472 Significant Nomenclature. [August, 
liquid. To prevent to a certain extent this loss I precipi- 
tated the copper from it as arsenite ; but I was not success- 
ful in the few experiments I had time to make on this part 
of the subject of re-converting the copper arsenite thus ob- 
tained into the aceto-arsenite by the addition of acetic acid. 
V. SIGNIFICANT NOMENCLATURE. 
By Wm. John Grey, F.C.S. 
r. F. FERNSEED, as a representative of the non- 
significant side of scientific nomenclature, has 
made a very able attack upon the opposite school 
in the “Journal of Science ” for April last, and I wish, as 
one of those who are of opinion that a scientific name 
should be made as significant as is conveniently practicable, 
to offer a few observations by way of reply. Significant 
names are systematic names, and therefore scientific names, 
for the objedt of Science is to systematise knowledge as well 
as to acquire it ; indeed the mere accumulation of fadts is 
scarcely to be dignified with the title Science. 
Sciences have advanced rapidly or slowly, very much in 
proportion to the amount of system which could be applied 
to them. As examples of this, the cases of Astronomy and 
Meteorology may be cited : in the first great progress has 
been made, mainly on account of the system which the law 
of gravitation enabled to be constructed out of the observed 
fadts ; in the second case we have but little more than a 
chaos of observations which it has not yet been found pos- 
sible to systematise. . . 
The science of Chemistry occupies a kind of mean position 
between the perfedt system in Astronomy and the almost 
complete lack of system in Meteorology. Much has been 
done in the way of systematising Chemistry, but probably 
very much more remains to be accomplished, and chemists 
are yet waiting for the man who will do for their science 
what Newton did for Astronomy and Darwin for Natural 
History. No significant nomenclature is possible unless 
the science in which it is used has become moie or less 
systematised, and hence significant names are an indication 
of at least some progress. It is of course easy to objedt to 
