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names are more suitable than others, requiring at least definite association with the rock beds, freedom from preoccupation, and priority.

The definite association he requires seems to be very slight; namely, the occurrence at Newark of perhaps one-tenth or one-twentieth of the beds to be included in the name, and with only two determined fossil species, plants. Suppose, in rummaging among old periodicals of forty years ago, a foot-note by some Baltimore collector were found, suggesting, without any attempt at either stratigraphic or geographical delimitation, that the whole body of Appalachian Paleozoic rocks be called the Cockeysville group, because, forsooth, the Paleozoic marble quarries there supply the city with fine building material; would not the argument for the revival of the name be quite as strong as in the almost precisely parallel case of Newark?

As to priority, and even preoccupation, and suitableness, too, is it not with geologists the same as with everybody else, that words, after all, are only used for the sake of being understood, and those words are to be used that will be most readily understood, so that currence, usage, is really the main criterion?

It is a great fundamental principle, that with the lapse of thousands of years has become more and more firmly established.

The rule of priority is an excellent one for cases otherwise doubtful or indifferent; but surely we should not be sticklers for it to the extent of raking up a name like Newark, that was unsuitable in the beginning, never did find acceptance, and was long ago wholly obsolete.