96 LETTEES OF BERZELIUS - 



The king happened to be present at the Academy, 

 and to your memoranda added the reports on gun- 

 cotton given by his ministers from various quarters, 

 containing among other things a statement that in 

 Brunswick serious disasters had been caused by the 

 bursting of rifles through too powerful a charge of 

 guncotton. 



Like you L. Svanberg 1 has prepared compounds of 

 sugar and gum with a mixture of nitric and sulphuric 

 acids; they are, however, not to be compared to 

 nitrolignin. You will observe that I have adopted 

 your nomenclature; lignin nitrate is in fact a mis- 

 nomer, for the substance which unites with nitric 

 acid is no longer lignin, as it has already given up 

 several atoms of hydrogen and oxygen. 



On the other hand I am unable to subscribe to 

 your views on nitric acid and the nitrates. They 

 cannot be correct. The test of the truth of a theory 

 is that it should harmonize the particular instance 

 with the whole system of science ; for the laws of 

 nature are always consistent with one another. Now 

 if you advance a principle which makes an exception 

 of what was before consistent with scientific ideas, 

 logic pronounces against you. So far as I can judge 

 from your paper, you were led to this by concluding, 

 from the fact that ozone and nitric acid at ordinary 



1 Lars Friedrich Svanberg, born in Stockholm in 1805, was 

 a lieutenant, then teacher of chemistry and physics at the 

 Military College at Karlsberg. From 1858 to 1874 lie was 

 professor of chemistry at Upsala, where he died in 1878. " Om 

 salpetersyrans forening nied nagra Kroppar," Ofversigt, Arg. 

 4 (1847) p. 51. 



