January 20, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



Ill 



mosses from the Cape of Good Hope,* dedi- 

 cated to N. B. Ward, Esq. The genus and 

 one species, W. hygrometrica, were fully de- 

 scribed and figured. If it be said in ex- 

 tenuation that the work in which it occurs 

 is somewhat difficult of access, this can not be 

 said of Endlicher's ' Genera Plantarum,' which 

 is in all libraries, and where (p. 1345) the 

 genus is redescribed and is duly entered in the 

 index. The author of this two-fold achieve- 

 ment is a member of the Committee on Botan- 

 ical Nomenclature! Lester F. Ward. 



DELUC'S ' GEOLOGICAL LETTERS.' 



To THE Editor of Scien'ce: With all due 

 respect for the opinions of Dr. Emmons and 

 Sir Archibald Geikie, I am unable to see why 

 von Zittel was not scrupulously exact in his 

 handling of facts when crediting Delue with 

 prior use of the term ' geology ' as compared 

 with de Saussure. The latter uses it but 

 twice, defining it as ' la Theorie de la Terre,' 

 in the earliest edition of his work, published 

 in 1779. The second authorized edition of 

 Deluc's ' Letters ' (it had already been pirated) 

 appeared also in 1779, the term ' geology ' oc- 

 curring in the body of the work an equal 

 number of times (vol. I., pp. 4, 5), and again 

 in a footnote on p. 7, where it is observed that 

 the word ' cosmology ' is more generally used 

 in an equivalent sense. 



It is worth noting that this footnote, which 

 purports to be of identical^ tenor with the first 

 edition, scarcely justifies the assertion that 

 Deluc ' could not venture to adopt the term 

 geology because it was not a word in use.' 

 More to the point is a passage where the au- 

 thor expressly designates the work in hand as 

 a treatise on geology: ' Je vis que je j:"aisois 

 un Traite, et non une esquisse de Geologie.' 



*'\Var(lia: a New Gemis of ^Mosses, discovered 

 in Southern Africa,' by W. H. Harvey and W. .T. 

 Hooker; Companion to the Botanical Magazine, 

 Vol. II., London, 18.30, pp. 183-184, pi. xxv. 



t The text reads as follows in the 1779 edition: 

 " Je r^pfete ici, ce que j'avois dit dans ma premifere 

 Preface, sur la substitution du mot Cosmologie ft 

 celui de Oeologic: * * " c'est que I'usage ordi- 

 naire a eonsacre le premier de ces mots, dans le 

 sens ort je I'eniploic." 



He constantly refers to it later under the ab- 

 breviated title of ' Lettres Geologiques,'* and 

 intitulated another of his productions ' Traite 

 elementaire Geologic.' It appears, there- 

 fore, that beginning with 1778, a year before 

 de Saussure's work saw the light, and con- 

 tinuously thei'eafter, Deluc employed the term 

 geology in its modern sense; hence he is en- 

 titled to generous consideration for having 

 helped bring the name our science now bears 

 into familiar use. Deluc, in pointing out the 

 etymological propriety of ' geology ' no doubt 

 furnished a suggestion which de Saussure 

 immediately caught at, since he twice em- 

 ploys the term, as Dr. Emmons has said, 

 ' without any explanation or apology,' and al- 

 ludes also to ' the geologist,' as is natural. 

 Von Zittel seems to me to have exercised very 

 candid judgment in this matter, and one must 

 be a very ' strict constructionist ' indeed who 

 can deny Deluc's claims to priority. 



Almost simultaneously with the authors just 

 considered, the celebrated Werner appears to 

 have been instrumental, to some extent, in 

 popularizing the term geology. Werner's defi- 

 nition of this and cognate words is given by 

 one of his distinguished pupils, d'Aubuisson, 

 from whose ' Traite de Geognosie ' we extract 

 the following (vol. I., p. 2) : " Werner re- 

 marque, en outre, que les noms composes de 

 logos, tels que zoologie, mineralogie, etc., de- 

 signent I'universitalite de nos connaissances 

 sur un objet ; et, d'apres cela, la geologie com- 

 prend, selon lui, non seulement la geognosie, 

 mais encore la geographic, I'hydrographie, la 

 geogenie, etc." 



C. R. Eastmax. 



December 29, 1904. 



UNIVERSITY REGISTR.\TION STATISTICS. 



To THE Editor of Science: On reading the 

 article ' University Registration Statistics ' 

 (Science, K S., Vol. XX., No. 552, December 

 30, 1904), it occurred to me that it would be 

 interesting to know the average number of 

 students to each teacher, in the institvitions 

 mentioned. The ' Total Registration ' (not 

 including the ' Summer Sessions '), divided by 



■■ Compare, for instance, his frequent correspond- 

 ence in the Journal de Physique. 



