Dictionary of Scientific Terms

Abstract

WE are thankful to be able to say that we know nothing more of Dr. Nuttall than we learn from his title-page. We never even heard of him till we read his book, and we most sincerely hope that, as an author of scientific works, we shall know him no more. What the “numerous educational works” that he has published are we cannot tell, but if they are at all like his “Dictionary of Scientific Terms,” the sooner they are consigned to the trunk maker and the butter-man, the better will it be for the welfare of the unhappy youths for whose benefit they were composed. These may seem hard words to apply to a writer who hopes to “receive every indulgence from a generous public” (p. xi.); but when that writer outrages all our better feelings by stringing together a series of idiotic absurdities, and calling the result a “Dictionary of Scientific Terms,” how are we honestly to deal with him, except by exposing a few of his blunders? We will begin by testing his chemical knowledge. It will hardly be believed that he regards black-lead, brass, magnet, ochre, pewter, and steel as constituting “a few of the principal metals” (p. xviii.); that nitrogen is “unrespirable” (p. 230), although lie has previously told us at p. 12 that it forms about 80 parts of atmospheric air); that oxygen “generates acids” (p. 239); that alum is “an earthy chalk, a sulphate of alumina or of potash” (p. 18); and that “culinary, rock, or sea salt, is chloride of soda” (p.277), His natural history is as peculiar as his chemistry. We will merely put his zoology to the test, assuring our readers that in so far as accuracy is concerned, his zoology, botany, and mineralogy are much on a par. “Zoology,” he tells us, “embraces an account of all animal creation, the principal classes being the Mammalia, Aves,Reptilia.,Pisces,Invertebrata, and Insects.” The first class is subdivided into nine orders, of which one is “Edentata, or animals wanting some of the teeth of other animals” (p. xiii.) Being anxious to learn more of these covetous, commandment-breaking creatures, we turned to Edentates, and found that they are “an extensive order of the class Mammalia, comprehending those unguicolated quadrupeds which have no front teeth, and divided into three tribes, the Tardigrada, the ordinary Edentata, and the Monotremata.” We leave our zoological readers to decide how far this description is an accurate definition of the order, according to recent views, such as our author might have learned by consulting the works of Owen, or of Huxley.

Dictionary of Scientific Terms.

By P. Austin Nuttall, editor of “The Classical and Archæological Dictionary,” “Standard Pronouncing Dictionary,” and numerous Educational Works. (London: Strahan and Co., 1869.)