666 The American Naturalist. [July> 
Rivers, together with a number of lesser streams affords similar evidence 
for the eastern coast of South America. Africa and Australia appear 
to have been but little, if any, subjected to recent depressions, while 
Asia and especially Europe afford clear evidence of extensive subsi- 
dence in recent times. On the whole, it would seem that in the dis- 
turbances of the relations of land and sea, the tendency is a gradual 
withdrawal of the coast line towards the center of the continents. (Bull. 
Geol. Soc. Am., Vol. 6, 1895). 
Further evidence in favor of the theory of the igneous origin of the 
serpentine of the Coast Ranges is found by Prof. Laplache in the study 
of the Lherzolite-Serpentine racks of the Potrero, San Francisco. The 
petrographical character of these rocks show undoubtedly their de- 
rivation from an eruptive rock in this area. (Bull. Dept. Geol. Cal. 
University, 1894). 
BOTANY.’ 
A Protest Against the ‘‘ Rochester Rules.’’—Quite re- 
cently, a protest, signed by seventy-four American botanists, has been 
distributed, as a contribution to the literature of the nomenclature 
question. It protests “ against the recent attempts made in the United 
States to change botanical nomenclature on theoretical grounds.” 
This rather vague statement evidently refers to the action of the 
botanists of the Botanical Club of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science taken in Rochester in 1892, and reaffirmed in 
Madison in 1893. Why the grounds of the action taken at Rochester 
are considered by the protestants to be theoretical is not made plain; 
certainly the protestants do not wish to affirm that the men who are 
prominent in the reform of nomenclature are theorists, nor can they 
mean that a discussion of nomenclature reform by working botanists 
is itself theoretical, since a suggestion is made approvingly of an early 
consideration of the whole POT by a representative international 
congress. 
There is much in the protest with which most botanists will agree, 
but much of what is said does not apply to the Rochester Rules. Thus 
the proposition that “ one of the most essential features of an efficient 
1 Edited by Prof. C. E. Bessey, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska. 
