1 04' Mr. Hawkins o?; the Nomenclahn-e 



compound; and what the English (if they adopt not the Latin 

 idiom) find so necessary to-expi'ess by a circumlocution, the 

 Germans very readily and significantly render by a compound 

 word of tlieir own. 



Can we justly blame Werner, if, in respect to the nomen- 

 clature of natural bodies, he adopted the terms that were in 

 common use ? His choice, as is often the case in matters of 

 this nature, was determined by a balance of inconveniencies. 

 Moreover, the very general dift'usion of mining ideas through- 

 out that part of the continent, had already created a language 

 which, although rude, and even barbarous, and to a certain 

 degree variable in its application, comprehended nevertheless 

 most of the new objects of geological interest. Its adoption 

 therefore was calculated to accelerate the advancement of this 

 new science in Germany, from whence, in tlie natural course 

 of things, it found its way to other countries, which have since 

 admitted it to all the rights of naturalization. 



It is the correct application of these terms of foreign origin, 

 whenever it may be necessary to make use of them, that I 

 now venture to recommend to ouir Society. It is a key which 

 will certainly open to us a great treasure of information, and 

 give an additional value to whatever we may choose to com- 

 municate. 



I am induced to be the more explicit on this subject, by the 

 use which has lately been made of the term grey-wacke. 



This term, so well known in the dialect of the Saxon miners, 

 has been applied to a rock-formation, which occurs in some 

 parts of Germany, where it constitutes the greater portion of 

 that group of mountains known by the name of the Hartz 

 Forest. 



Werner, who had the means of making himself perfectly 

 acquainted with the natural history of this rock, has classed it 

 among those which he supposes to have been deposited during 

 the passage or transition of the earth from its chaotic to its 

 habitable state. It is considered as the most important of 

 these transition rocks; for with it, to use the language of Jame- 

 son, commences a new geognostic period, namely, that of me- 

 chanical depositions. The characters of the mass do in fact 

 justify, to a certaui degree, such an inference ; for its coarser 

 grained varieties are visibly composed of an aggregation of 

 particles of quartz and hornslate ; which particles have the 

 appearance of having been somewhat rounded by attrition, and 

 are cemented together by the matter of argillaceous slate. 



It would have been more consistent witii the notion of its 

 derivative origin, had every definition of this rock-formation 

 been confined within these limits: instead of which we find it 



extended 



