4Q6 Biographical Sketch of [June, 



articles in M. Duhamel. The variety and extensive research 

 historical, literary, and experimental, required for the execution 

 of an undertaking which should be not unworthy of the reputa- 

 tion of the author, and of the high anticipations formed of the 

 great and almost national work of which it constituted a part ; 

 the critical state too of the science of chemistry itself, in the 

 very agony of contest between two fundamental theories, and 

 receiving almost daily accessions of newly discovered and 

 highly important facts, soon convinced M. Morveau that 

 nothing less than his undivided attention would enable him to. 

 fulfil the engagements into which he had entered. Accordingly 

 in 1783 he resigned all his professional employments, and wholly 

 devoted himself to the service of science. 



In 1782 he published a memoir in the Journal de Physique to 

 show the necessity of establishing a scientific and systematical 

 mode of nomenclature for the various substances, simple and 

 compound, which are the objects of chemical investigation. 

 This memoir is generally considered by his countrymen as the first 

 attempt to emancipate chemistry from the trammels pf a barba- 

 rous jargon, endurable only while the number of substances was 

 yet small, and while much of mystery still continued to veil from 

 vulgar eyes the higher and more recondite processes of the 

 hermetic philosophy. Without the smallest wish to detract 

 from the real merit and just views of M. Morveau on this occa- 

 sion, it is only common justice to the memory of the illustrious 

 Bergman, to mention that in his essay De Analusi Aquarum, 

 published in 1778, he employs a nomenclature for the compound 

 salts, derived from the sound Linnoean principles of designating 

 every natural substance by a generic and specific appellation, 

 and in more respects than one preferable to that proposed by 

 Morveau. In Bergman's essay, already mentioned, we find 

 alkali vegetabile deratum, vitriolatum, nitratttm, salitum; calx 

 iierata, vitriolata, salita, Sec. ; ferrum and argentum vitriolatum, 

 salitum, Sec. ; hi/rlrargurns uitratus, together with many other 

 similar example's, showing that the fundamental principles of 

 correct nomenclature were both understood and applied by 

 Bergman, and were borrowed from him by Morveau, with whom 

 he was in constant and intimate correspondence. In the tableau 

 accompanying M. Morveau's paper, we find the following names 

 invented by him, and which are still retained, viz. muriatic and 

 fluoric acids ; muriates, phosphates, citrates, Sec. as generic 

 terms ; barote, potasse, soude, ammoniac, instead of the more 

 circuitous expressions terra pottderosa, alkali vegetabile, alkali 

 minerale, alkali volatile, which still continued to be used by 

 Bergman. The merit of M. Morveau, therefore, on this occa- 

 sion is not the invention of the great principle of scientific 

 nomenclature, for this is due to Linnaeus ; nor the first applica- 

 tion of this general principle to the naming of chemical sub- 

 stances, for this praise is due to Bergman ; but the adoption ot 



