Luther William Bahney, assistant pro- 

 fessor of metallurgy at Leland Stanford Uni- 

 versity, has been appointed assistant pro- 

 fessor of mining and metallurgy in the 

 Sheffield Scientific School, Tale University. 



Dr. Clarence A. Pierce, of Cornell Univer- 

 sity, has been appointed assistant professor of 

 theoretical electrical engineering at the Wor- 

 cester Poljiiechnic Institute to succeed Dr. 

 George E. Olshausen, who has resigned after 

 four years of service. 



Dr. Walter S. Tower, assistant professor 

 of geography in the University of Pensylvania, 

 has been called to the University of Chicago. 



Dr. J.Erank Daniel has been promoted to be 

 assistant professor of zoology in the Univer- 

 sity of California. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESPONDENCE 

 THE law that inheres IN NOMENCLATURE 



Dr. Jordan's answer* to my inquiry,'^ 

 "Whether there is not a better way of dis- 

 posing of our nomeclatural trouble than first 

 making it as burdensome as possible and then 

 making it permanent ? " is, if I understand 

 him aright, that, alas, there is none; at least, 

 there is none yet in sight, or likely to appear. 

 Hence it were better to take up the burden 

 cheerfully, and begin getting used to it. 



Whether one be pleased with this prospect 

 or not, he must be grateful for Dr. Jordan's 

 clear and forceful statement of certain 

 guiding principles. This, for example, seems 

 to me to go to the heart of the matter under 

 discussion : 



" A writer dealing with scientific names 

 must either call an animal or plant what he 

 pleases, or else he must conform to regulations 

 inherent in the nature of his work. Arbitrary 

 rules will soon be disregarded. The necessary 

 regulations are those which future workers 

 will approve, and we who are working in the 

 infancy of taxonomy must lay foundations on 

 which the future can build." With this we 

 may all agree; though we may hold somewhat 

 different views as to what is the law that 

 inheres in the nature of our work, and as to 

 what rules are arbitrary. 



Surely no argument is needed against a 

 return to the loose nomenclatural methods of 

 the past. I protest against the implication 

 that I have advocated anything of the sort. 

 On the contrary, I have advocated the strictest 

 application of the laws that have been evolved 

 by our past nomenclatural experience. I 

 would accept a list of names exactly as fur- 

 nished by the best historical knowledge that 

 could be brought into service in producing it. 

 And then, because such a system would be 

 more than human nature can bear, more than 

 language can use, and more than our science 

 can make its best progress under, I would 

 provide for general use a terminology giving 

 expression to the same system in simpler form, 

 with fewer, briefer and simpler names, and 



> Science, March 10, 1911. 

 ' SciENCB, September 2, 1910. 



