254 Scientific Intelligence. 



II. Geology and Mineralogy. 



1. Note respecting the term Agnotozoic. — In the closing por- 

 tion of the article in the November number of this Journal 

 entitled "Is there a Huronian Group?" Prof. R. D. Irving has 

 advocated the adoption of the term "Agnotozoic" as a compre- 

 hensive designation for the fragmental rocks which lie between 

 the base of the Cambrian formations and the summit of the Ar- 

 chrean crystallines, and has credited me with the authorship of 

 the term and the early advocacy of the desirableness of a distinct 

 name for these formations. Concerning this I wish to file a dis- 

 claimer ; not that I do not fully concur with Professor Irving in 

 this advocacy, for I do most cordially, nor because I suppose it to 

 be a matter of consequence to Professor Irving, since I know that 

 he holds all questions of priority or proprietorship in nomencla- 

 ture in little esteem, if not in light contempt. I wish to file the 

 disclaimer not because of this special case but out of respect for 

 a general principle in nomenclature, which I hope to see adopted 

 to the displacement of a purely technical and indiscriminative ap- 

 plication of the law of priority. I hold that nomenclature of the 

 class in question should rest, not with some individual, who, 

 standing by and looking upon the work of others, may see, per- 

 chance before they do, whereunto their labors are growing ; nor 

 with some one, who, on the basis of superficial observation and 

 hasty conjecture, throws out first to the world a tentative nomencla- 

 ture, leaving it to the future and to the labors of others to justify 

 or reject; but on the contrary, I hold it should rest with the 

 patient and thoroughgoing investigator, who by careful and com- 

 prehensive study develops an adequate basis for nomenclature, 

 properly sanctioned by a broad and trustworthy array of facts. 

 I have been in some senses a student of the formations to be em- 

 braced under the proposed term, but in no such sense as to give 

 me the right of nomenclature under this principle. . If, therefore, 

 this term shall be adopted, as I sincerely trust it may, I earnestly 

 desire that it shall stand to the credit of some one who has had a 

 larger part in the actual development of the facts upon which its 

 adoption must rest, among whom I know of no one who has con- 

 tributed more than Professor Irving. 



If it were needful I could take refuge behind the fact that al- 

 though I have used the term in correspondence, conversation, 

 discussion and other informal ways for the past two years, more 

 or less, I have nowhere formally proposed it in a scientific publi- 

 cation ; but it is the principle of just nomenclature, and not a spe- 

 cific result in this case that gives purpose to this note. 



On this principle, as well as technically also, the name Kewee- 

 nawian or Keweenawan should be credited to Major T. B. Brooks, 

 or to Messrs. Brooks and Pumpelly jointly, since it was through 

 their labors that there was first presented a sufficient body of 

 specific facts, correctly interpreted, to justify the adoption of the 

 term by those who accept the distinctness of that formation. The 



