POLTTECHNIG ASSOCIATION PROCEEDINGS. 1015 



At that time Laurent was still at school, and Dumas had not yet 

 made the discoveries on which the doctrine of substitution was 

 based. However, in the next 'generation' (1848), a chapter on 

 that subject appeared, for the first time, in the fourth edition 

 of Gmelin's Handbook of Chemistry. In the English translation 

 of that work, this chapter, entitled ' Suggestions of a New Chem- 

 ical Nomenclature, particularly for Organic Compounds,' occupies 

 just four pages (vol. vii, pp. 149-153). The article, by its allu- 

 sions to recently discovered compounds and new chemical reactions, 

 bears internal evidence that it was written immediately prior to its 

 publication in 1848. Long anterior to this date, I had conceived 

 the idea which was the germ of my own scheme. In 1850, I 

 extended the system of counting, so as to express the highest com- 

 binations. My first promulgation can be proved by the following 

 statements by well-known scientists: 



" ' On consulting my diary, I find that the time you explained 

 your new chemical nomenclature to me, in which you proposed to 

 use vowels as numerals, and to distinguish the non-metallic ele- 

 ments by diiferent consonant terminals, was on Saturday, May 13, 

 1848. * * * This is no occasion on which to ofier u 

 criticism of your nomenclature, but I cannot refrain from adding 

 my testimonial to its wonderful adaptation to the simplest expres- 

 sion of the most complex chemical compounds. 



" CHARLES A. JOY, 

 " * Profcssor'of Chemistry in Columbia College 



and in the School of Mines, N. Y.' 



" ' For several years (preceding 1846) Prof. S. D. Tillman and 

 I resided in the same town. I well remember his plan, then and 

 there made, of a new chemical nomenclature, in which the name 

 of a new compound denoted its exact component parts. The 

 number of equivalents was expressed by a vowel immediately pre- 

 ceding the last letter (m) in the names of all metals, as well as 

 before the different consonants expressing non-metallic elements. 



"'EDWARD BAYARD, M. D., 

 " ' No. 6, West Fourteenth street, JVetv York. 



"The question of priority of conception will be deemed of minor 

 impor.tance by those who have carefully examined what has been 

 done by Gmelin and by me. That Gmelin did not " fully elabo- 

 rate " his scheme, is evident from his own admissions. In the chap- 

 ter alluded to (page 151, Watts' translation 1859), he says : 'In 



