Correspondence — F. A. Bather. 477 



brought from localities now known, and that there is still great 

 uncertainty as to the original signification of the Hebrew and Greek 

 names. Most of the specimens were precious stones brought from 

 other lands. The amethyst, beryl, sardonyx, emerald, and agate can 

 be identified. The sapphire appears to have been lapis lazuli. It is 

 doubtful whether the diamond was known when the precious stones 

 in the breastplate of the High Priest were enumerated. Alabaster 

 was an onyx-marble (calcium carbonate), and the material termed 

 brass was generally bronze. 



COERBSPOlsriDEITCE. 



DEEIKANTEE. 



Sir, — Permit me to apologize without delay to Mr. Grabham for 

 having suggested that he was wrong in writing ' a dreikanter '. 

 Whether I was myself in the wrong is another matter. Before 

 venturing on any allusion to other writers I looked the word up, and 

 if I was wrong after all, that fact only strengthens my argument. 

 Surely my point is clear. What I object to is the use of foreign 

 words instead of English ones, especially when accompanied by an 

 alteration in their meaning. The fact that some of us occasionally 

 fall into error in using such words was mentioned incidentally as an 

 additional reason for avoiding them. 



Perhaps I should add that I am not responsible for the terms 

 ' tripyramidal ' and ' triquetral ' : they have often been used to express 

 the form of true ' Dreikanter', and those who wish to use that term 

 for facetted pebbles of other shape may be recommended to read 

 Professor J. W. Gregory's address on " The Scientific Misappropriation 

 of Popular Terms " reported in to-day's Times. 



September 2, 1911. P - A - Bather. 



P.S. — In his " Observations on the Magdalen Islands" (Bull. New 

 York State Museum, 149) just to hand, that excellent German 

 scholar, Dr. J. M. Clarke, twice uses yet another variant, namely 

 ' dreikant^er '. 



September 23, 1911. 



FOEMATION OP LATEEITE. 



Sir, — After I forwarded to you Part II, " Microscopical Evidence," 

 of my note on the " Formation of a Laterite from a practically Quartz- 

 free Diabase", which was published in the August number of the 

 Geological Magazine, pp. 353-6, I received from Messrs. Voigt and 

 Hochgesang specially prepared sections cutting through both the 

 diabase and its inner layer of laterite at their junctions. 



The following is a short account of the contact between the diabase 

 and its laterite crust : — 



Nearing the margin of the undecomposed rock many of the cleavages 

 and the lines of chemical weakness in the plates and prisms of felspar 

 are seen to be filled with films of limonite and are bordered with 

 minute scales of gibbsite. 



