ng
the subject at least under safe laws of nomenclature. It is possible that
modern chemistry may be entirely right in alleging the absolute identity of
substances such as albumen, or fibrine, whether they occur in the animal or
vegetable economies. But I do not choose to assume this identity in my
nomenclature. It may, perhaps, be very fine and very instructive to {252}
inform the pupils preparing for competitive examination that the main
element of Milk is Milkine, and of Cheese, Cheesine. But for the practical
purposes of life, all that I think it necessary for the pupil to know is
that in order to get either milk or cheese, he must address himself to a
Cow, and not to a Pump; and that what a chemist can produce for him out of
dandelions or cocoanuts, however milky or cheesy it may look, may more
safely be called by some name of its own.

This distinctness of language becomes every day more desirable, in the face
of the refinements of chemical art which now enable the ingenious
confectioner to meet the demands of an unscientific person for (suppose) a
lemon drop, with a mixture of nitric acid, sulphur, and stewed bones. It is
better, whatever the chemical identity of the products may be, that each
should receive a distinctive epithet, and be asked for and supplied, in
vulgar English, and vulgar probity, either as essence of lemons, or
skeletons.

I intend, therefore,--and believe that the practice will be found both wise
and convenient,--to separate in all my works on natural history the terms
used for vegetable products from those used for animal or mineral ones,
whatever may be their chemical identity, or resemblance in aspect. I do not
mean to talk of fat in seeds, nor of flour in eggs, nor of milk in rocks.
Pace my prelatical friends, I mean to use the word 'Alb' for vegetable
albumen; and although I cannot without pedantry avoid {253} using sometimes
the word 'milky' of the white juices of plants, I must beg the reader to
remain unaffected in his conviction that there is a vital difference
between liquids that coagulate into butter, or congeal into India-rubber.
Oil, when used simply, will always mean a vegetable product: and when I
have occasion to speak of petroleum, tallow, or blubber, I shall generally
call these substances by their right names.

There are also a certain number of vegetable materials more or less
prepared, secreted, or digested for us by animals, such as wax, honey,
silk, and cochineal. Th