Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/283

Rh accordingly, be the natural designation of the modification of the ceraunograph in which a telephone-receiver takes the place of a recording pen.

Our Weather Bureau has recently contributed to the meteorological vocabulary the name "kiosk," applied to a little pavilion in which working meteorological instruments are displayed for the benefit of the public. Although the connotations of this word are hardly consistent with the style of architecture adopted for these structures in America, no better designation has been proposed, and it is safe to assume that "kiosk," as well as the object so named, has come to stay. It is rather curious that, although "Wettersäulen" have been familiar objects in Germany for half a century, their use has only recently spread to English-speaking countries, and the need of an English name for them has only recently made itself felt.

When the first complete English meteorological dictionary makes its appearance it will need to take account of fully ten thousand words and phrases; and in connection with hundreds of these much work must be done in tracing their vicissitudes and in bringing them into something like conformity with a systematic and workable language. The terms I have mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs are, in the language of the day, "a drop in the bucket."

In closing, I wish to repeat a recommendation that I recently made to the International Meteorological Committee, through the kind intermediation of the chief of the Weather Bureau, in behalf of the creation of an international commission on terminology, analogous to the commissions already established by the committee on various other meteorological subjects. The utility of such a step is well attested in the history of other sciences. In electricity, for example, the useful names of the electrical units—"ohm," "volt," "ampere," "coulomb," "farad," "joule," "watt" and "henry"—were all promulgated by formal international agreement.

The International Meteorological Committee and Conferences have, it is true, given us official definitions of a few terms; but such work can not be done on an extensive scale save by a body especially created for the purpose and having far more time at its disposal than is available at the ordinary triennial assemblies of meteorologists.

Pending the consummation of this wish, let me urge meteorologists to familiarize themselves with the neglected language of their science; to avoid coining needless synonyms of terms that already exist; and, when a new term is really needed, to create one with due regard to the analogies of the language and its availability for international use. Generally speaking, only Greek and Latin derivatives answer the latter requirement. If a meteorologist feels himself unequal to framing a valid word from the classical vocabularies, he can always appeal for aid to some friendly colleague of philological attainments.