436 
ON chemistry. 
of the atmospheric air, the naine of oxygen, from of us, acid um , 
and ynvofActi, gignor, because one of the most general properties of 
this base is to form acids, by combining with many different sub¬ 
stances.” 
Of Oxygen as a base but little is known. It is one of those 
masterful secrets which perhaps may never be revealed to mortal 
mind, and therefore can never be spoken of with too much modesty. 
Oxygen has been usually described as a peculiar elementary base, of 
the nature of which no one, that I am aware of, hazarded a con¬ 
jecture, till Mr. Hume (a chemist in Long Acre, London) published 
his pamphlet, in 1808, “Upon the identity of Silex (or pure flint) 
and oxygen.” Oxygen gas has been always defined as an elastic aeri¬ 
form fluid, consisting of oxygen (the base) in union with a certain 
portion of caloric, or the matter of heat, a term derived from the Latin 
word color, heat. Wishing to rest upon no man’s foundation, and 
equally disclaiming the idea of assuming as mine own, that which 
has been previously advanced by another, I still believe that, till I 
wrote the section upon “Water,” in the “Domestic Gardeners 
Manual,” no writer had ventured to hazard the conjecture of the 
aqueous origin of oxygen and of oxygen gas. I assert nothing, and 
require no one to place faith, or a blind unreflecting confidence in 
anything I may adduce as an hypothesis; but no man can write 
sincerely except from the conviction of his own mind. And I doubt 
the correctness of all that has been said, written, or deduced, from 
experiment, upon the nature of oxygen gas, and feel convinced that, 
it has had, at all times, its origin solely in the decomposition of 
water, by the agency 7 of pure electric etherial lights. I define oxygen 
as a peculiar base, one of the components of water ; and oxygen gas, 
as an elastic fluid, derived from water, by the union of that peculiar 
base with a certain definite portion of pure solar fire; which fire is 
the one sole source of all the natural phaenomena of attraction and 
decomposition. This elementary' fire is identical with the caloric of 
modern chemists, and exists throughout nature, ever present in one 
or other form or modification, but generally concealed, till excited 
by some act of percussion, or of chemical attraction. 
Hydrogen .—This term also originated with Lavoisier and other 
celebrated French chemists; it was applied to that peculiar base or 
radical which, when in combination with oxygen, constitutes water. 
The word is compounded of vSoup ( udor ) water, and yuvogou, or 
rather ywu ( geino) I generate; it indicates the generator, or 
source of water. The term hy drogen, as was the case with oxygen, 
designates the solid or base ; and what this is, is unknown to man. 
