On Chemical Nomenclature. 259 
aprons with the same.* Being beautiful, and easily obtained, we 
find shells used by most savage nations as ornaments, and frequently 
as instruments and utensils for cutting with, drinking from, &e. 
- The Brehmins of Hindoostan make their astronomical 
observations, by means of shells arranged before them on the ground, 
and the Egyptians and even the ancient Greeks are said to have 
used shells in counting and calculations. 
XXXI. At Mobile, shells are used in mending the roads, for which 
purpose they are said to answer well. 
XXXII. By some of the aborigines of the coast of South Amer- 
ica, a large bivalve, full of grain, was buried with the body, to feed 
it during its travels to the next world. 
XXXIII. The stony operculum of some species of East Indian 
Turbo, are used in this country as ‘ eye stones,’ to remove dust, ete. 
from the eye. 
XXXIV. Bivalves were ded by a Greeks and Romans in the 
ostracism, the name of the person to be banished being written on 
the shell. Whether the Romans ever made use of shells for this 
purpose has been doubted ; though at first they perhaps might, and 
afterwards only the earthenware tiles, to which the Greek name 
ooTgaxoy was transferred. 
Art. IV.—Criticisms and suggestions respecting Nomenclature; by 
Rozerr Hare, M. D., Prof. of Chem. in the Univ. of Pennsyl- 
vania. Also, a letter from the celebrated J. J. Berzeutus.} 
TO THE EDITORS OF THE JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
Philadelphia, March 4, ell 
Dear Sirs—In September, 1833, I published in your Journal, t 
gether with some encomiums upon the treatise of Chemistry by ihe 
celebrated Berzelius, certain objections to his nomenclature, and 
some suggestions respecting a substitute, which [ deemed to be pre- 
ferable. In the following June I addressed a letter to Professor 
Silliman upon the same topics, in which my criticisms and sugges- 
us 1 Voyages, 3d ed. 4to, Vol. 1. p. 219, &c. where plates of these articles 
are 
t Playfair on the astronomy of the Brehmins, in ease of Royal Society 
of Edinburgh, Vol. 11. p. 135. Herodotus, lib. ii. 
+ Copied from the American Journal of saab ea, 1837. 
