I go 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXI. No. 531 



have been described a thousand times. But I take pleasure in 

 directing public attention to two adjacent caverns, belonging to 

 the Mammoth Cave estate, and that are seldom visited, though 

 each for different reasons should challenge admiration. The 

 White Cave (so named eighty years ago on account of the white- 

 ness of its formations) is entered at a point half a mile from the 

 hotel. Its floor is cut by numerous channels, through which 

 water runs so pure as to be almost invisible, leading to exquisite 

 pools with ruffled and incurved rim, none of them being more 

 than two or three feet deep. The roof is for the most part low 

 and fretted with numberless dainty stalactites. Advancing, we 

 find the floor encumbered with huge blocks of limestone, and the 

 cave divided longitudinally by a wall of noble stalagmites far 

 beyond anything of the sort to be seen in the adjacent larger 

 cavern. It ends in a profound pit, named by us Bishop's Dome, 

 for our guide, Eddie Bishop, who, so far as is known, was the 

 first to descend to its bottom, which feat he accomplished in our 

 presence. It is supposed that the White Cave is connected with 

 the Mammoth Cave at some point near the end of Audubon Ave- 

 nue, or possibly at Little Bat Avenue; but this remains yet to be 

 proved. 



For ten years past I have heard of Dixon's Cave, but had never 

 been informed that it was in any way remarkable, except for 

 having possibly been at some remote period the original mouth 

 of Blammoth Cave, and even this seemed to be a matter of doubt. 

 Being desirous of seeing it, simply for the sake of completing my 

 work, I donned my usual cave attire, and sallied forth one March 

 morning with Bishop the guide. Snow had fallen to a depth of 

 four inches, through which the brave daffodils in the garden 

 lifted their golden heads, while the more modest spring flowers 

 that had been tempted to bloom too soon lay hidden under the 

 wide, snowy blanket. The ice-laden trees glistened in the vernal 

 sunshine. As we broke our way through the budding under- 

 brush of the oak^ opening, tracks were visible of rabbits, foxes, 

 and wild turkeys. After going thus for several hundred yards, 

 we were confronted by a wide chasm in the hillside, into whose 

 yawning gulf great moss-grown forest-trees had plunged head- 

 foremost. Ci'eeping under or climbing over their prostrate 

 trunks, we gased awe-stricken into the mightiest cavern-mouth I 

 ever saw. The whole cavern is a single hall, which, by our 

 measurement, is 1500 feet long, from 60 to 80 feet wide, and from 

 80 to 125 feet high, gradually curving from southeast to due 

 south; the dimensions being quite uniform from end to end and 

 from top to bottom. The roof is decorated here and there by 

 alabaster. stalactites, and at the time of our visit it was also ap- 

 propriated by myriads of hibernating bats, clinging in great clus- 

 ters lite swarms of bees. The floor was long ago gone over by 

 the saltpetre miners of 181'3, who had left the rocky fragments 

 piled in what might be described as stony billows lying across 

 the cave, each wave being 40 feet through at the base and rising 

 25 or 30 feet above the true floor. At the extreme end the mass 

 of nitrous earth seemed not to have been disturbed, over which we 

 climbed to the very roof, and amid whose nooks we diligently 

 sought a way of access to Mammoth Cave. We did not succeed ; 

 but subsequent outside measurements satisfied us that we had 

 reached within 60 feet of the desired goal, and that by suitable 

 excavation the connection might be made. Before leaving 

 Dixon's Cave, I stationed Bishop at the inner end, while I gained 

 a point midway where I could see the \thite sunlight as it was 

 reflected from the snow, and then had him ignite three Bengal 

 lights. The effect was indiscribably grand as their brilliant 

 illumination crept through the black darkness till it cast my 

 shadow on the fainter sunlight itself, like a giant spectre, and 

 finally blended with the outer light, thus enabling me to take in 

 at a single glance the vast dimensions of what may be justly 

 styled the most magnificent subterranean hall in the known 

 world. On our return to the hotel, we made our way by the 

 mouth of Mammoth Cave and saw it environed by trackless snow, 

 its mosses and vines spangled with silver, and the wild, pattering 

 cascade falling from the rocks above to the rocks b<?low as it has 

 done for ages. And, turning away, I echoed with all my 

 heart the guide's naive exclamation, "I fairly love old Mam- 

 moth Cave." 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



#** Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer's name 

 is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



On request in advance^ one hundred copies of the number containing his 

 communication toill be furnished free to any correspondent . 



The editor willbe glad to publish any queries consonant with the character 

 of the journal. 



Anatomical Nomenclature. 



As the years go by the movement for a thorough and scientific 

 revision of biological nomenclature gains in depth and strength, 

 and we have every reason to believe that great and lasting bene- 

 fits will accrue to science as the result of these attempts to in- 

 crease the precision and fitness of our scientific language. Be- 

 lieving that every increment, however small, is a distinct gain if 

 it only possess the qualities above mentioned, I propose the fol- 

 lowing modifications in anatomical nomenclature for the consid- 

 eration of all anatomists interested in this important work. 



In my paper on the vertebrate ear,' I brought out in consider- 

 able detail the two following considerations regarding the mor- 

 phology of the auditory nerve and made certain suggestions 

 looking to an improved nomenclature of these parts. In the first 

 place it was shown that anatomists had not adequately recog- 

 nized the true nature of the auditory nerve owing to the persist- 

 ence of the older view of the nature of the auditory organ, which 

 was regarded as a morphological unit. Such a well-defined unit 

 could only be supplied by an equally well-defined (single) nerve. 

 It was there for the first time proposed to recognize in our termi- 

 nology the fact that the auditory nerve is composed of two very 

 thoroughly separated parts, both as concerns their central ends 

 and their peripheral origin. 



In the second place it was brought out that these two parts 

 showed certain important anatomical relations to two other 

 cranial nerves from which these branches of the auditory had in 

 all probability arisen during phylogenetic development. The 

 names proposed are N. auditorius ramus utricularis and ramus 

 saccularis, or the utricular and saccular nerves, respectively. 

 This nomenclature is based on a very extended study of the com- 

 parative morphology of the acoustic apparatus. These terms 

 are superior to and in every way perferable to the other current 

 designations such as N. cochlese and vestibuli, or N. superior 

 and inferior^ 



The terms, N. vestibuli and N. cochlear, are ill-chosen, from 

 the fact that the morphology of the " vestibule " and its parts 

 as conceived by the anatomists who first proposed this term has 

 no real existence. On the other hand, the term N. cochlearis is 

 unsuitable, not to say inadequate, from the fact that this nerve is 

 not solely a cochlear nerve since its trunk contains nerves to the 

 "vestibule" as well, viz., the saccular and posterior ampullar 

 nerves wherever these are not provided with separate foramina. 

 The central relation of these two nerves is always with the mass 

 of cochlear fibi-es in those forms possessing an enlarged cochlear 

 apparatus, as well as in the more primitive condition of the audi- 

 tory organ. 



While engaged in reconstructing our anatomical nomenclature 

 it is very desirable that we choose those terms which express the 

 present condition of our knowledge and give promise of being 

 adequate for the future as well, for, I take it, the recent move- 

 ment for a betterment of biological nomenclature is dominated 

 by the universal desire for as simple, short, and expi-essive a 

 terminology as shall be adequate not only to the science as it ex- 

 ists to-day, but also to its expanded condition in the not distant 

 future. None of these conditions are f ulfiled by any of the terms 

 yet applied to the ear-nerve except the two, utricularis and sac- 

 cularis. 



No broad-minded anatomist will desire to retain names in hu- 

 man anatomy that are inapplicable to all other vertebrates pos- 

 sessing the homologous arrangements of the parts under consid- 

 eration. Not all vertebrates, not even a majority of them, possess 

 a cochlea, consequently we should have to provide another name 

 for the same nerve in lower forms or else have the anomaly of 

 an animal without a cochlea provided with a " cochlear nerve.'. 



1 A contribution to the Morphology o£ the Vertebrate Ear, etc. Journ. 

 Morph., VI.,1893. 



