168 ScientiJiG Intelligence, 



SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 



11. Geology and Minekalogy. 



1. Anticlinorium and Synclinorium. — Questions of nomencla- 

 ture in science are of course altogether subordinate to questions 

 of fact or principle. They are, nevertheless, by no means unim- 

 portant. Two propositions in regard to nomenclature command, 

 I think, general acceptance : first, a name already introduced 

 ought not, save in most exceptional cases, to be employed in a 

 different sense from that in which it was originally employed ; 

 secondly, when a new word is introduced, or when an old word (in 

 the exceptional cases in which such procedure is justifiable) is 

 employed in a new sense, the word ought to be etymologically 

 appropriate to the meaning assigned. 



For both of these reasons, it seems to be matter for regret that 

 Professor Van Hise, in his masterly discussion of Folds,* in the 

 Journal of Geology for April-May, has seen fit to use the words 

 " anticlinorium " and " synclinorium " in the sense respectively of 

 composite anticline and composite syncline. As correctly stated 

 by Professor Van Hise, the words " anticlinorium " and *' syncli- 

 norium " were first used by the late Professor James D. Dana. 

 They were, however, used by Professor Dana in a very different 

 sense from that in which Professor Van Hise now proposes to 

 employ them. The paper in which they were first published was 

 entitled, " On Some Results of the Earth's Contraction from 

 Cooling, including a Discussion of the Origin of Mountains, and 

 the Nature of the Earth's Interior ;" and was published in this 

 Journal for June, ]873.t In that article. Professor Dana ex- 

 pounded his well-known view, that, in the great majority of cases, 

 a mountain range is formed by the crushing of the thick mass of 

 strata which have slowly accumulated during the progressive sub- 

 sidence of a great geosyncline. Such a mountain range he pro- 

 posed to call a synclinorium, the latter half of the word being 

 derived from the Greek opoi, a mountain. The word therefore 

 expressed very appropriately the conception of a mountain range 

 made out of the material accumulated in a great synclinal depres- 

 sion. 



In the same article, Professor Dana called attention to the 

 fact that, in some instances, an elevation of land so great and so 

 permanent as to deserve recognition as a mountain range might 

 be the result of a geanticlinal movement, and the corresponding 

 term " anticlinorium " was proposed for such an elevation. 

 According to this view, the Appalachian range, when first formed 

 at the close of Paleozoic time, was a typical synclinorium. In its 

 reelevation in Tertiary time, after the long Mesozoic cycle of 



* Deformation of Rocks. — II. An Analysis of Folds. Journal of Geology, vol. 

 iv, pp. 312-353. 



f This Journal, III, v, pp. 423-443. 



