experiments of Professor Prestwick seem to show the mean rate of 

 increase to be one degree for every forty-five feet. Thus at a depth 

 of 10,000 feet we reach the temperature of boiling water, 212 

 degrees, and at twice that depth a temperature at which all surface 

 rocks would be liquid. Now as we are already quite within a 

 calculable distance of the exhaustion of our coal supply, it is clear 

 that we must ere very long, find some other means of obtaining 

 heat and motive power, and this Mr. Gardener proposes to do by 

 means of deep borings down to the liquid lava which is supposed to 

 underlie the solid crust of the earth. I cannot help thinking this 

 a very wild suggestion, for even were it possible in the present 

 state of engineering science to make a sufficiently deep boring, 

 which I very much doubt, the actual expense would be simply 

 incalculable ; and again, supposing the. theory of a liquid interior to 

 be true, which is by no means proven, we should only succeed in 

 establishing an artificial volcano, which would not only be a rather 

 undesirable aquisition, but would prove a decidedly unmanageable 

 source of caloric to manipulate ! 



Believing, as I do, that science should be comprehensible to all, 

 and some knowledge of it should be attainable by everyone of 

 average intelligence, I must here protest against the practice, 

 which is becoming every day more prevalent, of using a pedantic 

 jargon of composite Greek and Latin words where generally plain 

 English would answer the purpose as well, and often far better. 

 Botany, Geology, Palaeontology, and even Medicine, are now all 

 crowded with crack-jaw names of this description ; it appears as 

 though would-be scientific men were bent on shrouding science in 

 the same sort of mystery as surrounded Astrology and Alchemy in 

 in the middle ages. For instance Petalorhynchus positlacinus 

 petalonidcB is a fairly long name for a shark, but it pales into 

 insignificance beside Amblystomatigrinum mavorticum-hallowelli- 

 suspectum-maculatissimum ! The chemists are not one whit behind- 

 hand with new compound names, such as Hydroxy isopropyli phenyl- 

 neketone carhoxylic-acid, not to mention giving some half-dozen 

 different names to our old friend carbolic-acid. Professor Mattieu 

 Williams has been recently calling attention to the above absurd 

 pedantries, and he concludes one of his caustic articles with a 

 humourous suggestion that plum-pudding should, on the same 

 principle of descriptive names, be called sueto- flour-egg-candied-peel- 

 raisino-spice-currant-conglomerate ! Surely the object of teachers 

 should be to render science both clear and attractive, not to 

 envelope it in an incomprehensible verbiage. 



During the last year, the cause of Temperance has continued to 

 advance with rapid strides, but I am nevertheless glad to find no 

 less eminent a man than Sir Henry Thompson recently insisting 



