academt of sciesces] PERSONAL RELATIONS 199 



as nouns, but wrote them with small letters when used as adjectives, as in potsdam formation 

 and carboniferous strata; the second capitalized both nouns and adjectives if derived from 

 names of places, as Potsdam and Potsdam strata, but wrote descriptive nouns and adjectives 

 with small letters, as the carboniferous and carboniferous strata; the third capitalized both 

 substantive and adjective forms. Although the first and the third usages both have certain 

 advantages, the third seems to have been preferred: 



The capitalization of all formation names has the manifest advantage that it enables one to say that the 

 Carboniferous rocks are not the only carboniferous rocks. 



The extracts already given from Gilbert's personal letters suffice to show that their style 

 was informal and often jocose. They not infrequently exhibit a preference for a turn of phras- 

 ing that by its graceful indirectness leaves the interpretation of the intended meaning to the 

 reader. Thus on arriving at a gathering in a distant city, he wrote to a friend: "I was gratified 

 to find I did not have to introduce myself." A sirmlar example has already been quoted from 

 Ms letter about the attentions showered upon him by the city of Bath during his visit to Eng- 

 land in 1888. He enjoyed certain western expressions that partook of this kind of indirectness. 

 At a certain geological meeting a speaker had to confess his inability to answer a question 

 that was raised in the discussion of his paper; Gilbert whispered to a neighbor: "You can't 

 prove it by him." 



It was during the period here considered that Gilbert adopted the principles and to an 

 increasing extent the practice of "simplified spelling." The first announcement of this change 

 in his ways was in a brief article in "Science," in which he requests that the compositor and 

 proof reader shall not be allowed to nullify his attempt at reform in a review that he sent for 

 publication; a very gentle attempt, as it involved only the words "groupt" and "addrest." 

 He added that he made no criticism of the editorial policy of "Science" for "not joining in 

 the spelling-reform movement, as it woidd be unwise for a journal with its own battles to fight 

 to incur the odium which is attached to rational spelling. The prejudices in favor of irrational 

 spelling are so strong and prevalent that they can not be opposed without a certain measure of 

 sacrifice on the part of the opponent." 4 His officially published works and his dictated and 

 typewritten letters are of course in orthodox spelling. In his own manuscripts he was more 

 successful than many advocates of simplified spelling in changing the habit of a lifetime, for 

 in addition to the phonetic use of "d" or "t" for the "-ed" termination of past participles, 

 as in askt and labeld, he cut out unnecessary mid-word vowels, and omitted various sdent 

 letters, as in activ, bild, deth, dout, erly, evry, hav, hed, lact, lern, strait (for straight) topo- 

 grafic, wether. As already noted, his adoption of these simplifications resulted from his uncon- 

 ventional temperament, and was not a mark of either learning or ignorance. 



The card indexes to American geological literature that were prepared under his direction 

 when he was in charge of the Appalachians, as noted in an earlier section, led him further into 

 bibliographic work than he had intended to go when the indexes were undertaken. He wrote 

 in 1889: 



For more than a year past there has been a snarl in the Survey on the subject of bibliography. A number 

 of geologists are preparing indexes to subjects or lists of papers or other aids to literary research, and their work 

 before publication is checked up and criticized by the editorial division and the librarian, who have very 

 different ideas as to what a bibliography should be. The discrepancies are so great and the differences are so 

 difficult to adjust that the Director found he could not give the necessary time to their consideration and long 

 ago he turned the matter over to me. But he has never till now allowed me the time to attend to it. I am 

 systematically investigating the dozen or so bibliographic works in hand or awaiting publication and find myself 

 getting much interested in the subject. 



Hence in this problem, as in so many others, when wise action was needed to reduce con- 

 fusion to order, Gilbert was appealed to. It may therefore be supposed that the bibliographic 

 bulletins of the survey issued in later years — models in the way of thoroughness and com- 

 pleteness — have been prepared on a form in the standardization of which Gilbert had had a 

 hand, and probably a guiding hand. With this experience behind him he was naturally chosen 



< Science, v, 1896, 185, 186. 



