M. Berzelius and the Rev.W .\\ r hexvei\ on Chonical Formula. 9 



may take the refractive index to be somewhere between 21 

 and 2:2 for rays of mean refrangibility. Such rays are how- 

 ever absorbed in refraction in specimens of ordinary thickness, 

 from the tendency of the substance to transmit only the rays 

 of the red end of the spectrum. 



III. Remarks on a recent Statement by Berzelius respecting 

 the Use of Chemical Formula:. By the. Rev. W. Whewell, 

 M.A., F.R.S., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. 

 Gentlemen, 



AS the subject of chemical nomenclature has been already 

 discussed in your pages, perhaps your readers may be 

 willing to see the view taken of the present state of the ques- 

 tion by one of the persons whose opinion will naturally be 

 most attended to on this matter. 



In Berzelius's " Annual Report on the Progress of the 

 Physical Sciences," read before the Swedish Academy on 

 March 31, 1832, the following passage occurs : 



" Some opinions concerning the chemical formulae have 

 been published in English Journals. The learned of that 

 nation, little acquainted with foreign languages, do not ac- 

 quire till late any knowledge of the progress of science in 

 other countries, and always find excuses in defence of this 

 slowness, among which not unfrequently occurs this, that the 

 thing in question h foreign, and must be either extremely im- 

 portant, or must have become somewhat old, in order to obtain 

 a more general notice. In the Annual Report for 1 S2i, I have 

 mentioned the objections which have been made against the 

 chemical and mineralogical formulae introduced by me: these 

 have been again brought forward by Whewell, who urges 

 principally that these formulae are like algebraical ones, with- 

 out being constructed according to algebraical rules, — on 

 which account they must be disagreeable to any one who knows 

 a small matter of algebra ; and that they are also not a sim- 

 ple representation of the results of analysis, but affect to ex- 

 hibit certain determinate modes of combination. Now he, it 

 appears, has discovered a system of chemical signs which has 

 not the same fault." I shall not trouble your readers with 

 the comparison which he gives, and to which he adds, " tot 

 capita, tot seHSUS /". " Whewell concludes his dissertation," 

 he continues, "with an admonition to the English chemists ' to 

 purify and improve \\\u foreign system.'. ..Prideaux has made 



Third Series. Vol. *. No. 19. Jan. 1831. C 



