169 



ORSELLIC ACID. 



ORTHOGRAPHY. 



170 



The third of these fractions, or rather its equivalent, , was 



14 



the one employed by Dr. Pearson in the construction of hia new 

 planetarium ; so that in that instrument the wheel attached to 

 Jupiter's tube contains 166 teeth, and is driven by a pinion of 14 

 leaves attached to the annual arbor. In the planetarium of the Royal 

 Institution, a train of wheels and pinions represented by the compound 



fraction Hi x _ was employed, which therefore gives a period of 

 22 40 



365-2564 x -^ x ^ = 4330778 days. 



The contrivance by means of which [a true elliptic orbit may be 

 produced is extremely simple. For this purpose all that is necessary 

 is that the radius vector which connects the planetary ball with the 

 superior extremity of the tube should consist of two parts or arms, 

 the lengths of which have a determinate ratio dependent solely upon 

 the eccentricity of the orbit, and that while the larger arm revolves 

 about the centre of the ellipse by means of the wheel-work already 

 described, the smaller arm be made to revolve about the extremity of 

 the larger with the same angular velocity but in the opposite direction. 

 Thin may be effected in two ways. By means of a pulley fixed to the 

 planetary tube and connected by an endless silken cord with another 

 pulley free to revolve about a vertical axle situated at the extremity 

 of the larger arm. The effect of this connection will be that the latter 

 pulley will revolve once during each revolution of the larger arm but 

 in the opposite direction. If, therefore, the smaller arm be attached to 

 this pulley it will revolve in the manner required. The same motion 

 may be produced by employing a double pinion extending the entire 

 length of the larger arm and communicating the rotatory motion given 

 to it at one extremity, to the axle of the smaller arm situated at the 

 other. 



ORSELLIC ACID. [LICHENS, Colouring matter* of.} 

 ORTHOGONAL, ORTHOGRAPHIC. The first of these terms, 

 when not used in the same sense as the second, means simply perpen- 

 dicular. Thus a curve cuts a set of curves orthogonally when it cuts 

 them all at right angles. 



Orthogonal or orthographic projection is that which is made by 

 drawing lines from every point to be projected, perpendicular to a 

 plane of projection. Thus if a plane were horizontal, and a point 

 wrre to drop from a given position upon the plane, its last position 

 would be the orthogonal or orthographic projection of its first. 



ORTHOGRAPHY. When this word is looked at hi its elements 

 (two Greek words denoting the art of writiny and correctnett), it would 

 seem that there ought to be included under it whatever belongs to the 

 art of writing a language correctly, including both what is called ety- 

 mology and syntax. But the grammarians have given it a restricted 

 sense, and it is used to denote not the writing correctly in the general, 

 but the proper selection of literal elements of each word that is used, 

 and the proper division of each word when one part of it is at the end 

 nf one line and another at the beginning of the line which succeeds. 

 In the ancient Hebrew manuscripts we may observe that this division 

 of words never occurs, the scribes resorting to the expedient of widen- 

 ing certain of the letters, if in the ordinary form the words would not 

 fill up the line. The law-stationers, in their copies of legal documents, 

 fill up a line with a waved and unmeaning stroke, when the word which 

 follows cannot conveniently be written in it at length. 



\Ve perceive by certain grammars and dictionaries published by 

 practical men, both at home and still more in the United States of 

 North America, that the writers appear to suppose that their works 

 will be resorted to even by persons of cultivation as authorities or 

 guides to orthography. But we believe it to be the case that the 

 number is very few of persqns who actually use dictionaries for this 

 purpose. We mean, of course, not mere children or persons of very 

 imjwrfect education ; but even of those there are very few persons who 

 read much and write occasionally, who ever think of resorting to books 

 of the kind we are speaking of; while persons of a better education 

 trust entirely to memory, and should a doubt arise, the reference would 

 be made to some eminent author, and not to the guides of which we 

 speak. In fact, the art is acquired almost without teaching, and is 

 maintained in vigour through a whole life by the constant practice ol 

 writing and reading. At all events, there is no book, grammar, guide, 

 or dictionary, which a scholar in England regards as in this point a 

 book of authority. 



Whether it would be expedient to raise some one work into an 

 authority in such a point as this, is, in fact, a question one of the 

 greatest in philology that can be proposed whether there shall be an 

 invariable standard established to which a living language shall for 

 ever conform. We doubt not only the possibility but the expediency 

 of this ; and in respect of orthography, we arc quite sure that no such 

 standard can be raimd, because it would be quite impracticable to 

 bring all persons who have a right to a voice in such a matter to an 

 agreement in auy one system involving the admission of certain fixec 

 principles. The contemporary usage of persons of cultivation, meaning 

 of a great preponderating majority, which will always exist, is, we 

 apprehend, the authority to which each person who aspires to write 

 correctly must continue to defer. 

 Tins has been the standard to which reference has always hitherto 



>een made. Open any book printed in the reign of Queen Anne, and 

 many words will present themselves in an orthography very different 

 rom that in which they would now be found. But we must not say 

 that the persons who wrote them wrote incorrectly, if they wrote 

 according to the practice of the cultivated persons of their time. If 

 we ascend still higher, and go to the reign of Elizabeth, we find the 

 orthography still more diverse from our own ; and when we reach the 

 time of Cuxtou, and still more when we go back to the days of Chaucer 

 and Wycliffe, we find m;my words which, though they are actually 

 words now in use, are so disguised in form that we can scarcely 

 recognise them. We seem to have got among a people who spoke a 

 different language, though they were our own forefathers, not more 

 than some fourteen generations removed. 



This has arisen from the want of a standard something fixed, not 

 varying like usage. There is an inconvenience in it as respects the 

 writers before the time of Caxton and the invention of printing, and 

 we may reasonably wish that, with reference to them, there had been 

 some less varying standard and a continuous uniformity ; but when we 

 look in the writings of the men of the Elizabethan period, we find 

 that, though now two centuries and a half have passed, there is no 

 more difficulty in perusing them than there is in perusing the writings 

 of our own day ; and that the same will be the case in respect of the 

 writings of the present day in the hands of Englishmen four or five 

 centuries hence, may be safely foretold. So that there is no real pre- 

 judice arising from the unphilosophical and dangerous course of leaving 

 this point to be regulated by anything so uncertain as contemporary 

 usage. 



At present the number of words of which the orthography is not 

 uniform in all writings which aspire at once to be correct and devoid 

 of affectation, is exceedingly small. Take this sentence, and the whole 

 of the paragraph which precedes it ; is there any word, except this 

 word precede, in which any variety will be found in the ordinary 

 current writings of the day ? Or if we found a variety, should we not 

 say that the deviation from the usual practice was a casual mistake, a 

 slip of the press, an affectation, or that it was the result of some 

 peculiar principle which some peculiar person had adopted ? And 

 even this word precede, though it belongs to a class in which ortho- 

 graphy is not uniform, we should probably very rarely find written in 

 any other way, for few persons would prefer the form f recced, if indeed 

 such a form is ever used. So that practically a great and perhaps 

 quite sufficient degree of uniformity and stability may be said to be 

 secured under the regulating power which now exists. 



Dictionaries and vocabularies, as affording an easy guide to the 

 knowledge of what is the usage, may have their use in this respect to 

 a few persons who write occasionally only; but as authorities, we 

 repeat, they are of no avail. 



It has been matter of complaint that the orthography of the English 

 language is not more uniform ; that is, that words which are composed 

 in whole or in part of the same elements are not uniform in the 

 manner in which those elements are exhibited. Thus all words 

 derived of the Latin cedo with prepositions prefixed, it may be said, 

 should be in one form ; and it is a variety in defence of which nothing 

 can well be pleaded that we should write proceed and yet write also 

 concede. So with respect to such words as honour, favour, odour, 

 labour, it may be said that there should be uniformity with other 

 words like them, in which the K is not found ; and further, that we 

 should keep to the orthography of the Latin words of which they are 

 forms equally in meaning and orthography. This appears plausible, 

 but when it is considered that these words do not come to us imme- 

 diately from the Latin, but have passed to us through the French, we 

 recognise in the unnecessary letter a part of the history of the word, 

 which a person of true taste would scarcely be willing to relinquish for 

 an advantage so trivial. Or take the rough word t/iroiiyk : some may 

 think that the three last letters may well be dispensed with, but they 

 remain a pleasing evidence of the origin of the word in the rough and 

 strong speech of our Saxon ancestors. 



These little irregularities in orthography, like irregularities in other 

 parts of grammar, are not to be regarded as evils. Such irregularities 

 give birth to what are called idiom, in which no small part of the 

 beauty of a language lies. 



Attempts have, however, been made by ingenious men to introduce 

 a greater degree of uniformity into our orthography. There is a 

 treatise on the management of bees, printed about two centuries ago, 

 in which we have a peculiar orthography on a system of the author's 

 own. Ritson, in the last century, in some of his works adopted an 

 orthography of his own. Professed writers on grammar have done the 

 same ; some of them to such an extent that the language, as written 

 by them, can scarcely be known to be English. A more moderate 

 reform is attempted by an American writer. Dr. Noah Webster, the 

 author of the English Dictionary, which lias been reprinted in this 

 country; and Mr. Bromby of Hull, a learned and ingenious clergyman, 

 has printed for private circulation a translation of the treatise of 

 Plutarch concerning music, in which the orthography is regulated by 

 certain principles which he lays down in the preface. Again, some 

 gentlemen, distinguished alike by intelligeuce and philanthropy, a few 

 years ago brought forward a well-considered form of alphabet, and 

 gave to the world an example of it in the periodical called the ' Fonetik 

 Nuz.' It would be well, perhaps, if philological inquirers and mission- 



