33 



A burdensome and insufferable jargon would 

 also be the inevitable consequence ; nor would 

 the vexatious, and too often repulsive effects pro- 

 duced by such a nomenclature of technical terms, 

 and such an inharmonious addition to ordinary 

 language, be diminished, even by the most suc- 

 cessful modifications of the classical tongues, 

 adapted to some real or imaginary properties of 

 the substances to be named. No one who has a 

 regard for the purity and convenience of language, 

 will wish to see extended, where it can be dis- 

 pensed with, that system of nomenclature which 

 has been, in most cases, inevitably, but, in too 

 many, wantonly, introduced into systems of mi- 

 neralogy. 



But further, as the object of a nomenclature, 

 like that of an arrangement, is to facilitate the 

 study and description of the general relations of 

 rocks, and of the structure of the earth, a compre- 

 hensive or minute system of nomenclature would 

 be injurious; even were it free from that fault, 

 which every nomenclature founded on mineralo- 

 gical principles must possess, of disjoining sub- 

 stances geologically allied. 



In geological descriptions there is an impe- 



