Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/279

 LATER EUROPEAN WRITERS 255 in English. It opens with the treatment of কিমিয়া প্রভাব or chemical forces such as B{F44, তাপক, আলোক, বিদ্বাতীয় সাধন, ete., and then goes on to deal with fefaa 4% or chemical substances. Many of the theories and conclusions stated here have long been abandoned but they give us, through the medium of Be gali, a good picture of the state of the dimly understood chemical science as it obtained eighty years ago. Even after the lapse of more than half a century and with a better understanding and demand of this useful science, it is to be regretted that Bengali language cannot as yet boast of a single good treatise on Chemistry, not to speak of scientific literature in general; yet this missionary, with a scanty vocabulary and imperfect command over the language? ventured with singular courage 1 Viz, Oxygen, Chlorine, Bromine, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Sulphur, Phosphorus, Carbon, Boron, Selenium. There is also a section on Steam Engine. ? It is said in the Bengal Obituary (p, 250)that Mack’s work written in English was translated by F. Carey, but this is doubtful, (See also E.C, Wenger, Story of Lallbazar Baptist Church, 1908). In this connexion, it would be interesting to call attention to the question raised by Mack, which is also referred to by F. Carey but of which there seem to have been no satisfactory solution as yet, viz., the question relating to the proper method of compiling a glossary of technical scientific terms in Bengali. We will not enter into the vexed question whether we should take European terms bodily into our language or adapt them to our use by Sanscrit substitution or otherwise, but we may Glossary of technical be allowed to quote here the opinion of Mack terms. as set forth in the Preface to his work and leave it to speak for itself :—‘“ The names of Chemical substances are, in the great majority of instances, perfectly new to the Bengali language, as they were but few years ago to all languages. The chief difficulty was to determine whether the European nomenclature should be merely put into Bengalee letters, or the European terms be entirely translated by Sungskrit, as bearing much the same relation to Bengalee as the Greek and Latin do to English.