152 The American Naturalist. [ February, 
we express our admiration for the metric system and our conviction 
that the United States Congress is derelict toward this important mat- 
ter. We urge Congress to make the use of this system compulsory, and 
yet we go on calmly writing books in which we use the most antiquated 
of measuring units. Not content with using feet and inches, we ex- 
press fractions of inches in lines! We vote enthusiastically that 
mechanics, surveyors, farmers, statisticians and schoolmasters shall use 
the metric system exclusively, and yet we, the botanists, who of course 
are “the salt of the earth” are slow in doing what we so urgently 
recommend others todo. The writer hereof must plead guilty to his 
full share of blame in this matter in the past, but he wishes to assure 
his botanical friends that he does not intend to inflict a long suffering 
public with any work whose use will compel a retention of the old units, 
as in the case of the books referred to above. Nor are these the only 
books which offend in this important matter; they are singled out be- 
cause of their great excellence in other respects, and also because 
such an anachronism was not to be expected in them. Following their 
lead, however, we may look for many little books with English units ; 
thus it happens that the very books which should familiarize the peo- 
ple with the metric system, the semi-popular and popular books, serve 
to perpetuate an obsolescent, and what we say we hope will soon be an 
obsolete system. 
It is not necessary to point out the commendable exceptions to the 
rule; we may, however, mention the botanical publications of the 
United States National Herbarium, all of whose contributions, if we 
mistake not, conform rigidly in this respect to the demands of modern 
science. 
The writer would urge that every botanical writer insist upon the 
use of metric measurements throughout, in some cases with the English 
equivalents in parentheses, and that the editors of our botanical jour- 
nals and other scientific journals in which botanical papers are pu 
lished lead the way in requiring conformity to this rule. If our acad- 
emies of science and other scientific societies also will insist upon the use 
of metric units, the present humiliating condition will rapidly disappear. 
CHARLES E. Bessey. 
Eaton and Faxon’s North American Sphagna.—A short 
time ago a most important distribution of Peat mosses (Sphagnacew) 
was made by Mr. George F. Eaton. In 1893, Professor D. C. Eaton 
and Edwin Faxon announced the intended preparation of a set of 
dried specimens of all the North American species. Since that time 
