Becember 3j 1915] 



SCIENCE 



805 



The work under review is one of extremes. 

 It ascends to heights of excellence and bril- 

 liant achievement, and then breaks down, 

 where one would least expect it, in errors and 

 fallacies which seem inexcusable in one so 

 gifted. It is greatly to be regretted that a 

 book involving so much original work, and con- 

 taining so much that is really valuable, should 

 be marred by blemishes which prevent it from 

 being regarded as an authority. Nevertheless, 

 if the judicious reader will pardon these blem- 

 ishes, the larger part of this treatise constitutes 

 a monumental work of great erudition, and of 

 elaborate and industrious research. 



Frank W. Very 



The International Rules of Zoological Nomen- 

 clature, with Appendix and Summaries of 

 Opinions No. 1 to No. 56. T. O. Small- 

 wood, 3216 N" St., Washington, D. C, 

 September, 1915. 4to. 28 pp. 

 The ninth International Congress of Zoology 

 met at Monaco, March, 1913. The full report 

 was issued by the Imprimerie OberthTir, 

 Eennes, France, 1914. Owing to the disturb- 

 ances in Europe this report is practically in- 

 accessible to students, and no separate copies 

 of the rules in English appear to be available, 

 nor does any provision seem to have been made 

 for the republication of the rules separately. 

 Hence the publisher of this pamphlet, with 

 the approval of the secretary of the Interna- 

 tional Commission and the careful supervision 

 of some of the American members, has pro- 

 vided what may be regarded as a trustworthy 

 edition which may be obtained as above indi- 

 cated. 



A partial reprint of the rules without the 

 opinions has been issued in French by M. 

 Maurice Cossmann in the Revue critique de 

 Paleozoologie for July and August, 1914, and 

 in this connection a word of caution seems to 

 be required. On page 14 of the separate copy 

 of this rendition of the rules we read as fol- 

 lows imder the following caption: 



Autres Decisions du Congres se Rapportani a 

 la Nomenclature 

 A. Des exceptions a la loi de priorite pour- 

 ront etre admises : 



1°. Quand un nom de Genre ou d'espeee 

 devrait etre transports a un autre Genre ou 

 a une autre espece existants; 



2°. Quand un nom a ete employe pour im 

 Genre pendant 50 ans, jusqu'a 1890, dans les 

 travau^ scientifiques, tels que monographies, 

 catalogues scientifiques, etc.; 



3°. Quand le nom le plus ancien, confor- 

 mement a la loi de priorite, n'a pas ete admis 

 pendant 20 ans dans la systematique scien- 

 tifique. 



Note. — Chaque exception doit etre soumise 

 a la Commission internationals de Nomencla- 

 ture qui examine chaque cas et le soumettra 

 au prochain congres international. 



As the title of the pamphlet reads " Regies 

 Internationales . . . Adoptees par les Con- 

 gres," etc., it would seem that the reader 

 might readily suppose that the paragraphs 

 quoted from M. Cossmann's reprint (but not 

 appearing in the English version) had been 

 affirmatively decided by the congress. This, 

 however, is not the case. Paragraphs A2 and 

 A3 were submitted, it is true, but were defi- 

 nitely rejected, though no indication of this 

 appears in the French reprint. Paragraphs A 

 and Al are qualified by the note ujider para- 

 graph AS, each case to be submitted to the 

 commission and decided on its merits. 



Wm. H. Ball 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 

 THE light-sensibility of copper-oxide 

 The fact that seleniumi changes its electrical 

 conductivity under the influence of light was 

 discovered by May in 1873. Since that time 

 the property of light-sensibility has been looked 

 for in many substances and it has been found 

 that sulphur, shellac, paraflSn, anthracene and 

 several other substances possess this property 

 to a slight extent. The most noteworthy addi- 

 tion to the list was made by Jaeger who dis- 

 covered the light-sensibility of stibnite (native 

 SbjSa) in 1907. Since a careful study of the 

 behavior of these substances is bound, ulti- 

 mately, to shed light on the mechanism of 

 metallic conduction, it seemed worth while to 

 continue the search for other substances which 

 show marked light-sensitiveness. Recently the 



