SI M IMJ i-"IKl) SI'Hf.l.l XC. 423 



But some spellini^s Ijalfie all sound, sucli as " cough." 

 " enough," " ]>lough," "" phthisis," whilst in other words it is 

 becoming pedantic to give the sound values of a third of a 

 century ago. such as " which," now generally pronounced 

 " witch " ; white — wite, etc. 



My own experience tends to show that it is not the edu- 

 cated Englishman wIki can impress on the crowd the proper 

 way to pronounce words, but, on the ct)ntrary, it is the crowd 

 which forces the educated man to conform to its way of doing 

 so. 



In a scientific sense this leads to a mild confusitjn. The 

 guardians of literature and speech have said in effect, " S})eak 

 as we do and spell as we do," and the populace has replied, 

 "No; we will do either, but not both. We see your written 

 word, we do not hear it; we will speak by the written word." 

 This being so. if the guardians of speech consider that their 

 spoken word must be preserved, then they must make their 

 written word conform to it. Things will evolve even if they 

 desire to stand still. Which should it be? In the interests of 

 the rising seneration and in the desire to facilitate the use of 

 English all o\er the world, my vote would l)e for ])honetic 

 spelling. 



The argument that the written and spoken languages should 

 agree deserves emjjhasis when, as in South Africa, English is 

 not the mother tongue of half of the white race nor of the teem- 

 ing millions of natives. If we who acc(uired English as our 

 mother tongue believe that its use should become general, let 

 us aid its spread among other peoples by smoothing the road. 



Grants for Research.— The Royal Society of 



South Africa invites applicants for grants in aid of Scientific 

 Research in South Africa to send in their apjjlication forms, 

 properly filled in. to the Secretary of the Society, Prof. W. A. 

 jolly. South African College, Cape Town, not later than the ist 

 August, 1917. Application forms niav be obtained from Prof, 

 lollv. 



Potash from Felspar. — The problem of preparing 

 soluble j)otash from felsj)ar has long occu])ied the attention of 

 chemists, but has not hitherto been made a commercial success. 

 A i^rocess has. however, been patented by a Swede, J. Rhodin, 

 who claims to be able to divide the cost of preparing the potash 

 by producing along with it, as a by-product, a marketable white 

 cement. Successful results had been obtained from Swedish fel- 

 spars, and recently the Rhodin process has been ai)plied to 

 British felspars, from Roche, in Cornwall, and from Loch Eriboll, 

 in Sutherland.shire. From the Roche felspar 75 per cent, of the 

 contained ])otash was obtained in a soluljle form, and 60 ])er 

 cent, from the Loch Eriboll felspar. The cement ]-)roduced at the 

 same time is described in the February issue of the Journal of 

 the Board of Agriculture as being a true hydraulic cement, satis- 

 factory in colour, but much lower in tensile strength than Port- 

 land cement. 



