526 ISRAEL C. RUSSELL 



erize the multiple sources from which they were adopted. One of 

 the pressing duties of the scientific student of the earth's surface, and 

 one which on account of its many difficulties may well be reckoned 

 among the physiographic problems of today, is the giving of fixed 

 and precise meanings to the words employed in describing and classi- 

 fying the features of the earth's surface A scientific physiographical 

 nomenclature is of importance, not only to the special students of the 

 earth's surface, but through them to communities and patrons. The 

 diverse interpretations that have been given to such seemingly simple 

 terms as "shore," "lake," "river," "hill," "mountain," "divide," 

 etc., as is well known, have led to misunderstandings, litigations, 

 international disputes, and even threatened to bring on war between 

 highly civilized nations. A duty which physiographers owe, not 

 only to their science in order that its continued advancement may be 

 assured, but to communities in payment for the terms borrowed from 

 them, as well as for the general good, is a systematic effort accurately 

 to define the words and terms now used to designate the features of 

 the earth's surface. Careful attention needs to be given also to the 

 coinage of new terms when their need is definitely assured. An 

 appropriate task for a group of physiographers would be the prepara- 

 tion of a descriptive geographical dictionary, suited to the wants of both 

 the specialist and the layman. 



While considering the advantages of a language of science, its 

 disadvantages should also be recognized. 



The histories of all sciences show that, as they became more and 

 more precise, and as their nomenclature grew so as to meet their 

 internal requirements more and more completely, they at the same 

 time, on account of the very precision and accuracy of their language, 

 became more and more circumscribed and farther and farther removed 

 from the great mass of humanity for whose use and benefit they exist. 

 Not only this, but a science dealing with facts of vast public importance 

 and filled with instructive and entertaining matter — nay, in itself 

 even poetic and as fascinating as the pages of a story-book — has, in 

 not a few instances, been rendered difficult to understand, and even 

 repellant to the general reader, by a bristling array of esoteric terms 

 built about it like an abatis. 



Between the two extremes — on the one hand, a science without 



