18S0.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 170 



A paper by C. Haut Merkiam, 



DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES OF APLODONTIA FROM CALIFOl - 



NIA {Aplodont iamajor) was read by title. 

 (Published in tiie Annal?, Vol. III., No. 10.) 



Prof. H. Carrington Eolton read a pajjcr on 



RECENT PROGRESS IN CHEMISTRY. 



(1.) To many intelligent and cultivated persons not specifically 

 instructed in chemistry, this word recalls confused memories of 

 colored liquids, oijstening ci'ystals, dazzling flames, suffocating 

 fumes, intolerable odors, startling explosions, and a chaos of 

 mystifying experiments, the interest in which is proportional to 

 the danger sui)posed to attend their exhibition. Further remi- 

 niscences are of many singular objects in wood, metal, glass, and 

 earthenware, of flasks and funnels, of retorts and condensers, 

 furnaces and crucibles, together with bottles innumerable filled 

 with solids, liquids, and gases, the whole paraphernalia connected 

 by glass tubes of eccentric curves, and displayed in inextricable 

 confusion and meaningless array. Behind -this chaos arise vague 

 memories of one discoursing learnedly in a polysyllabic jargon, 

 and attempting to explain the unusual phenomena by the aid of 

 abstruse hypotheses, but utterly failing to remove the sensations 

 of awe and of mystery bordering on tlie supernatural which over- 

 whelm the hearer — impressions that have clung to chemistry 

 ever since its entanglement with the superstitions of alchemy, 

 astrology, and the "black art."-* 



Persons who undertake to gain through chemical literature a 

 knowledge of what chemists are doing in and for the world, en- 

 counter a discouraging nomenclature which repells them by its 

 apparent intricacy and its polysyllabic character. Their opinion 

 of the terminology of an exact science is not enhanced when tiiey 

 learn that " black lead " contains no lead, "copperas " contains 

 no copper, "mosaic gold" no gold, and "German silver" no 

 silver; that "carbolic acid" is not an acid, " oil of vitriol" is 

 not an oil, that olive oil is a " salt," but " rock oil " is neither 

 an oil nor a salt; that some sugars and some kinds of wax are 

 alcohols; that "cream of tartar" has nothing in common with 

 cream, "milk of lime," with milk, "butter of antimony" with 

 butter, "sugar of lead" with sugar, nor "liver of sulphur" 

 with tlie animal organ from which it was named. 



Readers of chemical writings sometimes fail to appreciate the 

 advantages of styling borax, " di-meta-borate of sodium," or of 

 calling common alcohol "methyl-carbinol," and they ignore the 



