of Notation in Chemistry. 447 



into any common compounds, or into "any that mineralogy is 

 concerned with. But in the instances of the metals commonly 

 so called, both the metal itself and its oxide or oxides occur in 

 composition ; and it would, therefore, be necessary to have 

 symbols for both these kinds of ingredients. In cases where 

 we have to reason concerning the quantity of oxygen, it 

 would be necessary to have a symbol to represent that ele- 

 ment. Thus, fe representing iron, and o oxygen, we should 

 have / e + o for the protoxide ; fe + f o for the peroxide. 

 But, in some very large classes of substances, the metals 

 exist in the form of oxides only ; and in others, they occur 

 in the form of acids, as the molybdic, tungstic, chromic 

 acids. It would, I think, be found more convenient to 

 have expressions consisting of one term, than of two, in 

 such instances. I would, therefore, represent the metals 

 themselves by small letters, as zi for zinc, mn for manganese ; 

 and the oxides, which occur as bases, and which are ana- 

 logous to the earths, by the same letters, beginning with a 

 capital, as Zi, Mn. The oxides of metals could not all be 

 represented by single letters without confusion ; and I would, 

 therefore, in order to assist the memory by uniformity, repre- 

 sent each by two letters, taking the first letter in the name and 

 some other prominent one. The Latin name should be used, 

 for the sake of European communication. Thus, we should 

 have ^e (ferrum) iron, sn (stannum) tin, cu (cuprum) copper, 

 ag (argentum) silver, au (aurum) gold. These are the symbols 

 commonly used by those who follow Berzelius. The oxides 

 would be Fe, S/i, CM, &c. 



The bases of the acids might be represented by small letters, 

 and the acids commonly occurring in minerals by these letters 

 with accents. Thus we should have s sulphur, s f sulphuric 

 acid ; c carbon, c' carbonic acid ; p phosphorus, p f phosphoric 

 acid. In the same manner, ar f would represent arsenic acid, 

 mo' molybdic, tu' tungstic, cr' chromic. The hydracids might 

 be similarly represented, except, as before, where their consti- 

 tution was required to be more expressly denoted ; thus JV 

 would be hydrofluoric acid, cl hydrochloric, cl being chlo- 

 rine, &c. 



Berzelius represents water (aqua) by Aq ; for the sake of 

 simplicity I have used q. 



