1094 The American Naturalist. [December, 
botanists investigation of the question was recommended to the meeting 
of Naturalists at Copenhagen ; in North America the Botanical Club 
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at 
Rochester adopted a resolution agreeing for the most part with the 
Berlin explanation. This movement reached its culmination at the 
International Congress held at Genoa in September, 1892, at which the 
three first points of the Berlin explanation were agreed to almost with 
unanimity, and for the settlement of the still controverted questions, 
namely, the fourth Berlin thesis, as well as the doubt over the naming 
of species, an international committee of thirty members was chosen 
to prepare the decision of a future congress by a carefully elaborated 
statement which should impartially consider all the material at hand. 
“Since then the actual interest in the nomenclature controversy 
seems to have cooled considerably. But the organization of the com- 
mittee encountered unexpected difficulties. Only a bare majority ad- 
vocated carrying forward the management of the undersigned. Of 
the other members of the committee, to our regret, two of the three 
British members, the representatives of Kew, Sir Joseph Hooker and 
Mr. Baker, declined election in the committee. Two votes fell to Sir 
Joseph Hooker as manager. One member, indeed, accepted the choice, 
but thought that he must abstain from all discord over the manage- 
ment. Some colleagues have left the questions addressed to them un- 
answered. Discouraging as this result was, yet the undersigned held 
themselves pledged to undertake the management, as otherwise nothing 
would be accomplished. By this time it became necessary to produce 
the requisite means for defraying expenses, which lately was made pos- 
sible by the munificence. of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. If, 
therefore, O. Kuntze in one of his latest publications accuses us of hid- 
ing the questions out of sight in order to neglect them, that is one of 
the cheap insinuations which we are accustomed to from this gentle- 
man, and which, indeed, is not worthy a thorough refutation. This 
seasoning of scientific polemic, for him indispensable it seems, and just 
as insipid as undeserved aspersion of opponents, is employed in profuse 
quantity in the controversial pamphlet appearing in the last twelve 
months which O. Kuntze has published as the first part of the third 
volume of the Revisio Generum Plantarum. In this pamphlet the 
author has collected all the accessible observations upon the reform in 
nomenclature undertaken by him and answered them in his manner 
according to his use of foreign languages. The pamphlet contains also 
a series of further propositions relating to the reform of nomenclature, 
among others concerning the constitution of a future congress, and cul- 
