LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



wish, before making it public, to consult one of the foun- 

 tain sources of chemical knowledge, and certainly there 

 is no one in whose judgment I would place more confi- 

 dence than in that of Berzelius. 



" If it meets with your approbation, it is at your dis- 

 posal. It would be a gratification to me could it be pub- 

 lished in some European journal." 



Fearing, in those days of uncertain mails, that this 

 letter might miscarry, a second copy of the article was 

 sent about two months later, with another letter. 



TO PROFESSOR BERZELIUS 



" NEW HAVEN, Jan. 16, 1836. 



" My anxiety to receive the opinion and criticisms of 

 one of the oracles of chemical science has induced me to 

 address to you a second copy of my manuscript on chem- 

 ical nomenclature, supposing that some one of the acci- 

 dents to which packages travelling so great a distance are 

 liable might possibly have befallen that sent with the last 

 number of Professor Silliman's Journal of Science. To 

 this I wish a safe and speedy voyage. 



' Your knowledge of the rapidly advancing state of the 

 science will induce you, I doubt not, to excuse the pre- 

 sumption I appear to be guilty of in writing on a subject 

 which but a few years since engaged the attention of one 

 so much more capable. The few peculiarities of the 

 system here proposed occurred to me while reading the 

 article on the subject in your late work on chemistry, as 

 will appear in the general adoption of some of the most 

 important parts of your own system, and in the identity 

 of the nomenclature of a great part of chemical com- 

 pounds." 



After a long delay, which was fully explained, a full 

 and considerate reply was received from Berzelius, which 

 will be given later. 



At Utica, in the latter part of August, 1836, during 

 the vacation of Yale College, Dana wrote off about fifty 

 pages on crystallography, intending it, as he says, merely 



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