324 
NATURE 

[ Aug. 24, 1871 


the principles of mechanics to determine the rate at which the 
sea 1s sinking at the equator, By this means it can be shown 
that the land is being lowered by denudation as rapidly as the 
sea is sinking, and that consequently, in so far as this part of the 
argument is concerned, we cannot infer from the present form of 
the earth what was its form at the time when solidification took 
lace. 
E But it must be borne in mind that four years ago when Sir 
William read his paper on the subject before the Glasgow 
Geological Society, the method referred to of determining the 
rate of subaerial denudation was then accepted by scarcely any 
geologists. Taking the ideas which at that time prevailed 
regarding the slow rate of denudation, his conclusions were per- 
fectly legitimate. JAMES CROLL 
Edinburgh, August 21 
Neologisms 
THE word frolificness, though not a model, is not a monster. 
It isa hybrid; but so is vindictive-zess. The chief objection 
lies in the fact of the zc being not the ordinary adjectival forma- 
tive, but the c in the fac of facio = J make. 
The true compounds of this root change the vowel, where, as 
in satisfaction, malefactor, &c., we have xo change. Here, the 
original combination was no compound, but merely a pair of 
words in contact with each other. 
Now, if we lay aside the hybrid forms, and use the word 
abstract with a certain amount of latitude, we get the following 
real or possible series of analogies :— 
1. Prolifaction, like satisfaction. 
2, 3. Prolificacity and frolificacy ; the former like capacity 
from cafax, the latter like efficacy from efficax. 
4. Prolificiality. This implies an adjective in a/7s, from a sub- 
stantive like deneficium, whence beneficial. 
5. Prolificality suggests prolifex, prolificis, prolificalis ; like 
pontifex, pontificalis. 
6. Prolificence. Here we must look at the same time to adjec- 
tives like madeficus, and to participles like suffictens, -entis, -entia ; 
the rule being that, formally, the adjectives have no abstract of 
their own ; but, instead of it, the participal form in -ez/za. Hence 
the numerous words like denevolence, grandiloguence, &c. 
To this class the form under notice belongs ; and it will, pro- 
bably, be admitted that sro/ificence, along with its predecessor 70- 
lificality, is the least exceptionable, of the list. 
Prolificality is the best abstract : Arvolificence, perhaps, the 
better word. None of them, however, are forms which need 
only be known to be adopted. There is something to demur to in 
all them. What this is would require a longer discussion than is 
here practicable. 
Of the present short notice the result is that it is easier to either 
imptgn or to excuse such a word as frolificness than to find a 
substitute for it. R. G. LATHAM 
— — = 
NOTES 
WE are glad to be able to state that Her Majesty’s Govern- 
ment has been pleased to accede to the request of the British 
Association with respect to the proposed Eclipse Expedition. 
We may therefore hope for a most important series of obser- 
vations. along a line extending from the Neilgherry Hills in 
India to Cape York in Australia, The observation in India will 
be entrusted to Mr. Pogson, Colonel Tennant, and Captain Her- 
schel. Mr. Lockyer has been requested to observe in Ceylon. 
The observing stations in Java will be occupied by the Dutch 
Government, and possibly also by M. Janssen, while a 
strong expedition has been formed from Sydney and Mel- 
bourne. The necessary instruments will be sent out to 
Australia by the next mail, and those for India will follow 
shortly. As before, the Government not only help in money 
but in transport, camping, and the like. The handsome way in 
which the Government has at once responded to this appeal 
justifies all we have said regarding its good intentions towards 
science when the requirements of science are properly represented 
by responsible bodies. We may add that the Government have 
also agreed to undertake photographic observations of the ap- 
proaching Transit of Venus, 



Our thanks are due to the 7imes for the article (reprinted in 
another column) in which it exposed the injustice which Mr. 
Cardwell attempted to perpetrate in the case of Prof. Sylvester’s 
retirement. Prof. Sylvester being only a scientific man, was, of 
course, fair game for a placeman, but it is none the less amusing 
to see how the whole pleading of ‘‘ precedent ” and the regula- 
tions of the service was allowed to go for nothing the 
moment there was a question of a hostile vote, thus showing 
the injustice of Mr. Cardwell’s appeal to justice. An Ac ount.nt- 
General with a taste for income-tax, to judge from the amount of 
retirement awarded in a recent notorious case, is a much more 
valuable public servant in the present most satisfactory condition 
of army matters than a professor of European reputation, 
who is emphatically the man to infuse that scientific method 
into our officers of which they are so much in need. 
THE introductory addresses at the winter session of the London 
Medical Schools, which commences on the 2nd of October, will 
be delivered by the following gentlemen :—At Charing Cross 
Hospital, by Dr. T. H. Green ; Guy’s Hospital, by Dr. Oldham ; 
King’s College, by Dr. Rutherford ; London Hospital, by Dr. 
W. J. Little ; the Middlesex Hospital, by Dr. John Murray ; St. 
George’s Hospital, by Dr. John Clarke ; St. Mary’s Hospital. 
hy Dr. Alfred Meadows; St. Thomas’s Hospital, by Mr. Le 
Gros Clark ; Westminster Hospital, by Dr. Basham. No in- 
troductory address will be given at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, 
The Lecturer at University College has not yet been appointed. 
THE British Archzeological Association has been holding its 
annualisitting at Weymouth. On Monday night, after the return of 
the congress from their tour of inspection in the villages of 
Preston and Osmington, the inaugural dinner tcok place at the 
Royal Hotel, under the presidency of Sir William Medlycott, 
Bart. On Tuesday the members and friends of the Association 
visited Maiden Castle, an immense earthwork fortification three 
miles from Dorchester, which was described by the Rev. Mr. 
Barnes. At the evening meeting of the Association the following 
papers were read: ‘‘On the Origin and Titling of English 
Laws ;” ‘‘ Report on the Municipal Archives of Dorset; ” and 
on ‘* The Cerne Giant.” 
WE learn from a correspondent in New Zealand that footprints 
of the Moa have recently been detected in a new district in the 
province of Auckland. The locality is at the mouth of the 
Waikenei Creek, near the settlement of Gisborne, Poverty Bay, 
near the Taruheru River. The slabs in which the impressions 
were found were about five feet below a deposit of silt and allu- 
vium of different kinds which had been washed away by the 
action of the water, leaving the stone in which the footprints were 
found visible, very plainly indented and following each other 
in succession. On either side of this track were dents here and 
there, as though made by the bird’s short beak in picking up food 
as he walked—the closeness of the stride favouring this belief. 
Hard by this spot Mr, Worgan picked up an old stone hatchet, 
which, from the signs of traces it bears, is doubtless as ancient as 
the tracks of the Moa. Casts of these footprints haye been pre- 
sented to the museum of the Auckland Institute. The length of 
the footmark from the heel to the tip of the centre toe was seven 
and seven-eighths inches ; from the heel to the tips of the inner 
and outer toes, six inches ; the distance of tips of the outer and 
inner toes was seven inches ; the length of the stride was twenty 
inches from heel to heel, and there were eight impressions 
altogether. 
THE account of the whirlwind at Chilton, Buckinghamshire, 
on July 30, is worth careful study. The correspondent, J. B., 
who writes to the Zimes, sends the following facts :—‘*The 
storm began about five o’clock in the morning, accompanied by 
terrific thunder, large hailstones, and a most violent and terrific 
wind. The piece of country devastated by this wind is about 

