ON CHEMICAL NOMENCLATURE. 



41 



from 



of 



corre- 

 lids and 

 Its thus 

 lion tho 

 ler and 



sptance 

 Jerman, 



lix and 

 le made 



[a. 



to it ''rotn time to time, such as tliat of Thomson,' wlio distinguished the 

 ditlerent metallic oxides as protoxides, doutoxidoa, &o. 



Berzelius '■' made a more exact ('lassificatioii of salts, and added some 

 now forms of names. Ho laid down tho rule that tho names of tho 

 simplest compounds should ho formed by adding to tho namo of the ono 

 element tho termination ' -ido ' or ' -ure ; ' to that of tho other, tho termi- 

 nation ' -eux ' or ' -ique,' with tho further provision that the moro 

 electronegative of the two constituents should have the substantive form. 

 Instead of the terms protoxide, &c., ho adds tho terminations ' -ous ' ami 

 '-ic' to the luimo of tho other constituent- -c.j'. ferrous oxide. Among 

 tho compounds of elements with oxygen ho separated tho compound."* 

 with electro-negative elements — the acids — from the other oxides, with- 

 out thereby implying tho existence of any fundamental ditlerence between 

 them. Tho halogen compounds of hydrogen lie cnlls liydracids. In tho 

 investigation of salts he was tho tirst who made clearer distinction 

 between neutral, acid, and basic salts ; instead of these terms ho used tho 

 terms supersalts and subsalts. 



From time to time systems of chemical nomenclature have been pro- 

 posed which entirely discard the arbitrary names given even to tho best 

 known substances, and introduce artificial words, each of whoso vowels 

 or consonants means either a substance or a number. Thus Gmelin*' pro- 

 poses a system in which the different vowels and diphthongs represent tho 

 numbers from 1 to 9, and tho elements are described by monosyllables 

 with tho vowel <i, thus: — K = Pate, IMn = Ganne, Ac. In combining' 

 the names of the elements tlio vowel is altored according to tho number of 

 atoms of the element to be denoted. Thus, if O = Ane, and Fo = IMart, 

 then Fe.jOs = Mertin, and Fe;,0, = Mirton. Laurent attempted a system 

 of the same sort but found it unworkable. For organic substances New- 

 lands ' has devised a series of names, some of whrch might be useful. 



Laurent^ enter.s into au elaborate comparison of the qualities of the 

 compounds of hydrogen, zinc, gold, silver, and platinum, and shows 

 that in respect of crystalline structure, behaviour on heating, and power 

 of entering into chemical combinations tho corresponding compounds 

 of hydrogen and zinc — i.e. tho hydrogen salts and tho zinc salts — show 

 a clo.ser analogy with each other than the zino salt does with those of 

 the other metals. He concludes that if hydrogen were not gaseous and 

 its oxide were not volatile, no one would hesitate to place it among 

 the metals. Ho therefore looks on the acids as belonging to the same 

 chemical type as their salts, as being, in fact, hydrogen salts. Laurent 

 proceeds further to show that there is no essential distinction to be drawn 

 between acids and salts and oxides. The differences between hydrogen 

 and other metallic salts are as a rule not greater than the differences 

 between the salts of two such metals as platinum and potassium, or two 

 such bodies as a chloride and a carbonate. The reactions of the hydrogen 

 salts are not always more energetic than those of the other metallic 

 salts : thus, sulphate of hydrogen attacks metallic oxides just as the 

 sulphates of gold and platinum do. Tho distinction which has been made 



between them is due to the non-metallic appearance of hydrogen, and the 



* 



' Si/stcm of Cheinutry, od. 180i, 1807, 1810, &c. 



■■' Journal de Physique, vol. Ixxxiii. p. 2i)i} : uFso in Lehhrvch der Chemie. 

 ' Handbook, vol. vii. p. 141). 



* ('hem. Nmx, 1861. • ■ 



- * M(i,]wdc de. Chemie. i : i . ' > • 



