1892. | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 49 
January 25th, 1892. 
StTateD MEETING. 
Vice-President Dr. Hupparp in the chair. Eighteen persons 
present. 
The minutes of January 18th were read and approved. 
A letter was read from Dr. Joun C. Jay, Jr., thanking the 
Academy for the Resolutions adopted in memory of his father, the 
late Dr. Joun C. Jay. 
Dr. Borron announced that an illustrated lecture would be 
delivered before the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences by 
Pror. Cuarues V. Ritey, Chief of the Division of Entomology, 
U. S. Department of Agriculture, on Tuesday, March 2d, 1892. 
Insects and Flowers; or, the Interrelations of Insects and Plants, 
Members of the Academy were invited to attend. 
The following paper was then read, entitled 
The Origin and History of Mineralogical Names. 
BY ALBERT H. CHESTER, 
with an exhibition of classical works on Mineralogy. 
(Abstract. ) 
The study of mineral names is an interesting one, not only from 
the mineralogist’s point of view, as affording an insight into the 
growth and development of this branch of science, but also to the 
student of human nature, for many traits of character are shown in 
the various considerations which have determined the particular 
name to be adopted. 
We sometimes find as a reason for a name the simple idea of dis- 
tinguishing the thing itself; but this is not the most common reason. 
To do honor to some person who may perhaps be pleased or flat- 
tered by the attention, or to immortalize some place, often other- 
wise obscure or unknown, is a much more common reason. 
Names have been given to commemorate battle-fields, to sneer at 
the work of earlier investigators, and as a tribute to feminine love- 
liness. In short the whole round of human passions has been gone 
over in the manufacture of these words, which are purely scientific 
in their uses, and for the making of w hich scientific methods might 
well have been employed. The subject has also no little interest 
from the philological side, and these names deserve study if only as 
part of language. I meed make no excuse for occupying your 
