considered that the ear is soon habituated to new words, especially when they are connected with a general and rational system. The names, besides, which were formerly employed, such as powder of algaroth, salt of alembroth, pompholix, phagadenic water, turbith mineral, colcathar, and many others, were neither less barbarous nor less uncommon. It required a great deal of practice, and no small degree of memory, to recollect the substances to which they were applied, much more to recollect the genus of combination to which they belonged. The names of oil of tartar per deliquium, oil of vitriol, butter of arsenic and of antimony, flowers of zinc, &c. were still more improper, because they suggested false ideas: For, in the whole mineral kingdom, and particularly in the metallic class, there exists no such thing as butters, oils, or flowers; and, in short, the substances to which they give these fallacious names, are nothing less than rank poisons.

When we published our essay on the nomenclature of chemistry, we were reproached for having changed the language which was spoken by our masters, which they distinguished by their authority, and handed down to us. But those who reproach us on this account, have forgotten that it was Bergman and Macquer themselves who urged us to make this reformation. In a letter which the learned Professor of Upsal, M. Bergman, wrote, a short time before he died, to M. de Morveau, he bids him spare no improper names; those who are learned, will always be learned, and those who are ignorant will thus learn sooner.

There is an objection to the work which I am going to present to the public, which is perhaps better founded, that I have given no account of the opinion of those who have gone before me; that I have stated only my own opinion, without examining that of others. By this I have been prevented from doing that justice to my associates, and more especially to foreign chemists, which I wished to render them. But I beseech the reader to consider, that, if I had filled an elementary work with a multitude of quotations; if I had allowed myself to enter into[Pg xxxiii] long dissertations on the history of the science, and the works of those who have studied it, I must have lost sight of the true object I had in view, and produced a work, the reading of which must have been extremely tiresome to beginners. It is not to the history of the science, or of the human mind, that we are to attend in an elementary treatise: Our only aim ought to be ease and perspicuity, and with the utmost care to keep every thing out of view which might draw aside the attention of the student; it is a road which we should be continually rendering more smooth, and from which we should endeavour to remove every obstacle which can occasion delay. The sciences, from their own nature, present a sufficient number of difficulties, though we add not those which are foreign to them. But, besides this, chemists will easily perceive, that, in the first part of my work, I make very little use of any experiments but those which were made by myself: If at any time I have adopted, without acknowledgment, the experiments or the opinions of M. Berthollet, M. Fourcroy, M. de la Place, M. Monge, or, in general, of any of those whose principles are the same with my own, it is owing to this circumstance, that frequent intercourse, and the habit of communicating our ideas, our observations, and our way of thinking to each other, has established between us a sort of community of opinions, in which it is often difficult for every one to know his own.

The remarks I have made on the order which I thought myself obliged to follow in the arrangement of proofs and ideas, are to be applied only to the first part of this work. It is the only one which contains the general sum of the doctrine I have adopted, and to which I wished to give a form completely elementary.

The second part is composed chiefly of tables of the nomenclature of the neutral salts. To these I have only added general explanations, the object of which was to point out the most simple processes for obtaining the different kinds of known acids. This part contains nothing which I can call my own, and presents only a very short abridgment of the results of these processes, extracted from the works of different authors.

In the third part, I have given a description, in detail, of all the operations connected with modern chemistry. I have long thought that a work of this kind was much wanted, and I am convinced it will not be without use. The method of performing experiments, and particularly those of modern chemistry, is not so generally known as it ought to be; and had I, in the different memoirs which I have presented to the Academy, been more particular in the detail of the manipulations of my experiments, it is probable I should have made myself better understood, and the science might have made a more rapid progress. The order of the different matters contained in this third part appeared to me to be almost arbitrary; and the only one I have observed was to class together, in each of the chapters of which it is composed, those operations which are most connected with one another. I need hardly mention that this part could not be borrowed from any other work, and that, in the principal articles it contains, I could not derive assistance from any thing but the experiments which I have made myself.

I shall conclude this preface by transcribing, literally, some observations of the Abbé de Condillac, which I think describe, with a good deal of truth, the state of chemistry at a period not far distant from our own. These observations were made on a different subject; but they will not, on this account, have less force, if the application of them be thought just.

'Instead of applying observation to the things we wished to know, we have chosen rather to imagine them. Advancing from one ill founded supposition to another, we have at last bewildered ourselves amidst a multitude of errors. These errors becoming prejudices, are, of course, adopted as principles, and we thus bewilder ourselves more and more. The method, too, by which we conduct our reasonings is as absurd; we abuse words which we do not understand, and call this the art of reasoning. When matters have been brought this length, when errors have been thus accumulated, there is but one remedy by which order can be restored to the faculty of thinking; this is, to forget all that we have learned, to trace back our ideas to their source, to follow the train in which they rise, and, as my Lord Bacon says, to frame the human understanding anew.

'This remedy becomes the more difficult in proportion as we think ourselves more learned.[Pg xxxvii] Might it not be thought that works which treated of the sciences with the utmost perspicuity, with great precision and order, must be understood by every body? The fact is, those who have never studied any thing will understand them better than those who have studied a great deal, and especially than those who have written a great deal.'

At the end of the fifth chapter, the Abbé de Condillac adds: 'But, after all, the sciences have made progress, because philosophers have applied themselves with more attention to observe, and have communicated to their language that precision and accuracy which they have employed in their observations: In correcting their language they reason better.'

CONTENTS.

PART FIRST.

Of the Formation and Decomposition of Aëriform Fluids,
    —of the Combustion of Simple Bodies, and the Formation of Acids, Page 1

CHAP. I.—Of the Combinations of Caloric, and the Formation of Elastic Aëriform Fluids or Gasses, ibid.

CHAP. II.—General Views relative to the Formation and Composition of our Atmosphere, 26

CHAP. III.—Analysis of Atmospheric Air, and its Division into two Elastic Fluids;
     one fit for Respiration, the other incapable of being respired, 32

CHAP. IV.—Nomenclature of the several constituent Parts of Atmospheric Air, 48

CHAP. V.—Of the Decomposition of Oxygen Gas by Sulphur,
     Phosphorus, and Charcoal, and of the Formation of Acids in general, 54

CHAP. VI.—Of the Nomenclature of Acids in general, and particularly of those drawn from Nitre and Sea Salt, 66

CHAP. VII.—Of the Decomposition of Oxygen Gas
     by means of Metals, and the Formation of Metallic Oxyds, 78

CHAP. VIII.—Of the Radical Principle of Water, and of its Decomposition by Charcoal and Iron, 83

CHAP. IX.—Of the Quantities of Caloric disengaged from different Species of Combustion, 97

Combustion of Phosphorus, 100

SECT. I.—Combustion of Charcoal, 101

SECT. II.—Combustion of Hydrogen Gas, 102

SECT. III.—Formation of Nitric Acid, 102

SECT. IV.—Combustion of Wax, 105

SECT. V.—Combustion of Olive Oil, 106

CHAP. X.—Of the Combustion of Combustible Substances with each other, 109

CHAP. XI.—Observations upon Oxyds and Acids with several Bases,
    and upon the Composition of Animal and Vegetable Substances, 115

CHAP. XII.—Of the Decomposition of Vegetable and Animal Substances by the Action of Fire, 123

CHAP. XIII.—Of the Decomposition of Vegetable Oxyds by the Vinous Fermentation, 129

CHAP. XIV.—Of the Putrefactive Fermentation, 141

CHAP. XV.—Of the Acetous Fermentation, 146

CHAP. XVI.—Of the Formation of Neutral Salts, and of their Bases, 149

SECT. I.—Of Potash, 151

SECT. II.—Of Soda, 155

SECT. III.—Of Ammoniac, 156

SECT. IV.—Of Lime, Magnesia, Barytes, and Argill, 157

SECT. V.—Of Metallic Bodies, 159

CHAP. XVII.—Continuation of the Observations upon Salifiable Bases, and the Formation of Neutral Salts, 161


PART II.

Of the Combinations of Acids with Salifiable Bases, and of the Formation of Neutral Salts, 175

INTRODUCTION,