Polytechnic Association Proceedings. 1017 



Since the above was written, I have received a number of letters 

 from teachers of science who early listened to my explanation of 

 the new system. One from Professor O. Eoot, of Hamilton Col- 

 lege, who remembers my conversation with him on the subject a 

 year before the date first given. Another from Mr. C. M. Critten- 

 den, Principal of the Seneca Falls Academy in 1844, inclosing one 

 from Mrs. Crittenden, who fixes that year as commencement of my 

 attempt to devise a new chemical nomenclature. Mrs. Elizabeth 

 Cady Stanton, the distinguished philanthropist, remembers my 

 explanation of it to her in the year 1846. The following certifi- 

 cate from a well known public lecturer, will suffice: 



" Li the year 1845, I gave my first course of lectures on electro- 

 magnetism at Seneca Falls, N. Y. I there met Samuel D. Tillman, 

 who was then in the practice of the law, but spent much of his 

 time in scientific investigations. Among the new inventions he 

 showed me was his plan of a chemical nomenclature in which, by 

 the use of vowels to represent the number of equivalents, and 

 consonants to represent the elements, he formed new names for 

 chemical compounds which severally expressed their exact compo- 

 sition. Since that time he has greatly improved and extended his 

 nomenclature by adapting it to the new notation now adopted by 

 advanced chemists. What I then saw was the germ of the system 

 which he has since so successfully developed. 



" JOHN F. BOYNTON, M. D., 



"Lecturer on the Physical Sciences" 



It seems proper to notice here more in detail what was actually 

 done by the authors who were among the first in Europe to direct 

 thek' attention to the question of a reform in chemical nomenclature. 



Laurent, in his Chemical Method, takes up the sul^ject of nomen- 

 clature. In Odling's translation of that work, published at London, 

 by the Cavendish Society, in 1855, page 37, under the title of 

 nomenclature, the author says: "We conclude our explanation at 

 this point by saying that we have not any systematic nomenclature 

 for the designation of organic substances. Nevertheless, I ought 

 not to pass over in silence the very remarkable nomenclature which 

 has been published by Gmelin, and which enables us, from the 

 name of a body, to determine its composition; and reciprocally, 

 from its composition to determine its name. 



"Dumas had conceived the idea of representing the number of 

 the atoms of chlorine which entered into a combination, by means 



