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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 999' 



matter, either unscientific, or are prevented, by 

 some of their orthodox leaders from being 

 scientific, in what should be an elementary 

 matter of science, namely the accurate ascer- 

 tainment and the intelligible record of the 

 sounds of the English language, and of the 

 other languages used in science. They are 

 thus hostile to the sciences of philology and 

 phonetics; and some openly proclaim their 

 hostility. 



If any of your correspondents who may do 

 me the honor to dissent from these views will 

 attempt to state in Science (and I am sure 

 that the editor would be willing to permit the 

 experiment) the actual facts about the words 

 which Professor Arthur mentioned, namely, 

 fungus, fungous, and fungoid (or any other 

 group of words offering like conditions) ; to 

 state exactly, in print, the pronunciation which 

 those words have or should have; to state ex- 

 actly what is or what should be the plural of 

 fungus; to state exactly the nature of the dif- 

 ference between funguses and fungusses; to 

 state exactly the different pronunciations of 

 fungi; to state also whether the word so spelled 

 is Latin or English, and whether it is Latin or 

 English in all its pronunciations, or in one — 

 if any one will try to do this, and succeed in 

 doing it without recourse to the abhorred sci- 

 ence of philology, and the despised "fad" of 

 phonetics, I should like to see the result. 



Even in the much simpler matter of a 

 modernized spelling of English, we find the 

 scientific journals holding aloof from the sci- 

 entific view, and clinging to an unscientific 

 and medieval spelling, while, nevertheless, in 

 their columns we find frequent jibes or jabs at 

 other medieval superstitions, and at other 

 popular errors. 



Tet nearly one fourth of the men who are 

 recorded in Dr. Cattell's biographic diction- 

 ary, "American Men of Science," in the first 

 edition, signed a card agreeing to use some 

 simplified spellings, and thereby gave the idea 

 the value of their approval. No doubt they 

 still cherish the same sentiments. In fact, 

 some of them cherish these sentiments so 

 fondly that they are wholly unwilling to part 

 with them, or to share them with the public. 



So they wrap themselves in their intellectual 

 integrity, put over that the cloak of scientific 

 orthodoxy, and go about disguised as harmless 

 men. And the directors of scientific societies 

 and institutions sit and do likewise. Then 

 they arise and print pretty things about sci- 

 ence and progress. 



And longer should I sing, but with a frown 

 the editor, impatient, rises. Having thus laid 

 myself open to a lapidation of my meter 

 (which some scientific gents will spell 

 " metre," or die in the attempt) , not to say 

 of my orthographic orthodoxy, I blush and 

 drop my sling — before I smile a sickly smile 

 and curl up on the floor. 



Charles P. G. Scott 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Gas Analysis. By L. M. Dennis, Professor of 



Inorganic Chemistry in Cornell University. 



New York, The Macmillan Co., 1913. Pp. 



434. Price $2.10 net. 



This book may perhaps be described as the 

 American Hempel. It is based upon the 

 translation of Hempel's last edition, but ex- 

 tensive additions have been made by the au- 

 thor. The reviewer has always considered the- 

 plan of publishing researches in a text-book 

 open to question, even though this adds ma- 

 terially to the value of the book to the in- 

 vestigator. It would seem better to make- 

 them much more widely known by having the 

 researches appear in a periodical. 



It is fair to expect in a work of its size that 

 it should be encyclopedic and that the latest 

 work should be included. No mention how- 

 ever is made of Uehling's automatic apparatus 

 for analyzing chimney gas ; of the Sargent gas 

 calorimeter; of Elliott's gas apparatus, which 

 is probably the most widely used of any for 

 illuminating gas ; of Hinman- Jenkins's method 

 for total sulphur ; of Craf ts's method for puri- 

 fying mercury; of the excellent work of Bur- 

 rell and others of the Bureau of Mines in 

 analyzing mine gases; of the detection of car- 

 bonic oxide by birds and mice; of the absorp- 

 tion of hydrogen by palladium chloride ; of the 

 practical application of chimney-gas analysis 

 and of the calculations involved. 



