1892. ] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 53 
this branch of study, and one of the first of these probably was 
prehnite, given by Werner to a mineral brought from the Cape of 
Good Hope by Colonel Prehn, and hence named after him. I say 
probably, for I have been unable to fix the exact date, as there was 
no publication of it, but only an announcement of some sort, prob- 
ably in lectures to his students. The date was perhaps 1785, 
certainly not later than 1786. 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 tor- 
berite, later changed to torbernite, after Torbern Bergmann, its first 
analyst. This latter mineral has gone through various vicissitudes 
as to its name, and a list of them, as an illustration, may not be out 
of place here. I take them from the last edition of Dana’s Mine- 
ralogy, p. 585: Mica viridis, 1772; Chalkolith, 1788; Torberite, 
1793; Uranglimmer, 1800; Torbernit, 1803; Uranite, 1814; 
Uranphyllit, 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 Ist. The 
author of the name; 2d, date of first publication; 3d, reference to 
original publication ; 4th, first form, if different from the form now 
used by English writers ; 5th, derivation ; 6th, reason for the name ; 
7th, a short description, sufficient to identify it, particularly if the 
name has been used for more than one species or variety. 
A good example of Erinite, a name given by Haidinger, 1828, 
Annals of Philosophy, 2d series, vol. iv., p. 154, from Erin, be- 
cause it was supposed to have been found in Ireland. It is a 
green, fibrous, arseniate of copper. This description is necessary 
and sufficient 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. Ful! 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 1868, and for later 
names in the several appendices added since. 
In this 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, pyrohotite, and periclasite, instead 
of galena, alabandine, pyrohotine, 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- 
