In England, when a swimmer makes his first leap, head foremost, into the water he is said to dive, and is spoken of as having dived, in accordance with the ordinary and regular construction of the verb. Not so however, is it with the modern refinements of our Canadian English. In referring to such a feat here, it would be said, not that he dived, but that he dove. Even Longfellow makes use of this form, so harsh and unfamiliar to English ears,-in the musical measures of his "Hiawatha : As we say drive, drove, driven, we may look for the completion of the verb to dive, on its new model, and find the next poet's hero having “diven as if he were a beaver" or any other amphibious native of the new world. Though as yet unsanctioned by such classic authority, the verb to give not unfrequently assumes among us the past form of he guv, rose becomes ris, chid―chode, delved--do've, helped -holp, or holped, swelled-swoll, &c. Yet so lawless and systemless are the changes, that, along with such alterations, which might seem to aim at a universal creation of strong preterites, we have the process reversed, and froze becomes freezed or friz, felt-feeled, &c. That some of these are as yet mere vulgarisms is not to be denied, but when the older examples receive the sanction of the highest literary authorities we may reasonably dread that the adoption of the remainder is a mere question of time. When an Englishman speaks at random or without sufficient authority, he guesses. When he expresses an opinion, he thinks. Guess and think are not synonymes, but refer to two opposite states of mind. Far otherwise is it in the neighbouring republic, and with too many here; for, with Americans and their imitators, guess and think have an identical signification. A "Clear-grit" guesses that the person beside him who does not spit on the floor, is a tory and a contemptible aristocrat, while a tobacco-moistening "Hoosier" guesses, and for like reasons, that a Boston merchant must be a federalist. Now if they only knew it, neither of these discerning and refined individuals guesses at all. Contrariwise. each feels confident in the matter pronounced upon. The general conduct of the persons of whom they thus judge, together with the subdued action of their salivary glands, has satisfied both that the political tendencies of the others must be the antithesis of their own. They are in no uncertainty, and a guess is impossible. The ordinary American use of this word justly subjects its users to ridicule, unless the precision which our English tongue once boasted of is no longer a feature worth preserving. But a volume might be written about the evils glanced at here. In closing this paper, therefore, I can only indicate a few more of the indigenous elegancies which are already meeting with such general acceptance, and thereby corrupting, not simply the speech of the Province, but such literature as we have. It cannot, we fear, be justly affirmed that such expressions as the following are so entirely confined to the vulgar and uneducated as to be undeserving of notice as an element likely to affect permanently the language of the Province: Canadiensis. : C:-" yes, I'm just on C:-" the boss is out." a span," which word he that man's character ?" "Are you better to-day ?" inquires Britannicus. “Some,” Some," replies "Were there many people present ?" asks B. "quite a number," answers C, meaning thereby "a number," for how can a number be otherwise than quite a number? B:"Where did you go to-day ?" C:—“ down town," that is, he walked through, or in the city. B:"are you going by this train ?" board." B:-"where is your master ?" B:-"How many horses have you ?" C :substitutes for " a pair." B:-" what is C:-"he's a loafer," that is, in plain English, "a good for nothing fellow." B:-"how do you vote ?" C:-"I go the Hincks ticket.” Bhas there been a committee meeting ?" C:-" yes, they had a caucus last night." B:-" can that wheel revolve now ?" C:"yes, I guess it can do nothing else, for I've fixed it." B:-" did you mend my shoe." C:-"yes, I've fixed it." B:-"when will your sister be ready?" C:-Jane is just fixing her hair." B:"what do you eat to venison ?" C:-" jelly fixings." B:-" what have you done with your other horse ?" C:-"I've dickered him." B:-" what kind of a speaker is W-?" C:-" a stump-orator." B: -"how did he get his present office ?" C:-" by chiselling." B:. "is there much jobbing in the house ?" C:-"no end of logrolling." B:-" did he run away ?" C:-"yes, he sloped," or "he made tracks." B:--" how do you feel to-day ?" C:-I'm quite sick." B: sick! why don't you take something to settle your stomach ?" C:-"my stomach isn't unsettled. Its my toe that aches!" &c. 66 Nor is it in solitary words or phrases alone that we are thus aiming at "gilding refined gold," in our improvements on the English language. So far has this process already been carried that it would not be difficult to construct whole sentences of our Canadian vernacular which, to the home-bred ear, would stand nearly as much in need of translation, as an oration of one of the Huron or Chippeway Chiefs whom we have supplanted from their ancient hunting grounds on the shores of the great lakes. Let us take a brief example. A Canadian who has enjoyed the advantages of the American vocabulary will thus describe a very simple transaction:-"I traded my last yorker for a plug of honey dew, and got plaguy chiseled by a loafer whose boss had dickered his lot and betterments for notions to his store;" some of the words introduced here are genuine Americanisms, such as betterments, i.e. improvements on new lands ; lot, or division of land; town lots, sites within the area designed for a village or town; boss (Dutch) the euphemism for the unpalatable word master; and store, the invariably term for a shop. Others again, such as yorker: a shilling york currency, or sixpence sterling, are no less genuinely Canadian; and the whole, will become intelligible for the first time to the inexperienced English ear when thus translated :I exchanged my last sixpence for a packet of tobacco, and got thoroughly cheated by a disreputable fellow whose employer had bartered a piece of improved land to obtain small wares for his shop." : These and a thousand other examples which might be produced, fully justify the use of the term "Canadian English," as expressive of a corrupt dialect growing up amongst our population, and gradually finding access to our periodical literature, until it threatens to produce a language as unlike our noble mother tongue as the negro patua, or the Chinese pidgeon English. That the English language is still open to additions no one can doubt, or that it assimilates to itself, when needful, even the racy vernacular of to-day, to enrich itself, where synonymes are wanting. Hence, whenever a single word supplies the place of what could only be formerly expressed by a sentence, unless the word be singularily uneuphoneous,-the language gains by its adoption. But if chiseling only means cheating; and log-rolling,-jobbing; and clearing out, or making tracks,-running away; then most men of taste will have little hesitation in their choice between the oldfashioned English of Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, and Addison, and such modern enrichments of the old "well of English undefiled." Such words-of-all-work, again, as some, and quite, and fix, and guess, having already a precise and recognized acceptance in classical English, it is probable that good writers and educated speakers will still recognize them in such sense, and when they fix a wheel immovably, they will say they have fixed it; but VOL. II.-Y when they mend or repair the same wheel, they will find no inconvenience in using one of the latter terms as equally apt and less ambiguous. And so also when they make a guess at some fact beyond their certain knowledge they will say so; but when they speak of what they actually do know, they will state it as a fact, and not guess about it. An amusing illustration of the manner in which such misuse of words can obscure the sense of their true meaning even in the minds of educated men, is furnished by a critical comment in the "Shakespear's Scholar," of Richard Grant White, A.M.,* on the following passage in "Richard III." Act IV, Scene IV :: STANLEY. Richmond is on the seas. K. RICHARD. There let him sink-and be the seas on him. STANLEY. 6 A better illustration of the correct use of the word could no where be found. Stanley says he does not know, he only guesses; and the king replies; well tell me what your guess or suspicion is. But hear the American critic:-" If there be two words for the use of which, more than any others, our English cousins twit us, they are well,' as an interrogative exclamation, and guess.' Milton uses both, as Shakespear also frequently does, and exactly in the way in which they are used in America; and here we have them both in half a line. Like most of those words and phrases which it pleases John Bull to call Americanisms, they are English of the purest and best, which have lived here while they have died out in the mother country." To such "English of the purest and best!" are we fast hastening, if some check is not put on the present tendencies of our colloquial speech, and the style adopted in our periodical literature. It may be assumed that enough has now been said to shew the truth of the complaint with which this paper began. How then is the evil to be remedied? One or two suggestions occur to me which may not seem unworthy of some attention, as means calculated to check in some degree this growing evil. The first is that, educated men in private stations should carefully guard against the errors indicated, and others germane to them, and use their influence to check them when introduced. The second is, that our common school teachers should not only do likewise, but should correct the children under their care, whenever they utter slang or corrupt English, not Shakespear's Scholar; being historical and critical studies of his text, characters and commentators, &c. By R. G. White, A.M. Appleton & Co., New York; 1854. only in the school, but in the play-ground, and on the streets; and the third is that, our newspaper and other writers should abstain from the attempt to add new force to the English tongue by improv ing the language of Shakespeare, Bacon, Dryden, and Addison. It is true that these are antiquated names; and it may be that some among us rather know them by the hearing of the ear than the sight of their works; still, weak though it may seem, and—to cull once more, for the sake of illustration, one of the choicest phrases of Canadian letters," old fogyish" though it may appear, I cannot get rid of the impression, that those men understood English fully as well as any American or Canadian author, and that, though they never wrote slang, no one either on this side of the Atlantic, or on the other, has written, or is likely to write, either with augmented force, or greater clearness. ON THE ORIGIN AND METAMORPHOSIS OF SOME SEDIMENTARY ROCKS. BY T. STERRY HUNT, OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. The progress of Geological investigation has shown that many masses formerly regarded as primitive and even as hypogene rocks, belong to formations, which in other parts of their geographical distribution appear in the form of sedimentary strata, destitute of crystalline character, and distinguished by their organic remains as pertaining to various geological epochs. Thus the researches of Sir William Logan have shown conclusively that the serpentines, talcs, diallages and pyroxenites of the Green Mountains are portions of altered Silurian Strata, and I have already suggested that these rocks have been formed by the metamorphosis of certain beds of silicious and ferruginous dolomites and magnesites which occur in the Quebec division of the Hudson River Group, and are found in its unaltered portions interstratified with pure fossiliferous limestones, sandstones, and graptolitic shales. Dolomites have, until recently, been regarded for the most part as altered rocks, and the mode of their formation is but little understood. When carbonated waters, containing lime and magnesia in solution, are |