ON CHEMICAL NOMENCLATURE. 
9 
remoulded for new editions, without its having been possible 
to eradicate all that has not kept pace with the progress of 
science. 
Accept the assurance of my perfect esteem, and of the 
sentiments of sincere friendship with which I have the honour 
to be, Yours, &c. 
Jin Examination^ by the Author of this Article, of the Sug- 
gestions in the preceding Letter of Berzelius, and how 
far the Objections made to his Nomenclature, are therein 
answered. 
So far as my strictures were founded on the alleged diffi- 
culty of defining the terms acid, salt, and base, in any mode 
consistent with his classification, they are not met by any facts 
or reasoning in the much esteemed letter of my illustrious 
correspondent. The impracticability of defining a salt, he 
does not deny; and with great candour he admits that, in his 
definition of acidity, he has not been consistent. He concedes 
that it would be preferable to give the syllable, indicating the 
electro-negative ingredient, the precedence, as nothing but 
unwillingness to innovate, prevented him from pursuing that 
course. 
He acknowledges that as combustion, in many instances, 
takes place without the presence of oxygen, the application of 
the word combustible, should not be confined to bodies which 
are susceptible of oxydizement. 
My definition of acidity was as follows: — 
" When, of two substances cajiable of combining with 
each other so as to form a tertium quid,* and having an 
ingredient common to them both, one prefers the positive, 
the other the negative pole of the Voltaic series, we must 
deem the former an acid, and the latter a base. Also all 
substances having a sour taste, or which redden litmus, 
* This term tertium quid hay been used by chemiats, more Ibiiuefly 
than of late, to designate a compound resulting from the union of 
two bodies, but in its properties resembling- neither. 
VOL. III. NO. I. 2 
