13G 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 369. 



In this connection it is amusing to re- 

 member how Ruskin attacked Tyndall for 

 a similar indiscretion. The latter had re- 

 ferred to a certain theory which was in 

 debate, and had said that it, and the like 

 of it, was ' a dynamic power which operates 

 against intellectual stagnation.' Ruskin 

 commented thus : ' ' How a dynamic power 

 differs from an undynamie one, and, pre- 

 sumably, also, a potestatic dynamis from 

 an unpotestatic one— and how much more 

 scientific it is to say, instead of — that our 

 spoon stirs our porridge— that it ' operates 

 against the stagnation of our porridge,' 

 Professor Tyndall trusts the reader to 

 recognize with admiration." 



Among geological names there is that 

 comfortable word ' metasomatosis ' and its 

 offspring of ' metasomatic interchange ' 

 ' metasomatic action, ' ' metasomatic origin, ' 

 etc., etc. To a few who employ the term to 

 express a particular manner in which rocks 

 undergo change, it is a convenient word 

 for a definite idea, but for the greater 

 number of writers on geological subjects 

 it is a wordy cloud, a nebular phrase, 

 which politely covers the haziness of their 

 knowledge concerning a certain phenom- 

 enon. When you don't know what a thing 

 is, call it a ' phenomenon ' ! Instances of 

 mere vulgarity of scientific language are 

 too numerous to mention. ' Auriferous ' 

 and ' argentiferous ' are ugly words. They 

 are unnecessary ones also. The other day 

 a metallurgical specialist spoke of ' aurifer- 

 ous amalgamation ' as though any process 

 in which mercury is used could be gold- 

 bearing unless it was part of the program 

 that somebody should add particles of gold 

 to the ore under treatment. A mining 

 engineer, of the kind known to the press 

 as an expert, described a famous lode as 

 traversing ' on the one hand a feldspathic 

 tuf aceous rock ' and ' on the other hand a 

 metamorphic matrix of a somewhat argillo- 

 arenaceous composition.' This is scientific 



nonsense, the mere travesty of speech. To 

 those who care to dissect the terms used it 

 is easily seen that the writer of them could 

 make nothing out of the rocks he had ex- 

 amined, save the fact that they were de- 

 composed and that the rock which he de- 

 scribed last might have been almost any- 

 thing, for all he said of it; for his de- 

 scription, when translated, means literally 

 a changed matter of a somewhat clayey- 

 sandy composition, which, in Anglo-Saxon, 

 is m-u-d ! The ' somewhat ' is the one use- 

 ful word in the sentence. Such language 

 may be described in the terms of miner- 

 alogy as metamorphosed English pseudo- 

 morphic after blatherskite. Some years 

 ago, when I was at a small mine near 

 Georgetown, in Colorado, a professor 

 visited the underground workings and was 

 taken through them. He immediately be- 

 gan to make a display of verbal fireworks 

 which bewildered the foreman and the 

 other miners whom he met in the mine, all 

 save one, a little Cornishman, who, bring- 

 ing him a bit of the clay which accom- 

 panied one of the walls of the lode, said to 

 him, ' What do 'ee call un, you 1 ' The 

 professor replied, ' It is the argillaceous 

 remnant of an antediluvian world. ' Quick 

 as a flash came the comment, ' That 's just 

 what I told me pardner.' He was not de- 

 ceived by the vapor of words. 



Next consider the position of the reader. 

 It is scarcely necessary^at this date to plead 

 for the cause of technical education and 

 the generous bestowal of the very best that 

 there is of scientific knowledge. The great 

 philosophers of that New Reformation 

 which marked the era of the publication of 

 ' The Origin of Species ' have given most 

 freely to all men of their wealth of learn- 

 ing and research. When these have given 

 so much we might well be less niggardly 

 with our small change and cease the prac- 

 tice of distributing, not good wholesome 

 intellectual bread, but the mere stones of 



