If weather-glass be employed instead of barometer, we may gain a syllable, but at what a cost! And if we translate the word by weightmeasurer, there is no gain whatever. What vernacular terms could be found to express oxygen, chlorine, hydrogen, &c.? and still less the significant compounds hydrochloric, hydrocyanic, protoxide, deutoxide, &c.

There is no ground for apprehension that any undue number of foreign words will be introduced, because there is no inducement but necessity to employ them; all languages were formed, and even matured, in the infancy of science of every kind, all, therefore, must be extended as new ideas are acquired, or new objects require naming. Viewed with regard to these wants of science, ours is a barbarous and impracticable language, and does not admit of the formation of brief and efficient compounds; and if we were to insist on the adoption of native, to the exclusion of foreign terms, knowledge would receive a check which would be nearly fatal to its progress. The communication of knowledge depends on the right use of correct definitions or descriptions, which ought to be as brief as is compatible with precision and accuracy; no word employed, should, if possible, be ambiguous, or have more than one signification, but the principal roots of any language, from their early and constant use, have become associated with many trains of ideas, which being inevitably excited when the word occurs, its use is incompatible with the singleness of meaning which is requisite to a good description*.

The first essential step the student must take, especially in natural history, is the attainment of a correct conception of the principles of classification, without which he can only acquire isolated facts, burdensome to his memory. He must understand the nature of genera and species, and be impressed with the incalculable advantage, in point of

It will not be useless to give a few examples, taken at random, of the ambiguity which would arise from the use of trivial names, which were given before science had pointed out the affinities of natural objects. The name violet is well adapted for a generic term, but it has been given in two or three instances to plants which have not the slightest affinity with a true violet, as the Calathian violet (Gentiana pneumonanthe), the dogs'-tooth violet (Erythronium dens canis), &c. The term Nightshade is given to two distinct genera, and this is the case in innumerable instances. There are between thirty and forty plants designated by names compounded of the celtic root wort, as starwort, mad-wort, spleen-wort, spider-wort, &c. &c.; and in several cases there are three or more plants to which one of these names is given, with some other distinguishing term, though the plants have no real connexion; thus we have Star-wort (Aster), Water Star-wort (Callitriche). Now, is it not obvious that, these names were retained, the mind would naturally associate the plants, from the similarity in their appellations?

A living poet has written some beautiful

verses to the Celandine," and by his description, it is clear he did not mean the celandine (chelidonium), but the pile-wort (ranunculus ficaria). We need hardly say that we are far from proposing to banish from fiction those popular names met with in the greatest works of genius, but merely to point out a striking case of error, arising from the use of trivial names.

Captain Back, in compliance with popular usage, says in his narrative, "several mice were seen to-day," and immediately explains that the animals were lemmings. When housewives and farmers only thought of depredations on their bacon, cheese, and corn, they called all animals guilty of these malpractices, rats, and mice, and sparrows; but what should we gain by endeavouring to frustrate the labours of naturalists, who, on careful comparison, have instituted the genera, Arvicola, Spermophilus, Emberiza, &c., by again confounding them under the name of mice and sparrows; or would the vernacular terms, field-haunters, seed-lovers, as literally translating the new generic terms, be advisable, either for brevity or euphony?

brevity of definition, afforded by the combination of the generic and specific name to designate a natural object; this combined name being in fact a memoria technica, to remind him of certain properties and qualities of the individual, as the more comprehensive collections of genera into orders and classes are the means by which he is reminded of their mutual relations. It is of course of little importance what words may be employed for this purpose, but they should be euphonous and easily pronounced, and there should be some consistent plan in their adoption: if the advantages of employing the generic and specific name be admitted, the more precise and distinct these are, the better. To substitute three or more separate words, where two are sufficient, would be anything but desirable; and this would be the case in a majority of instances, if an endeavour were made to dispense with Latin or Greek names.

When a knowledge of even the elements of science was by no means common, it was possible for a person to acquire the reputation of learning, by a pedantic use of hard words, as they are facetiously termed by those who do not, as well as by those who really do, understand them. The ridicule so justly excited by this practice, made all true philosophers anxious to remedy an abuse which might be prejudicial to the diffusion of sound knowledge, for some of the ridicule was intentionally transferred to science herself by those who at all times are interested in preventing their fellow-creatures from becoming wiser or better. But now, when the elements of science form part of general education, and when considerable knowledge is no rare endowment, the pedantry alluded to is seldom had recourse to, and the same cause for proscribing terms borrowed from the learned languages no longer exists, while the advantages derived from their use, as convenient symbols in classification, at least, become daily more apparent.

Floriculture and shell-collecting having, for very sufficient reasons, been always popular amusements, the use of Latin and Greek names in the branches of natural history with which these pursuits are connected, has more especially excited animadversion, from the cause above alluded to; but if the scientific names be invariably employed, their use will cease to excite surprise, this is gradually becoming the practice, from a perception of the unfitness of trivial names to meet the wants of even a slight knowledge; and we are endeavouring to prove that this habitual use of the scientific name should be inculcated by all who are aware of the importance of correct views of the complicated relations existing among organic beings.

Why, at the present day, should a person desirous of studying botany rationally, be exhorted to use the term evening-primrose tribe instead of Onagrariæ? It is true he would use this last word merely as a symbol, which might recall to his mind certain properties, and of the derivation of which he might be ignorant; but the employment of the other would demand an extra effort of attention to divest it of its false and primary meaning, the order in question having nothing to do with a primrose, and the name evening primrose is identified with only one genus which is already far more commonly known by its correct appellation Enothera. Since it is impossible to discover or apply English names for the number of species and genera discovered in the present century alone,

it is surely by no means desirable that the naturalist should employ an English name for some orders or genera, or species, and Greek and Latin ones for the rest. Why not, for the sake of uniformity alone, habitually use the latter on all occasions, since the languages which furnish them are exhaustless in their stores, and have the additional recommendation of being universally understood.

If the advocates for vernacular names, admitting the necessity for consistency or uniformity, and the advantages last mentioned, should yet prefer the attempt to adopt English names in all cases, they would soon find the plan impracticable. Suppose, for instance, we were to adopt the trivial name Speedwell for the generic term instead of Veronica, though there would be no difficulty with such specific names as Virginian, Siberian, tall, lofty, hoary, &c., how are we to adopt concise and appropriate English synonyms for peregrina, decussata, crinita, crenulata, scutellata, &c.; we must either substitute an English termination for the Latin one, a practice, which as we have shown, has nothing to recommend it; or we must adopt some awkward periphrasis of several words, and when we have done this, as the idiom of the language requires the adjective to precede the noun, contrary to the principles of classification, which require the generic to precede the specific name; we must either violate this rule, or adopt such inversions as Speedwell panicled, Speedwell many-stalked, &c.

In the animal kingdom the same incongruities would arise, enhanced by the more powerful effects of early associations connected with names habitually used before classification was thought of; associations, too, usually repugnant to true science: thus the genus, Canis, would be divided as follows, Dog-dog, Dog-fox, Dog-wolf, Dog-hyæna, &c.

One inevitable result of improved knowledge of the relations of organic beings is the continual establishment of new genera, or the division of one into several; if the Greek and Latin languages are employed to furnish appellations for these, we are enabled by their exhaustless fertility to adopt such as shall have a reference to the original group of species requiring re-arrangement, and the spirit of classification is served in the change. The science of conchology affords pregnant examples of what we allude to.

pre

The genus, Venus, is now broken up into ten or a dozen intimately related to it, and yet absolutely requiring to be separated from it; how elegantly and how philosophically are the new generic names furnished by the goddess's Greek synonyms, Dione, Aphrodite, Astarte, Cytherer, Cyprina, &c. In what manner could we accomplish this in English

When genera, intermediate to Cardium and Venus, were discriminated, how correctly and briefly did the factitious compounds, Venericardium, Isocardium, &c., express the new-found relations. Compare with these the absurd barbarous designations, stone-piercer, gaper, razor-sheath, top-shell, kneading-trough, ear-shell, barnacle, &c. &c., which are to be met with in popular works on conchology, and even in our national museum; and when English names are not used, foreign ones are adopted, which can possess no advantage over Latin or Greek appellations, such as Cowry instead of Cypræa.

It will be said that custom must determine after all in these

matters; and that while it is the custom to call a Campanula by the hard word, and a Tropaeolum by the wrong word (Nasturtium, which is the name of the water-cress), no reasoning will induce a change; we are far from flattering ourselves that any observations of ours will have this effect, nor is it a matter of the slightest consequence by what name an object is designated, when it is spoken of without reference to others; but the attempt to restore ambiguous trivial names in scientific works, while we are endeavouring at the same time to inculcate the necessity for an accurate discrimination in minute particulars of habits, structure, properties, &c., of animals, must have a mischievous tendency equally to knowledge and to taste.

Suppose, for example, that English names were adopted, and that desirous of avoiding such barbarisms as mammals, exogens, &c., we translated the classical names; the animal, Agouti, which is of the order Rodentia, class Mammalia, would be described as belonging to the order Gnawers, class Sucklers. Admitting this phraseology to be desirable, what must we do to define a slug? To be consistent, we must call it a shell-less, land, gill-less, belly-footed molluscous animal, winding up with an adjective, for which no human ingenuity can find an English equivalent in less than ten words; would it not be better in every respect, even in popular works, to define the creature as a species of the genus Limax, of the section terrestrial Pulmonia, class Gasteropoda, division Mollusca? for it is clear that the person who could really comprehend the English definition, must also be sufficiently master of classification to comprehend the latter; and if he did not know the etymology of gasteropoda, he would at least have become familiar with it as a term for a large class of Mollusca, the character of which is to have the organ of locomotion on the part analogous to the belly of more perfect animals.

Our illustrations have been entirely drawn from natural history and physics, because it is in science alone that we think the adoption of vernacular terms to be particularly deprecated. With regard to mere technical words in the arts, custom and the good taste of individuals are sufficient guides as to the propriety, or otherwise, of adopting Greek and Latin names. We smile at the appropriation of Caminology, by the French, to express the trade of a chimney-doctor, or of lithologic arts to designate those of a bricklayer and mason; but it would be difficult to offer any valid reason against their adoption, while so many others, not more necessary, are tolerated; why do we ridicule an Emporium for Blacking," and not a Bazaar?" And are we not guilty of downright nonsense in styling a collection of foreign animals placed in a pleasureground the Zoological gardens? The fact is, it is the worth of the subject that sanctions a name in one case, and makes it contemptible in another; but being willing to leave these comparatively unimportant matters to a censor of taste, we hope that science will be left to recruit its nomenclature from those languages in which it drew its first breath, until our own undergoes such a revolution as will better fit it for the purpose, a revolution which every one would deplore, but which will be accelerated by injudicious advocates.

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SPHERICAL FIGURES.

THE principles on which the circles of the sphere should be represented, are very simple; and yet the practice of mathematicians, who, of all men, ought most to attend to such matters, seems to indicate a total absence of all principle whatever in sketching their diagrams. The distorted and unmeaning figures which are often given to illustrate spherical problems, are sometimes really painful to look upon; and this not only in the drawings of the young, but of the most able mathematicians. I hope this will be a sufficient apology for the few following remarks.

The best mode of representing spherical figures, except when a particular mode of projection is implied in the mode of reasoning, is the common perspective representation on a plane at right angles to the line drawn from the eye to the centre of the sphere. A case of this is the orthographic projection; and the limit on the other side is the stereographic. The latter is too much distorted to furnish any idea of the magnitude and figure of the curve projected'; and perhaps the orthographic is of all kinds the best; though the perspective taken with the eye at the distance of fifteen or twenty times the diameter of the sphere may do very well. In all cases where the projecting point is without the circle, the figures into which the circles of the sphere are projected, are ellipses, and they are all concave towards the centre of the sphere. Moreover, the more inclined the planes of the circles are to the principal line of vision the greater will their minor axes become.

Those great circles which pass through the point in which the principal line of vision cuts the surface, will be projected into straight lines -a construction which should, except several such circles, symmetrically related to the figure, pass through one point,-be generally avoided, as it renders us liable to mistakes, when actual straight lines occur in the investigation. This precaution is unnecessary when less circles pass through that point, as there is then no liability to mistake, these being projected into ellipses.

The parts of the figure which lie on the hidden hemisphere should be dotted, and form continuous ellipses with those on the visible hemisphere; and it would be well to mark the corresponding points with the same letters, accenting those on the dotted part of the figure. This is in strict accordance with the practice of the best French writers on Descriptive Geometry.

When the figures represented are other than circles, the best mode of marking a few leading points of them through which the projection is to pass, is to draw radiating great circles from the upper point of the great circle parallel to the plane, and projecting the points in these upon the paper as nearly as can be done by estimation, trace the curve through them. Of course, if we wish to have the figures constructed accurately, we must proceed in the usual manner taught in works on Perspective: but as this, especially during the study of a proposition, is altogether unnecessary, and as it is desirable that we should, at least, approximate in general character and appearance to the thing intended, the preceding remarks may not be altogether without their use.

Vicarage, Overton, Sept. 16, 1836. VOL. II.

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