CORRESPONDENCE. 



Scientific Volapuk. 



The following, written nearly seventy-five years ago by Thomas Jefferson, one 

 of the signers of the Declaration of American Independence, and sometime President 

 of the United States, seems rather to the point now that new words are so much to 

 the front: — "I am a friend to neology. It is the only way to give to a language 

 copiousness and euphony. Without it we should still be held to the vocabulary of 

 Alfred or of Ulphilas, and held to their state of science also, for I am sure they had 

 no words which could have conveyed the ideas of oxigen, cotyledons, zoophytes, 

 magnetism, electricity, hyaline, and thousands of others expressing ideas not then 



existing, nor of possible communication in the state of their language 



Dictionaries are but the depositaries of words already legitimated by usage. Society 

 is the workshop in which new ones are elaborated. When an individual uses a new 

 word, if ill formed, it is rejected in society ; if well formed, adopted, and after due 

 time laid up in the depositary of dictionaries. And if, in this process of sound 

 neologisation, our trans-Atlantic brethren shall not choose to accompany us, we may 

 furnish,, after the lonians, a second example of a colonial dialect improving on its 

 primitive." — ("Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson," vol. iv., pp. 339, 340. 

 Monticello, Aug. 15, 1S20. Letter to John Adams.) 



Nearly three-quarters of a century afterwards our American brethren still hold 

 the lead. But words must not be condemned because they are new. Some of the 

 new words, like "topotype" in your list, supply a decided want. New words 

 again, are certainly preferable to old ones distorted. It must be easier for a 

 beginner to learn a new word than to remember that "period" and "age" in a 

 geological paper each mean very different things, according to whether they are in 

 inverted commas or not, and in some cases they occur in the same page, each with 

 their different meanings. "Age" has been strongly condemned by a President of 

 the Geological Society in his address (W. T. Blanford, 1SS9, p. 37). 



Another advantage of new words is that they often emphasise a distinction 

 which is apt to be otherwise overlooked. It ought to be impossible for a warm 

 discussion to arise betwen consentients, as I have seen, over a remark — " the older 



shells of are more plicate " ; because one took " older " in a geological sense, 



another as referring to the age of the individual, a third to the age of the race. It 

 is a climax of absurdity that the "older" shells geologically are the "younger" 

 biologically. It suggests that geological strata should be called "earlier" and 

 "later," never "older" and "younger"; but, again, "earlier" and "later" are 

 used in an "evolutionary " (!) sense, and they are not necessarily equal to " primi- 

 tive" and " more specialised." 



S. S. BUCKMAN. 



Climatic Conditions and Life. 



With reference to the remarks made on p. 89, no. 24, of Natural Science 

 (Feb., 1893), regarding a suggestion of mine as to former climatic conditions — 



T. — May I be permitted to point out that so far as I know there is no limit to the 

 extent of the areas over which these phenomena (fumaroles or hot-springs) might be 

 manifested. 



A whole continent might, in former times, have been covered with them and the 



