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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 170 



England, and shown that that country alone ap- 

 propriates twice as much for its surveys as we do. 

 Again, a list is given of some seventy persons 

 having other employments ; most of them being 

 college professors, who have been employed by 

 the geological survey. The report fails to state 

 that this list is in no way a list of employees, 

 but a complete list of persons who at some past 

 time have received one or more payments from 

 the survey, for some special service rendered, 

 without being in any way permanently connected 

 with it or salaried by it. It is clear that a final 

 conclusion cannot be drawn from statements like 

 this until the other side is heard. 



In the January number of the Nineteenth 

 century, Mr. Frederic Harrison published an 

 article on the practice, now so common, of spell- 

 ing foreign and ancient names as they are spelled 

 in the original tongues, even in cases where an 

 anglicized form of the name has been long in use. 

 He spoke particularly of the re- writing of familiar 

 Greek names in conformity with the original 

 spelling, and also of the names of persons and 

 places in the earliest history of England. This 

 practice he characterizes as 'a pedantic nuisance,' 

 and makes some very good points against it. He 

 remarks that " ' Alfred,' * Edward,' and ' Edgar ' 

 are names which for a thousand years have filled 

 English homes and English poetry and prose. To 

 re-write these names is to break the tradition of 

 history and literature at once ; " and he speaks in 

 the same way of the re-writing of familiar 

 Greek names. He also asks where the practice is 

 going to stop, and thinks "we shall soon be in- 

 vited to call 1 Moses,' 'Mosheh,' as his contempo- 

 raries did ; ' Judah ' should be written Yehuda ; ' 

 * Jacob ' will be 1 Ya'aqob ; ' and • Jesus' will be 

 ' Jehoshua.' In short, Mr. Harrison condemns 

 the practice in unqualified terms, on the ground 

 that it violates the established usage of English 

 literature without conferring any compensatory 

 benefits. 



To this article of Mr. Harrison's, Mr. E. A. Free- 

 man has replied in the April number of the 

 Contemporary review. Mr. Harrison had spoken 

 of Mr. Freeman as one of the worst offenders in 

 the matter in question, and the historian's reply 

 is little else than a personal vindication of him- 

 self. Viewed in this light, his article is more or 

 less successful, and he convicts his opponent of 



some mistakes and inaccuracies. But, as a de- 

 fence of the practice that Mr. Harrison condemns, 

 we are obliged to say that Mr. Freeman's reply is 

 unsatisfactory. Indeed, he doesn't argue the 

 main question at all, but treats the matter as little 

 more than a personal affair between himself and 

 Mr. Harrison. This is disappointing ; for the 

 question involved is one that greatly needs a final 

 settlement, and such a settlement can only be 

 reached on some ground of principle. The ques- 

 tion is, whether we are to write all foreign names 

 as they are written in the original languages ; and, 

 if not, then what ones we are to write in that 

 way, and what ones are to be anglicized. Mr. 

 Harrison shows that the writers he criticises are 

 not at all consistent with themselves ; and Mr. 

 Freeman virtually admits that his own practice is 

 not consistent, and that he doesn't follow any 

 general rule. He says that he writes ' Aelfred ' 

 and ' Eadward ' because he finds these names so 

 written in the ancient authorities ; but, neverthe- 

 less, he writes ' Rochester ' and ' Canterbury,' 

 although the old forms of these names are 

 ' Hrofesceaster ' and ' Cantwarabyrig.' He says, 

 too, that he writes 1 Buonaparte,' pronouncing the 

 word in four syllables, for the reason that he 

 learned to do so in his childhood, which strikes 

 us as no reason at all. We hoped, when we took 

 up Mr. Freeman's article, to find him laying 

 down some definite rule or principle which might 

 serve as a guide to all writers in this perplexing 

 matter ; and we are disappointed at finding that 

 he does not even attempt to do so. 



Stories of the occurrence of petrified flesh, 

 or of frogs and toads enclosed in solid rock, and 

 other fables of the same nature, frequently ap- 

 pear in the daily and weekly papers. One not 

 dissimilar, though vastly more absurd, of the 

 finding of two living bats embedded in a solid 

 lump of bituminous coal, from a coal-mine in 

 Maryland, is now going the rounds, and will 

 probably not rest till the press from Maine to 

 California has given publication to it. There was 

 said to have been no crevice admitting the en- 

 trance of these wonderful bats, and that there was 

 a clearly formed impression left by them. The 

 inference, no, the only ' conclusion,' is, that these 

 hoary chiropterans are living remnants of the 

 coal-forming age. It was not long ago that just 

 such a story was told of an ancient toad in an- 

 other coal-mine, only this time the carboniferous 



