On Chemical JVomendature. 259 



eprons with the same.* Being beautiful, and easily obtained, we 

 find shells used by most savage nations as ornaments, and frequently 

 as instruments and utensils for cutting with, drinking from, &.c. 



XXX. The Brehmins of Hindoostan make their astronomical 

 observations, by means of shells arranged before them on the ground, 

 and the Egyptians and even the ancient Greeks are said to have 

 used shells in counting and calculations. f 



XXXI. At Mobile, shells are used in mending the roads, for which 

 purpose they are said to answer well. 



XXXII. By some of the aborigines of the coast of South Amer- 

 ica, a large bivalve, full of grain, was buried with the body, to feed 

 it during its travels to the next world. 



XXXIII. The stony operculum of some species of East Indian 

 Turbo, are used in this country as ' eye stones,^ to remove dust, etc. 

 from the eye. 



XXXIV. Bivalves were used by the Greeks and Romans in the 

 ostracism, the name of the person to be banished being written on 

 the shell. Whether the Romans ever made use of shells for this 

 purpose has been doubted ; though at first they perhaps might, and 

 afterwards only the earthenware tiles, to which the Greek name 

 oatgaxov was transferred. 



Art. IV. — Criticisms and suggestions respecting JVomenclaiure ; by 

 Robert Hare, M. D., Prof, of Chem. in the Univ. of Pennsyl- 

 vania. .^Iso, a letter fj-om the celebrated J. J. Berzelius.J 



TO THE EDITORS OP THE JOURNAL OP PHARMACY, 



Philadelphia, March 4, 1837. 

 Dear Sirs — In September, 1833, I published in your Journal, to- 

 gether with some encomiums upon the treatise of Chemistry by the 

 celebrated Berzelius, certain objections to his nomenclature, and 

 some suggestions respecting a substitute, which I deemed to be pre- 

 ferable. In the following June I addressed a letter to Professor 

 Silliman upon the same topics, in which my criticisms and sugges- 



* Cook's Voyages, 3d ed. 4to, Vol. i. p. 219, &c. where plates of these articles 

 are given. 



t Playfair on the astronomy of the Brehmins, in Transactions of Royal Society 

 of Edinburgh, Vol. ii. p. 135. Herodotus, lib. ii. cap. 36. 



t Copied from the American Journal of Pharmacy, April, 1837. 



