59 Account of a numerical Talle 



orders of numbers ; so that, by affixing, to each simple sub- 

 stance, two, three, or at most four numbers only, its at- 

 tractive powers might be expressed in the shortest and most 

 general manner. 



I have thought it necessary to make some alterations in the 

 orthography generally adopted by chemists, not from a want 

 of deference to their individual authority, but because it ap- 

 pears to me that there are certain rules of etymology, which 

 no modern author has a right to set aside. According to the 

 orthography universally established throughout the language, 

 M'ithout any material exceptions, our mode of writing Greek 

 words is always borrowed from the Romans, whose alphabet 

 we have adopted : thus the Greek vowel T, when alone, is 

 always expressed in Latin and in English by Y, and the 

 Greek diphthong OY by U, the Romans having no such di- 

 phthong as OUorOY. The French have sometimes deviated 

 fi-om this rule; and if it were excusable for any, it would be 

 for them, since their u and ou are pronounced exactly as the 

 T and OY of the Greeks probably were : but we have no such 

 excuse. Thus the French have used the term acoustique^ 

 which some English authors have converted into "acoustics;'* 

 our anatomists, however, speak, much more correctly, of 

 the " acustic" nerve. Instead of glucine, we oujiht cer- 

 tainly, for a similar reason, to write glycine ; or glycina, if 

 the names of the earths are to end in a. Barytes, as a single 

 Greek word, means weight, and must be pronounced ba- 

 rytes; but as the name of a stone, accented on the second 

 syllable, it must be written barites ; and the pure earth may 

 properly he called barita. Yttria I have altered to itria, be- 

 cause no Latin word begins with a Y. 



Talle 



