That the terms invented by Lavoisier and others have not been received with perfect unanimity by the chemists of the present day, is evident from Dr. Pearson’s “Translation of the New Chemical Nomenclature,” which is not only a _translation_, but a _vindication_ of it. In the course of his work he quotes the translator of the Chemical Dictionary saying, that, “from the zeal of reforming language, such a number of reformers may arise, that our ears will not be less stunned, nor our understandings less perplexed, than if we were exposed to the clamour of Babel, or the _thaw of words_ of Sir John Mandeville.” To this Dr. Pearson replies, that there is no reason to fear any such bad consequences. “The distinguished superiority of a system produced by a _De Guyton_, a _Lavoisier_, or a _Bergman_, would surely supercede the work of persons of _inferior ability_.” It is impossible to know the persons here designated, unless the Doctor points them out. If he chooses to call _himself_ one of them, we can have no objection. He certainly has dissented, in one article, from “the system produced by De Guyton, Lavoisier and Bergman,” and this is with regard to the word _azote_. This is the term announced to us as the most proper for denoting a certain kind of air. But Dr. Pearson determines _nitrogen_ to be more proper. Even this has not given entire satisfaction, for Dr. Mitchell has adopted the word _septon_ in preference to both _azote_ and _nitrogen_. Thus, instead of the original phrase _phlogisticated air_, used by Dr. Priestley, we have four; for as long as the works of Dr. Priestley remain, the original term will be used by some, while with others it will be so much disused that perhaps they will not understand it when it happens to occur. Nor are corrections of this kind all that we have to fear. Professor Wiegleb, who has written a System of Chemistry in quarto, has therein changed almost all the nomenclature invented by Lavoisier. Instead of it he gives a nomenclature of his own, in which he makes very much use of the termination _cratia_, from a Greek word signifying strength; thus, instead of saying the _acid of fluor_, we are to say _fluoricratia_. I must confess that to me the perpetual repetition of this termination has a very ridiculous appearance; but the misfortune is, that in the case of nomenclatures we have no choice. We cannot choose one and reject another: good or bad, we must take both; and were an hundred new ones to arise, we must be condemned to learn them all. Nor is even this the worst. Wiegleb’s scholars, for instance, accustomed to the language of their teacher, will be apt to put it into their writings, perhaps without proper explanation; and thus such writings must be unintelligible both to old and new chemists: and thus it will be with as many others as choose to invent new chemical terms.