1892.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 53 



were g-iven to minerals as the result of more extended research in 

 this branch of study, and one of the first of these was prehnite, 

 given by Werner to a mineral brought from the Cape of Good Hope 

 bv Colonel Prehn, and hence named after him. Werner first an- 

 nounced the name in his lectures in 1783, as he himself states later, 

 but it was not published for several years. In 1789 there is an 

 article in the Journal de Physique, by Sage, objecting to the use of 

 names of persons for minerals, the text for which is this name of 

 Werner's. But the name has kept its place, and is now the accepted 

 one for the species. Other names, given about the same time after 

 persons, are Witherite, after Dr. Withering, who first described it, 

 and torl)erite, later changed to torbernite, after Torbern Bergmann, 

 its first analyst. I'his latter mineral has gone through various vicis- 

 situdes as to its name, and a list of them, as an illustration, may not 

 be out of place here. I take them from the 5th edition of Dana's Min- 

 eralogy, p. 585; Mica viridis, 1772; Chalkolith, 1788; Torberite, 

 1793; Uranglimmer, 1800; Torbernit, 1803; Uranite, 1814; Uran- 

 phyllit, 1820; Copper Uranite (no date) ; Cuprouranit, 1865. 



My study of the history of mineral names was begun in the in- 

 terest of Murray's English Dictionary, where these names are con- 

 sidered as words simply, and part of the language, as found in 

 books. The information sought with reference to each is 1st, the 

 author of the name ; 2d, date of first publication ; 3d, reference to 

 original ])ublication ; 4th, first form, if different from the form now 

 used by English writers ; 5th, derivation ; 6th, reason for the name; 

 7th, a short description, sutficient to identify it, particularly if the 

 name has been used for more than one species or variety. 



A good example is Erinite, a name given by Haidinger, 1828, 

 Annafs of Philosophy, 2d series, vol. iv, p. 154, from Erin, because 

 it was supposed to have been found in Ireland. It is a green, 

 fibrous, arseniate of copper. This description is necessary, and suffi- 

 cient to distinguish it from Erinite of Thompson, 1836, Thompson's 

 Mineralogy, vol. i, p. 342, derived also from Erin, for the same 

 reason, and properly so, for it came from Ireland. But this is a 

 reddish, clay-like mineral from the Giant's Causeway, and probably 

 does not merit a name at all. Full information about the majority 

 of the names is easily obtained, and is usually to be found in the 

 last edition of Dana's Mineralogy, up to 1892. In his 5th edition 

 Prof. Dana makes an attempt at uniformity of nomenclature by 

 changing the terminations of many of them into -ite, particularly 

 those ending in -ine, only leaving those unchanged which had come 

 into too general use in the language to be so treated. So we have 

 galenite, alabandite, pyrrhotite, and periclasite, instead of galena, 

 alabandine, pyrrhotine, and periclase. These changes have been 

 generally adopted, and are all in the right direction. 



In 1876 Prof. Shepard published a " Catalogue of Minerals found 

 within about 75 miles of Amherst College, Mass.," in which he pro- 

 posed that the names of all acknowledged mineral species, except 



