January 12, 1894.| 
The translation of the foregoing i is: 
“Oscar Chrisman: 
‘Having observed an article in Science on ‘Secret 
Language of Children,’ I inclose this note to asks if you 
have ever seen anything like it.’ 
Dr. Gregg states that he has not used the neces: 
except to himself, in over fifty years. He thinks it 
must have originated in his family, or in the neighbor- 
hood, at Elmira, N. Y., where he lived when a child. 
He and his younger brother became most proficient in 
the use of this language, although all the members of 
the family understood it, being used by them for ten or 
twelve years. The spelling of the words is quite arbi- 
trary, the principal object being to disguise them as 
much as possible. Sometimes words were contracted, 
as in yalafas, for yes, fas was simply used, leaving off 
the yala. When the language is well spoken it sounds 
somewhat like Hebrew. 
Miss Martha L. Sanford, No. 21 Oread Place, Wor- 
cester, Mass., furnishes the following: 
“Concerning the ‘secret language,’ Hog Latin, or 
rather the particular form of the dialect I knew, per- 
haps some concrete examples may be best, for instance: 
Cagry yougry uggry stagry Hogry Lagry? meaning, Can 
you understand Hog Latin ? 
“<Tgry wegry dowgry towgry thigry morgry. 
town this morning. 
“Tigry igry raigry horgry nowgry. 
now. 
“Wegry shagry hagry agry greegry Chrigrymagry, Mrigry 
Praggry sagry. Weshall have a green Christmas, Mrs. 
Pratt says. 
“Tn order to represent the sounds I ought really to 
use the diacritical marks, since in writing the language 
(which I think I never did before, since it was, so far 
as I know, always a spoken means of communication) 
the same combination of letters may represent more 
than one word; for instance, wegry may mean went, we, 
well, wet, and soon. Of course, the sentences we com- 
posed were usually simple, and if the hearer failed to 
comprehend a word, it could be made plainer by simply 
adding the syllable gry to the word, as, wefgry, wentgry, 
etc.” 
It is pleasantly surprising that these two parties 
should each have furnished me something in secret lan- 
guages which I had not met with before in my study. 
Dr. Gregg gives the following numbering connected 
with his ‘‘gibberish,” as he calls it: 
“t, unzol or unica; 2, zulzol or ureica; 3, ziczol or 
irick; 4, zan or an; 5, filize; 6, falize; 7, niczol-tan or 
nicholastan; 8, minzol; 9, tinzol; 10, hoppzolan or hip. 
““The above are the numbers which were used in 
connection with the gibberish I have sent you. It may 
possibly be derived from some nursery rhyme, as you 
will observe that it has a sort of sing-song about it.” 
Miss Sanford sends this small scrap of a cipher alpha- 
bet. JI do sincerely hope she may get the whole of it, 
as, if I recall correctly, otherwise than in her note I 
have not met the least intimation of any cipher being 
used, and, also, this so well shows the wonderful in- 
genuity of children: 
“With two or three intimates I arranged a cipher al- 
phabet, using such symbols as o, a, for letters, 
and I think I have, packed away in California, some 
scraps of our correspondence, but unfortunately they 
are at present unobtainable.” 
I went down 
It is raining hard 
I wish to make a collection of the secret languages 
of children, so I have asked the editor of Science to be 
kind enough to insert the following: 
1. Please look back into memory a “and see if you have 
traces left of secret languages. 
SCIENCE. 19 
2. How old were you when you used such? How long 
since? 
3. In what city, town, or district were you living at 
the time -you used these languages? 
What did you call it? 
Was it written, spoken or both? 
Did you use special characters to write it? 
give them. 
7. Was the language pretty generally ysed or was it 
known to only a few? 
8. Did the language originate with you or your school- 
mates? If not, trace it as far as you can to its 
origin. 
9. What is the special catch in the language; is it a 
syllable, a letter, an alphabet, or something else? 
Give it. 
10. Write a sentence of not more than twenty-five words 
in your secret language, then immediately follow- 
ing give the words in the regular English. 
11. If other points come into mind not touched upon by 
the queries above, give them. 
12. If you can learn of a secret language being used 
now by children it will be of the very greatest in- 
terest and benefit to gather it up. 
13. In writing down the secret language be careful to 
make your letters very plain, and go over it again 
and again to be sure that your words are spelled as 
you want them. 
14. You may be aided in gathering 
language by reading my article 
of Children,” in Science for Dec. 1, 1893. 
If the readers of this will be kind enough to collect 
such material as they may findin memory or from notes 
or from children and send to me, I shall be truly thank- 
ful, as I wish to continue my studies on the secret lan- 
guage of children, and your aid will be of great ser- 
vice 
ane 
If so, 
and writing your 
“Secret Language 
WERNER’S REAL CONTRIBUTION TO 
GEOLOGY. 
BY J. B. WOODWORTH, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
Pror. G. H. Wititams did a service to his genera- 
tion by recalling to mind, at the Boston meeting of the 
Geological Society of America, the contributions to 
North American geology made by Johann David 
Schoepff. It would be a very useful thing for the stu- 
dent of philosophical geology to have at hand a 
thesaurus of first authors or originators, arranged 
somewhat after the plan of theories of mountain 
building compiled by the late Alexander Winchell in 
his ‘‘World Life.” A work of this kind would place 
credit where it belonged, and would, if carried out on 
a comprehensive plan akin to Gilbert’s ‘‘Classification 
of Geological Phenomena,” present the state of geolog- 
ical theory in the different departments of the science. 
The case of Abraham Gottlob Werner illustrates the 
need of such a handbook. 
Werner was born Sep. 25, 1750, and died June 30, 
1817. He is justly celebrated for his influence upon 
geology, but the prominence which the erroneous 
theory he propounded gave him in the controversy be- 
tween the Vulcanists and Neptunists has led, as Pro- 
fessor John Phillips has stated, to overlooking his real 
contribution to geology. ‘‘We must forget his theory,” 
writes Phillips in his sketch of the progress of the 
science, ‘‘and view only the data which he collected for 
its foundation.” Sir Charles Lyell, in the admirable 
résumé of the history of geology, w “hich he gives in his 
“Principles,’’ does not credit Werner with the dev elop- 
ment of the principles of studying rock structure, on 
which the success of the field geologist depends. Phi 
