y
would have been immediately known as such. So complete and regular a
nomenclature would, I think, have given a clearer and more comprehensive
view of chemistry than the present, which is a medley of the old and new
terms.

MRS. B.

But you are not aware of the difficulty of introducing into science an
entire set of new terms; it obliges all the teachers and professors to
go to school again, and if some of the old names, that are least
exceptionable, were not left as an introduction to the new ones, few
people would have had industry and perseverance enough to submit to the
study of a completely new language; and the inferior classes of artists,
who can only act from habit and routine, would, at least for a time,
have felt material inconvenience from a total change of their habitual
terms. From these considerations, Lavoisier and his colleagues, who
invented the new nomenclature, thought it most prudent to leave a few
links of the old chain, in order to connect it with the new one.
Besides, you may easily conceive the inconvenience which might arise
from giving a regular nomenclature to substances, the simple nature of
which is always uncertain; for the new names might, perhaps, have proved
to have been founded in error. And, indeed, cautious as the inventors of
the modern chemical language have been, it has already been found
necessary to modify it in many respects. In those few cases, however, in
which new terms have been adopted to designate simple bodies, these
names have been so contrived as to indicate one of the chief properties
of the body in question; this is the case with oxygen, which, as I
explained to you, signifies generator of acids; and hydrogen generator
of water. If all the elementary bodies had a similar termination, as you
propose, it would be necessary to change the name of any that might
hereafter be found of a compound nature, which would be very
inconvenient in this age of discovery.

But to return to the alkalies. --We shall now try to melt some of this
caustic potash in a little water, as a circumstance occurs during its
solution very worthy of observation. --Do you feel the heat that is
produced?

CAROLINE.

Yes, I do; but is not this directly contrary to our theory of latent
heat, according to which heat is disengaged when fluids become solid,
and cold produced when solids are melted?

MRS. B.

The latter is really the case in all solutions; and if the solution of
caustic alkalies