912 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 128 



Howell because of illness ; and Professor 

 E. H. Chittenden read a paper upon ' In- 

 ternal Secretions : Considered from a 

 Chemieo-physiological Standpoint.' 



These addresses will appear in an early 

 number of Science. 



Feedeeic S. Lee, 



Secretary. 

 Columbia University. 



THE INTRODUCTION OF NEW TERMS IN 

 GEOLOGY. 



The third circular sent out this year by 

 the Committee of the International Con- 

 gress of Geologists makes this statement : 

 " V inondation de nouveaux termes dans le 

 science a atteint de telles dimensions, que hientot 

 aucune memoire d'homme ne sera en Hat de 

 retenir toute la masse des denominations nou- 

 velles et que la lecture de chaque memoire neees- 

 sitera I'emjjloi d'u7i glossaire special." In an- 

 other paragraph new terms are spoken of as 

 ' evidently nothing more than a useless in- 

 cumbrance to the science.' 



Writers on scientific subjects have often 

 heard complaints about their ' hard words,' 

 but these complaints have generally come 

 from laymen ; we have not before had an 

 uprising in our own ranks. In our opinion 

 it has Come none too soon. One can 

 scarcely read a paper on geology nowadays 

 without feeling thankful for what is not in 

 it, if he reaches the end without running 

 upon some new term or some new use of an 

 old one. Indeed, we lately saw a review 

 of a text-book which the writer ended with 

 the remark that not the least of the book's 

 many virtues was the fact that the author 

 had avoided the introduction of new terms. 



"We Americans have contributed our 

 big share to this ' inundation,' and have 

 aggravated the case by the use of Indian 

 words and place-names that are not fa- 

 miliar even in this country except locally. 

 In order to get an idea as to how far some 

 of these words are comprehended by the 



common run of educated people in this 

 country, we have inquired of many persons 

 what idea the word ' Monadnock ' conveyed 

 to their minds. Most of them had seen 

 the word, but knew nothing of its original 

 meaning. One young man said he didn't 

 know what it meant, but it was the name 

 of a big office bu ilding in Chicago . Anoth er 

 one knew it onlj^ as a warship in the 

 American Navy. 



Such names are said to be used on ac- 

 count of their fastening in the mind certain 

 series of facts. But where is this thing to 

 end? "We now have a bare hill protruding 

 from the ice called a ' !N"unatak,' and if one 

 of our term -makers should visit Iceland we 

 should soon have ' J5kul,' the name for a 

 snow-capped peak. 



A hill with one history is a ' Monadnock,' 

 with another it is a ' Cotoctin,' and with 

 another it is a ' Katahdin.' For as good 

 reason we might call a synclinal valley a 

 ' Lackawanna,' a synclinal mountain a 

 ' Shickshinny,' a monoclinal ridge a ' Pin- 

 damonhangaba,' and an anticlinal ridge a 

 ' Jacarepagua.' And when the bewildered 

 European geologist doesn't know what they 

 all mean we act the part of one of Bret 

 Harte's characters who inquired of the man 

 who hadn't heard of his partner : 



What? "Didn't know Flynn, 

 Flynn of Virginia ? 

 Look 'ee here, stranger, 

 Whar hev yi-u been ? " 



New terms are often defended on the 

 ground of their being logical. A little 

 thought will convince any one that geology 

 — not an exact science — can never have a 

 logical and precise system of terms. Be- 

 sides, the logic of the names of rocks, min- 

 erals and releaf features has nothing to do 

 with the science of geology as a science, 

 while the fixity of a nomenclature is of 

 much more importance than any logic or 

 special fitness of the words themselves. 



Names are mere conveniences — museum 



