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experiments of Professor Prestwick seem to show the mean rate cf 
increase to be one degree for every forty-five feet. Thus at adepth 
of 10,000 feet we reach the temperature of boiling water, 212 
degrees, and at twice that depth a temperature at which all surface 
rocks would be liquid. Now as we are already quite within a 
calculable distance of the exhaustion of our coal supply, it is clear 
that we must ere very long, find some other means of obtaining 
heat and motive power, and this Mr. Gardener proposes to do by 
means of deep borings down to the liquid lava which is supposed to 
underlie the solid crust of the earth. I cannot help thinking this 
avery wild suggestion, for even were it possible in the present 
state of engineering science to make a sufficiently deep boring, 
which I very much doubt, the actual expense would be simply 
incalculable ; and again, supposing the theory of a liquid interior to 
be true, which is by no means proven, we should only succeed in 
establishing an artificial volcano, which would not only be a rather 
undesirable aquisition, but would prove a decidedly unmanageable 
source of caloric to manipulate ! 
Believing, as I do, that science should be comprehensible to all, 
and some knowledge of it should be attainable by everyone of 
average intelligence, I must here protest against the practice, 
which is becoming every day more prevalent, of using a pedantic 
jargon of composite Greek and Latin words where generally plain 
English would answer the purpose as well, and often far better. 
Botany, Geology, Paleontology, and even Medicine, are now all 
crowded with crack-jaw names of this description ; it appears as 
though would-be scientific men were bent on shrouding science in 
the same sort of mystery as surrounded Astrology and Alchemy in 
in the middle ages, For instance Petalorhynchus positlacinus 
petalonide is a fairly long name for a shark, but it pales into 
insignificance beside Amblystomatigrinum mavorticum-hallowelli- 
suspectum-maculatissimum ! The chemists are not one whit behind- 
hand with new compound names, such as Hydroxyisopropyli phenyl- 
neketone carboaylic-acid, not to mention giving some half-dozen 
different names to our cld friend carbolic-acid. Professor Mattieu 
Williams has been recently calling attention to the above absurd 
pedantries, and he concludes one of his caustic articles with a 
humourous suggestion that plum-pudding should, on the same 
principle of descriptive names, be called sueto-flour-egg-candied-peel- 
raisino-spice-currant-conglomerate! Surely the object of teachers 
should be to render science both clear and attractive, not to 
envelope it in an incomprehensible verbiage. 
During the last year, the cause of Temperance has continued to 
advance with rapid strides, but I am nevertheless glad to find no 
less eminent a man than Sir Henry Thompson recently insisting 
