246 Professor Necker on Mineralogy considered 



SECTION IV. — NOMENCLATURE. 



We shall be very brief on this subject ; and, as our present 

 purpose is merely to establish the higher divisions of the classi- 

 fication, we shall say nothing of the nomenclature to be adopted 

 for varieties, species, and genera. As to these last, which agree 

 with what are at present called the mineral species, we will not 

 change the names, observing, however, that it would be highly 

 desirable that each genus should be designed by a single word; 

 and, when such is the case, we shall willingly avail ourselves of 

 it, in adding to it, however, the most usual synonym. 



As for the names of families, we have followed the method 

 used in Zoology and Botany, — that of giving them the name of 

 the genus which may be considered as the best type of the 

 whole group. 



For the orders and sub-orders, founded as they are, in gene- 

 ral, upon the electro-negative element of the combination, or on 

 an important chemical property, the name ought to recal to the 

 ndind the nature of this element or this property ; but its ter- 

 mination must be different from that of its chemical name, to 

 prevent our purely natural-historical nomenclature being con- 

 founded with the chemical one. For instance, instead of nam- 

 ing those minerals of which sulphur is the electro-negative ele- 

 ment manifested by the blowpipe Sulphur ets, we will call them 

 Sulphurideous Crystals ; the sulphates^ Sulphatideous Crystals ; 

 the silicates, Silicideous Crystals, &c. 



In the classes or subdivisions of them, the name will indicate 

 the nature of the most characteristic chemical or physical pro- 

 perty, as hydro-lysimous, soluble in water ; alysimous, inso- 

 luble ; hiftammable, burning with flame ; metallophanous, having 

 the metallic appearance ; lithophanous, with the lithoid, or stony 

 appearance ; and the name of amphiphanous, possessing at the 

 same time the two sorts of appearances, will be given to the 

 crystals composing the intermediate artificial class. 



