of Notation in Chemistry* 441 



phite of protoxide, and generating one of sulphuric acid/ 

 These seem to me very instructive examples of the use which 

 may be made of such a method of notation. 



Berzelius, however, has lent the weight of his great authority 

 to a system which possesses none of these advantages, and 

 which violates mathematical propriety so entirely, that it must 

 always be disagreeable to see an example of it, for any person 

 who has acquired the first rudiments of algebra; and this 

 system has unfortunately been adopted into many excellent 

 chemical and mineralogical works. 



According to the system of which I thus complain, those com- 

 binations of elements which are supposed to be most intimate , 

 are represented by writing the symbols of the ingredients in 

 the way which in algebra denotes multiplication. Thus A S is 

 the silicate of alumina ; and when there are several atoms of one 

 ingredient, the number of these is indicated by the index of the 



corresponding letter : thus A S 2 is the bisilicate, A S*> or 

 A 2 S 3 , the sesquisilicate of alumina. And when these primary 

 combinations are associated so as to form other compounds, 

 the sign of addition, + , is used. Thus A S 2 + C S 3 is an atom 

 of bisilicate of alumina, combined with an atom of trisilicate of 

 lime. Also a multiplier is, if necessary, annexed to one of 

 these members. Thus the former example, stilbite, (p. 439,) 

 would, on this system, be 4 A S 3 + C S 3 -f 6y. And, by such 

 formulae, minerals and other bodies are represented by Ber- 

 zelius and many other writers who have followed him. 



The insurmountable objection to such a notation is this : 

 that it violates all mathematical consistency, and puts out of 

 sight the identity of different ways of considering the same 

 analysis. No one can, in the last formula, see any algebraical 

 reason for supposing it the same with 4 A S 2 -f. C S r 4. 6y, 

 which it undoubtedly is. No one can readily perceive at once 

 that the direct result of analysis has in this case been 15 S-f 

 4A + C + Gq ; which is the fundamental fact. Is there any 

 obvious connexion between A S + C S 3 and A S 2 -f C S 2 , 

 which are mineralogically identical ? Whereas (A + S) 4. 

 (C + 3 S) and (A + 2 S) + (C + 2 S) are manifestly the 

 same quantity. If we adopt such annotation as this of Ber- 

 zelius, it is almost entirely useless as an instrument of calcula- 



