692 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is accented on the first syllable ; and appard'tus does duty in both 

 the singular and the plural numbers. Quan'tiva"lence, u'niva"lent, 

 etc., have both a primary and a secondary accent, as has no'men- 

 cld'ture. A few more preferred pronunciations are con' centra" ted, 

 mol'ecule, mblec'ular, and aldehyde ; both crystallin and crystalline 

 are accepted. Probably the boldest change in spelling is the sub- 

 stitution of/ for ph in sulfur and all its derivatives. Phosphorus, 

 however, remains unchanged. 



Where two or more names are in use for the same thing, the 

 chemists have given a preference to one of them. Thus, they 

 advise the use of caffein rather than thein, hydrogen sulfid rather 

 than sidfuretted hydrogen, valence rather than quantivalence, and 

 univalent, oivalent, etc., rather than monovalent, divalent, etc. 



A large number of other decisions have been rendered, but the 

 foregoing are all that affect words that are in general use, or 

 much used by teachers. The changes which the chemists have 

 decided on are far from being radical. They are all plainly dic- 

 tated by common sense, and it is to be hoped and expected that 

 they speedily will become the prevailing usage. 



Geographical names are also undergoing a revision both here 

 and abroad. There has been heretofore a most perplexing di- 

 versity in the spelling of many of them. Names of places in 

 Asia or northern Africa, which are written by their inhabitants 

 in Arabic or some other Eastern language, must be transliterated 

 when they appear in the Roman alphabet. English-speaking 

 geographers would transliterate these names after the analogies 

 of their own language, French geographers would follow the 

 different usage of their language, and the Germans would do 

 likewise. If any language admitted an alternative way of spell- 

 ing, some author would be sure to adopt it ; so that, in the case of 

 an important town in Syria (Beirut), no less than twelve ways of 

 spelling its name have arisen among Western peoples. 



Then there were names of places, rivers, etc., in the unwritten 

 native languages of Africa, the Pacific islands, and America, con- 

 cerning which the same diversity has prevailed. Sometimes a 

 strange spelling has had the force to bring in a mispronunciation. 

 The early English explorers found a nation of Indians in eastern 

 North America whose name they spelled Algonkin. The French 

 explorers, having no h in their language, and being accustomed 

 to represent the fc-sound by qu, spelled the same name Algonquin. 

 Both spellings persist to this day, and many among us, the 

 descendants of the Englishmen, having become acquainted with 

 the form Algonquin through the eye and not through the ear, 

 have given the qu its English value in pronouncing the word, and 

 say wrongly, " Algonkwin." 



