OX CHEMICAL NOMENCLATURE. 39 



Second Report of the Committee, consisting of Professors William- 

 son, Dewar, Frankland, Eoscoe, Crum Brown, Odling, and 

 Armstrong, Messrs. A. Gr. Vernon Harcourt, J. Millar Thom- 

 SON, H. B. Dixon (Secretary), and V. H. Veley, and Drs. F. E. 

 Japp and H. Forster Morley, reappointed for the purpose of 

 drawing up a statement of the varieties of Chemical Names which 

 have come into use, for indicating the causes which have led to 

 their adoption, and for considering what can be done to bring 

 about some convergence of the views on Chemical Nomenclature 

 obtaining among Eiiglish and foreign chemists. 



CHEMICAL NOMENCLATURE. 



Historical Notes. 



Ur to about the year 1780 no systematic attempts were made to give to 

 chemical substances names in any way indicating their composition. 

 The names used were derived for the most part in three ways : either 

 they were relics of the nomenclature of the alchemists, who named the 

 common metals after the known planets ; or the substances bore the name 

 of their discoverer ; or lastly, chemists, adopting, as Dumas said, tbe 

 language of the kitchen, gave names to substances on account of sligbt 

 external resemblances with bodies in common use — e.g. oil of vitriol, 

 butter of antimony, milk of lime, and cream of tartar. Lavoisier ascribes 

 to Macquer the credit of being the fh'st to classify substances under 

 generic names, by introducing the terms vitriol and nitre, to indicate the 

 classes of sulphates and nitrates respectively. 



The term salt was applied in the writings of tbe alchemists to any 

 substance which could be dissolved in water, and which affected the sense 

 of taste. So bodies as different in nature as sal-ammoniac, sal-petra?, 

 and sal-nitricnm (HNCv,) came to be classed together. In the eighteenth 

 century the three most distinctly marked classes of soluble substances — 

 namely, those which are now commonly called acids, salts, and bases — were 

 distinguished as salia acida, salia media, and salia alkakna. The salia 

 media were also known as salia salsa or neutral salts, a name which sur- 

 vived long after the separation of the acids and alkalies from the salts. 



The foundation of the present ideas as to salts is to be found in two 

 papers presented to the French Academy in 1744 and 1754, by G. F. 

 ftouelle. He excludes the alkalies and acids from the class of salts and 

 defines a neuiral salt as the product of the action of an acid on any body 

 which can act as a base. This is the first definition of a salt based on its 

 chemical properties. 



The first complete attempt to devise a system of inorganic nomen- 

 clature was made in 1782, simultaneously and independently by Bergmann l 

 and Guyton de Morveau. 2 The names proposed by the two are nearly 

 identical, and resemble to some extent the names still in use. De Mor- 

 veau lays down five principles to be observed in the choice of names for 

 chemical substances : — 



1. A phrase is not a name : the name ' l'alkali Prussien ' is therefore 



1 r.ergmann, Obxerv. de St/stemate Fossilium, Xaturali. 



■ Journal de Physique, vol. xix. April, 1782 ; also as C'it. Guyton, Ann. Cliim. vol. 

 xsv. p. 205. [1798.] 



