H4 NATURAL SCIENCE. Feb., 1895. 



" Les presentations pour les membres de la Commission de l'ltalie et de la 

 Russie seront faites au Comite du Congres par les organes competants de ces deux 

 pays. La nomination n'est pas encore survenue." 



Also, M. leDr. Leon duPasquier, Neuchatel, is a member of the Committee for 

 Switzerland, and is acting as secretary till a formal appointment. 



Marshall-Hall. 



Anlagen. 



The meaning of words is determined by long usage and by philological and 

 grammatical considerations, and not by the wishes of a very small section of society 

 whom Mr. Mitchell has called " precise writers," but whom scholars would regard 

 as ignorant blunderers. 



For certainly upwards of two thousand years the words "vestige" and 

 " rudiment," in those and slightly different forms, have been in constant use with 

 one fixed and unchanging meaning for each. The two roots of which " rudiment " 

 is compounded are older than European civilisation, and the word itself tells its own 

 meaning. That meaning is a beginning, a first attempt, or essay ; something as yet 

 unfinished, unformed, unpolished ; something from which the finished product is to develop. 

 To apply it to an abortive organ is all very well in poetry, but not in science. Some 

 abortive organs are believed to be lingering traces or remnants of something which 

 has gone. " Vestige " means, and for thousands of years has meant, a track, or trail, 

 or foot-mark, left behind by something which has gone. An abortive organ serves as a 

 clue to past structure in some cases, and in these cases the abortive organ is a vestige 

 of previous structure. To apply to either of these two — vestige or abortive organ — 

 the word " rudiment," otherwise than in the sense in which one calls a soldier a 

 " red herring " (that is, in a metaphorical sense), is to go out of one's way in search 

 of confusion. 



C. Herbert Hurst. 



A Correction. 



Our reviewer of the second edition of Blanford and Medlicott's " Manual of the 

 Geology of India," writes to say that he finds he has misrepresented the difference 

 between the two editions (1879 and 1893) in reference to the age of the Western 

 Ghats. He stated that, in the earlier, the formation of the western scarps by marine 

 denudation was "maintained," whereas it was advanced as a hypothesis only. "The 

 statement also, that Mr. Oldham's evidence was conclusive as to the truth of the 

 alternative theory, is too emphatic; Mr. Oldham admits (p. 495), that until 

 the ground at the western foot of the Ghat-scarp has been examined more in detail, 

 the theory cannot be finally established." 



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