144 NOMENCLATURE. 



PART III. 



NOMENCLATURE. 



. 114. GENERAL, OBJECT OF NOMENCLATURE. 



The object of Nomenclature, in general, is to furnish 

 names for the objects of Natural History. . 



Formerly it was the practice in Natural History to designate objects 

 by tbeir characters, or descriptions. For example, a particular 

 grass (now known by a name of two words only,) was denominated, 

 " Gramen myloicophorum carolinianum, seu gramen altissimum 

 panicula maxima speciosa, e spicis majoribuscompressiusculis utrin- 

 que pinnatis blattam molendariam quodam modo referentibus, com- 

 posita, foliis convolutis mucronatis pungentibus donatum." (Pluke- 

 net. Almag. 173.) But at present, nomenclature seeks to dispense 

 with these long phrases by the substitution of short and easily re- 

 membered names. 



Nomenclature is of two kinds, Systematic and Trivial. 



. 115. SYSTEMATIC NOMENCLATURE. 



The object of systematic nomenclature is not only to 

 provide names for the species, but, also to construct them in 

 such a manner, as to indicate the connexion of the species 

 with one another in the system. 



The systematic nomenclature has in view two things : viz. to pro- 

 vide denominations for the species, or to determine the objects of 

 which something is to be said, and to remind us of those which are 

 more or less similar to them, by indicating the places they occupy 

 in the general assemblage of the natural productions of the Kingdom. 



As the systematic nomenclature is applicable only to the Natural 

 System in Mineralogy, no farther attention will be given in the 

 present treatise to its developement. The zoologist and botanist who 



