1820.] Physical Science during the Year 1819. 27 



with the analysis of pyro-urate of hme, nor subpyro-urate of lead. 

 MM. Chevallier and Lassaigne have not been particular enough 

 in their account of their analyses to enable us to see where the 

 error lies. Had they given us the weight of water formed, and 

 the bulk of the gases evolved, it would have been in our power to 

 have applied the most correct data to establish the constitution 

 of the acid. Such an omission is always greatly to be lamented. 

 It renders their experiments much less valuable than they would 

 otherwise have been. (See Jour, de Pharm. vi. 58). 



VIII. Alkalies. 



Sertiirner's paper on opium, and his discovery of the alkaline 

 properties of morphia, has opened a new and a very extensive 

 lield to chemists, which hitherto has chiefly been occupied by 

 the Parisian chemists connected with the pharmaceutical esta- 

 bhshments in that capital. Already have four new alkahne 

 substances been discovered and described by them, and the 

 existence of four or five more has been announced. To each of 

 these newly discovered substances, a name has been given by the 

 discoverer, and these names, by the French chemists, have been 

 made uniformly to terminate in inc. This was the termination 

 which Lavoisier and his associates, when they formed the new 

 chemical nomenclature, confined to vegetable and animal bodies. 

 Alkaline bodies were made by them to terminate in a, and this 

 rule has been uniformly observed by British chemists. I conceive, 

 therefore, that as these new substances possess alkaline proper- 

 ties, it will be convenient in naming them to distinguish them 

 from those animal and vegetable bodies that are destitute of the 

 property of neutralizing acids, and to show their relationship to 

 the class of alkaline bodies already known. This we can easily 

 do by simply changing the French termination i>te into a ; there- 

 fore, instead of 



Morphine, Delphine, 



Strychnine, , Picrotoxine, 



Brucine, 



I shall henceforth use the words. 



Morphia, Delphia, 



Strychnia, Picrotoxia. 



Brucia, 



And if the new vegetable alkaline bodies announced by Von 

 Mons, as recently discovered by M. Brandes, prove pecuhar 

 bodies, we have only to call them 



Datura, Atropa, and 



Hyoscyama, Cicuta. 



Aconita, 



The readers of the Annals of Philosophy are already acquainted 



