REFORM OF MINERALOGICAL SYSTEMS. 267 



proposed appellations were mostly of a cumbrous 

 form, as the above examples may serve to show. 

 Such names could have obtained general currency, 

 only after a general and complete acceptance of 

 the system ; and the system did not possess, in a 

 sufficient degree, that evidence which alone could 

 gain it a home in the belief of philosophers ; the 

 coincidence of its results with those of Chemistry. 

 But before I speak finally of the fortunes of the 

 natural-history system, I will say something of the 

 other attempt which was made about the same time 

 to introduce a reform into mineralogy from the 

 opposite extremity of the science. 



Sect. 2. Chemical System of Berzelius and others. 



IF the students of external characters were satisfied 

 of the independence of their method, the chemical 

 analysts were naturally no less confident of the 

 legitimate supremacy of their principles : and when 

 the beginning' of the present century had been dis- 

 tinguished by the establishment of the theory of 

 definite proportions, and by discoveries which pointed 

 to the electro-chemical theory, it could not appear 

 presumption to suppose, that the classification of 

 bodies, so far as it depended on chemistry, might 

 be presented in a form more complete and scientific 

 than at any previous time. 



The attempt to do this was made by the great 

 Swedish chemist Jacob Berzelius. In 1816, he 



