2 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
and an arrangement inconsistent with the practice and opinions 
of a chemist by whose authority in other respects I am usually 
influenced. But before proceeding with the ungracious task 
of endeavouring to establish the correctness of my views in 
opposition to those of my friend, I feel that it will be no more 
than justice to repeat an acknowledgment, already made in 
my text book, that if De Bonsdorff, myself, and others are 
right in considering the double salts of Berzelius as simple 
salts, it is to the light afforded by his investigations, that 
we owe the power of seeing the subject correctly. I be- 
lieve the idea, that any other body besides oxygen could pro- 
duce both acids and bases capable of forming salts, originated 
with Berzelius, in the instance of sulphur. 
Recapitulation and review of the grounds of his deviating 
from the language and arrangement o/" Berzelius, and 
other distinguished chemists; with some additional expla- 
nations and suggestions, by R. Hare, M. D., Professor 
of Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania. 
According to the Berzelian nomenclature, bodies which 
produce salts by a union with radicals are called halogen or 
salt producing bodies, while those which with radicals form 
both acids and bases, capable by their union of constituting 
salts, are called amphigen bodies or both producers. Salts, 
produced by the first mentioned class are called haloid salts; 
Those produced by the other are called amphide salts. 
I objected to this classification, that the words salt, acid 
and base, were broad, vague and unsettled in their accepta- 
tion, having, by chemists in general, and especially by Ber- 
zelius, been employed to designate substances differing in 
composition, and extremely discordant in their properties; 
that no method of defining a salt had been devised, which 
had not been founded either on properties or composition; 
that in the nomenclature of Berzelius properties were disre- 
garded, since among his haloid and amphide salts were found 
substances difiering extremely in this respect. Thus, for in- 
stance, common salt, Glauber's salt, Epsom salt, vitriolated 
