173 Chemical and Mincfalog'ical Nomenclature. 



and vegetables, as well as on different preparations of water. 

 Urine and animal humours exhibited to me the greateft 

 degree of electric difference. You fee then that my opinion 

 is fupported by facts. As I have found, however, that the 

 blood of thofe labouring under an intermittent fever is ftiU 

 pofitively ele&ric *, it might be ufeful to afcertain in what 

 difeafes, and at what degree of thofe difeaies, it lofes its 

 electricity. Might not the electrometer be employed to 

 diftinguifh defperate "difeafes, and be ufed, if [ may be al- 

 lowed the expreffion, as a vitalitometer ? But many expe- 

 riments are frill wanting before we can reach that point 'of 

 perfection in the fcience of electricity. The difcovery of 

 electricity in the torpedo feems aftoniihing. That of Co- 

 tugiio, who received an electric (hock from a nioufe which 

 he was diffedting; and that of Tonfo, who had one from a 

 cat; and my electric experiments on rats fecm conclufive. 

 But the immenfity of nature f till presents matter for new 

 refcarches ; and at prefent, fin'ce I have found the electricity 

 pf the blood and that of the excretions contrary, 1 fee how 

 much remains to be done to reduce to their juft value the 

 opinions of Gatdini, Bertholon, Trcffan, and Carljeiij on ani- 

 mal cKch'idtv. You have purfued the belt route, which is 

 to interrogate nature by experiments'. Continue to do fo, 

 and you will enjoy the fatisfaction of having enlarged the 

 boundaries of fcience. 



XVI. Of Chemical and Mineralogicql Nomenclature. By 

 Richard, Kir wan, LL.D. F.R.S. and P.R.I. A.\ 



r r 



X H E names given to the different fubftanccs known in 

 common life, whether occurring in nature or produced by 

 art, are coeval with languages thcmfelves ; and whether all 

 were merely conventional, or fome of them grounded on Come 

 relation to the thing ilgnified, is now of little importance tp 

 inquire, as from Pong habit both are equally immediately re- 

 ferred to the thing figriified, without any reflection on th€ 



* Jo: r>m' tie f bifiq'ie GJrminal, an. 7. 



4 FiOip the TVanja&imsvf tbi T yai Irijh Academy fat iSco. 



original 



