414 



NATURE 



\Sept. 19, 1872 



older botanists sure to confuse them, as loadicidal and septicidal 

 and the troop of words whiuli end in —tropous ; or they convey a 

 morphologically impossible idea, as^iifinor and superior as ap- 

 plied to the ovary. To sec hov/ tliese faults can be avoided, let us 

 in(iuire vvliy an unusual amount of names are required at all. 

 (I.) Popular names being vaguely used requne to be restricted 

 in their meaning by accurate definition. 



(II.) A new name is required for any part to which no name is 

 popularly assigned, either because the thing to be named escapes 

 popular observation, or because two or more things are included 

 in the connotation of the popular term. 



(III.) New adjectives, or adjectival-periphrases, are required 

 to express characteristics, or relations of part to part. 



Let me briefly suggest some principles, which, while remedying 

 the faults of the old terminology, seem not to clash with these 

 three necessities of the subject. 



(it) Names for new things to be given in English, ex. gr., 

 the names A?/i'.r and ciirMr to be taught as c/iji and cniziiu : 

 in this we should be only following the German use of Kelch 

 and Krone. 



(/)) Where a part of a thing already named requires a fresh 

 name, the preference to be given to a name framed like the 

 German double words— Kelch-blatt, Staub-blatt — so as to indi- 

 cate the relation of part to part, thus cup-leaf, leaf- stalk, flower- 

 stalk to be taught instead of sepal, petiole, and peduncle. 



((-) Short expressions involving English (not Greek) preposi- 

 tions to be used for adjectives : thus splitting by mid-rihs, on 

 seed-vessel, united by dust-pouehes, to be nsed for loculicidal, 

 cpigynous, syngencsious. 



{d) Where the definitions of the terms is given in numbers, 

 numbers or fractions be used instead of those terms : thus in 

 estivation, j to be used for^quincuncial ; in cutting of leaves the 

 fraction of the leaf cut to be stated instead of omnia qutf exeunt, 

 ill-fid, -sect, and -partite. 



But it will be said — how will pupils taught thus get on after- 

 wards ? The answer is, either tliey will do no more of the sub- 

 ject than they do at school, in which case they will have got the 

 idea without the obstructions of the terms ; or they will care to 

 go on further with the suljject, in which case they will learn the 

 terms very quickly, being now familiar with the facts and ideas. 

 In neither case will time have been lost, and the scope of 

 botanical subjects which may be treated in the time will have 

 been doubled. 



I must apologise for the length to which this letter has run. 

 Frank E. Kitchener 

 Rugby, September 16 



Hutton's Trigonometrical Tables, for Arcs expressed as 

 portions of the Radius 

 At the end of the preface of the fust edition of Hutton's 

 Mathematical Tables ( 1 785) is the following postscript :— 

 "P.S. — Since my History of Trigonometrical Tables in the 

 following Introduction was printed, there has been published in 

 the 'Philosophical Transactions' for the year 1784, a paper of 

 mine concerning a project for tlie trigonometrical tables to be 

 constructed on a new plan, namely, in which the arc of the 

 quadrant is divided into aliquot parts of the radius, or according 

 to the real lengths of the arcs, which construction is now in 

 some degree of forwardness, as myself and several assistants 

 have been closely engaged in the execution of it ever since." 

 And in the succeeding editions, down to the sixth, 1822, there 

 occurs on p. 2 of the Introduction the following remark :— " But 

 the complete reformation would be to express all arcs by their 

 real lengths, namely, in equal parts of the radius decimally 

 divided, according to which method I have nearly completed a 

 table of sines and tangents." Hutton died in 1S23, and lean 

 find no further reference to the table in question. I feel pretty 

 certain that it has never been published, and there is no other 

 paper on the same subject (except that in the Phil. Trans., 17S4) 

 of Hutton's referred to in Watt's " Bibliotheca " or the Royal 

 Society's Catalogue. 



The table was intended to give the sines, tangents, &c., of 

 TTr o'o 11 ■ nroVtrcFi ^c- (''""^ ""•' being the arc equal to radius) to 

 seven decimal places, and would be very useful. If it has not 

 been published, perhaps some reader of N.^ture might be able 

 to say what has become of the manuscript tliat was nearly com- 

 pleted. 



I may mention that the calculation of such a table was under 

 the consideration of the Tables Committee of the British Asso- 



ciation, but it was thought that some other tables were at present 

 more urgently needed. J. W. L. Glaisher 



Cambridge, Sept. 16 



THE " HASSLER" EXPEDITION 



\XrE are indebted to the courtesy of the Editor of the 

 ' ' New York Tribune for early communication of 

 the following information from Prof. Agassiz's expe- 

 dition : — 



Off Guatemala, July 29, 1872 

 To Prof. Benjamin Peirce, Superintendent U.S. Coast 

 Survey. 

 My Dear Peirce : — Do not be surprised at my few 

 messages. It is about all I can do to take advantage of 

 every opportunity that offers for study and collecting ; 

 but I rarely feel sufficiently collected to do any connected 

 writing. I have another new chapter concerning glaci.il 

 phenomena, gathered during our land journey from Tal- 

 cahuano to Santiago, but it is so complicated a story that 

 I do not feel equal now to recording the details in a con- 

 nected statement, while the whole may be put in a fev,- 

 words. 



There is a broad valley between the Andes and the 

 coast range, the Valley of Chilian extending from the 

 Gulf of Ancud, or Port Montt, to Santiago, and farther 

 north. This valley is a continuation, upon somewhat 

 higher level, of the channels which, from the Strait of 

 Magellan to Chiloe, separate the islands from the main 

 land, with the sole interruption of Tres Montes, which 

 gives the clue to the whole, as we have here in miniature 

 a valley between the Andes and the coast range. Now 

 this great valley, extending for more than 25 degrees of 

 latitude, is a continuous glacier bottom, showing plainly 

 that for its whole length the great southern ice-sheet has 

 been moving northwards in it. I could find nowhere any 

 indication that glaciers descending from the Andes had 

 crossed this valley and reached the shores of the Pacific. 

 In a few localities only did I notice Andean, /.<^., volcanic 

 erratics upon the loose materials filling the old glacier 

 bottom. Between Currillo and Santi:igo, however, facing 

 the gorge of Tenon, I saw two distinct lateral moraines, 

 parallel to one another, chiefly composed of volcanic 

 boulders, resting upon the old drift, and indicating by 

 their position the course of a large glacier that once 

 poured down from the Andes of Tenon, and crossed the 

 main valley, without, however, extending beyond the 

 eastern slope of the coast range. These moraines are 

 so well marked that they are known throughout the 

 country as the Cerillos of Tenon ; but nobody suspects 

 their glacial origin ; even the geologists of Santiago 

 assign a volcanic origin to them. 



What is difiicult to describe in this history are the suc- 

 cessive retrograde steps of the great southern ice-field, 

 that, step by step, left to the north of it larger or smaller 

 tracks of the valley free of ice, so that large glacial lakes 

 could be formed, and, in fact, seem always to have existed 

 along the retreating edge of the great southern glacier. 

 The natural consequence is that there are everywhere 

 stratified terraces, without border barriers (as these were 

 formerly the ice that has vanished), resting at suc- 

 cessively higher or lower levels, as you move north or 

 south, upon unstratified drift of older date, the norther- 

 most end of these terraces being the oldest, while those 

 farther south belong to the latter steps in the waning of 

 the ice-fields. From these data I infer that my suggestion 

 concerning the trend of the stri.e upon the polished and 

 glaciated surfaces of the vicinity of Talcahuano, alluded 

 to in the postcript of my last letter, is probably correct. 



I was much grieved on reaching Valparaiso to hear of 



the mishaps of the dredging apparatus. The subsequent 



departure of Poiinales has been a great loss to us all, for 



notwithstanding his silent nature, he is a powerful standby. 



Our visit to the Galapagos has been full of geological 



