THE USE OF LOCAL NAMES LN GEOLOGY 165 



two wholly different audiences. In the presentation of every 

 discourse the latter cannot be for both. It must be one or the 

 other. It is the inalienable right of every author and every 

 lecturer to select his audience. No one wishing to reach the 

 many would think for a moment, of letting loose on his listeners 

 or readers a flood of absurd and meaningless technicalities ; nor 

 would a small, selected group of specialists wade through 

 unknown depths of " simple " verbiage. 



The coining of new terms to designate new ideas or more pre- 

 cise definitions has a bearing still broader than any yet considered 

 in any of the numerous protests that have been presented. The 

 layman complains of the host of " long names " with which 

 every branch of science abounds ; the scientist criticises the 

 terminology employed in the various branches other than his 

 own ; the specialist bemoans the deplorable condition of the 

 nomenclature in all branches as well as his own. Now, so far 

 as the question under consideration is concerned, all are on 

 identically the same plane. When a reason for this is sought 

 only one stands out permanently. Each critic is, in reality 

 knocking loudly for admission to other departments, without 

 the same hard work and training that he has bestowed upon his 

 own. Moreover, the protests against the established terminology 

 are all one way ; were they not, the opposite view would not be so 

 totally obscured. The demands for transfer from one department 

 to another is invariably from the more simple and general to the 

 more complex and special. Why the layman should desire to 

 leave his own field to enter the domains of science unknown to 

 him is as inexplicable as why a stratigraphical geologist should 

 want to become a geographer or petrographer, or vice versa. 

 Seldom does a scientist think of becoming an artisan. Yet if he 

 should desire to do so, he would be, after five minutes' talk with 

 a machinist, carpenter, or electrician, confronted by so many 

 unfamiliar terms — technical terms of every day use — that he 

 would at once cry out for greater simplicity of language. In 

 the rapidly advancing branch of applied electrical science, for 

 example, new terms are constantly appearing. The reason that 



