140 Correspondence—Arthur W. Rogers. 
there was in the earlier writings always more than a suggestion of an 
abundance of iron, and those who apply the term now to distinctly 
ferruginous weathering products may be no nearer heresy than those 
who, following up the work of Max Bauer and Dr. Warth, insist on 
the presence of free aluminium hydroxides as the test of laterite. 
To me the term seems to be now of little value, and unless we can 
agree to apply it only to such materials as were described by 
Buchanan as possessing qualities that make them workable as 
a substitute for brick, I do not see why it should be retained. 
Mr. Crook tells me that I am not justified from a scientific standpoint 
in suggesting that highly aluminous laterite should be called bauxite. 
I follow Mr. Crook’s argument, but since the following phrases occur 
in the papers by Sir Thomas Holland and Dr. Warth & F. J. Warth 
published in the Gerotocicat Macazine for 1903 — ‘‘ laterite . 
agrees in essential characters with bauxite ’—‘‘ the essential chemical 
similarity between bauxite and laterite’’—‘‘laterites in situ which 
are bauxites ’’—‘‘ these bauxites in blocks and in powder” —“‘ laterite 
is bauxite in various degrees of purity” —I feel that I am justified 
in advocating simplicity of diction as opposed to the redefining of 
a term the utility of which to geologists is doubtful. 
‘The engineers, even if they have misapplied the term, are now the 
chief users of it, and weight of numbers will compensate such lack 
of scientific accuracy as exists in the eyes of the world at large. In 
local publications geologists placed like myself must make use of the 
term in order that local readers may know what is being discussed, 
and it was the objection in the Imperial Institute Bulletin to such 
a local use of the term that led me to write in the first instance, since 
I foresaw that the same might happen to me also. I believe that all 
geologists are agreed in aiming at simplicity of terminology. Can 
any geologist who has kept abreast of the literature use the term 
‘laterite’ now without feeling an obligation to explain what he means 
by it? And is it not simpler to say directly what we mean without 
using a term whose original significance we have discarded ? 
J. B. Scrrvenor. 
GxroLocicaL Department, Batu Gasan, 
FEDERATED Matay STATES. 
January 19, 1910. 
CAPE GEOLOGY. 
Srr,— Will you allow me to point out that your reviewer has made 
a mistake in his otherwise very kind remarks on the book on Cape 
Geology written by Mr. Du Toit and myself? He says that ‘‘ no 
references are given to any of the authorities quoted’’: a glance 
through the book will show that references to a considerable number 
of publications, in fact whenever such a course seemed desirable, are 
given in the foot-notes. In a book of this sort the omission of 
references would be a very serious fault, so the oversight on the part 
of the reviewer should be corrected. 
ArtHur W. Rocers. 
FRASERBURG, Carr Cotony. 
January 1, 1910. 
