It is a remarkable evidence of this formative power of the German language, that it should have been able to produce an imitation of the systematic chemical nomenclature of the French school, so complete, that it is used in Germany as familiarly as the original system is in France and England. Thus Oxygen and Hydrogen are _Sauerstoff_ and _**Wasserstoff_; Azote is _Stickstoff_ (suffocating matter); Sulphuric and Sulphurous Acid are _Schwefel-säure_ and _Schwefelichte-säure_. The Sulphate and Sulphite of Baryta, and Sulphuret of Baryum, are _Schwefel-säure Baryterde_, _Schwefelichte-säure Baryterde_, and _Schwefel-baryum_. Carbonate of Iron is _Kohlen-säures Eisenoxydul_; and we may observe that, in such cases, the German name is much more agreeable to analogy than the English one; for the Protoxide of Iron, (_Eisenoxydul_,) and not the Iron itself, is the base of the salt. And the German language has not only thus imitated the established nomenclature of chemistry, but has shown itself capable of supplying new forms to meet the demands which the progress of theory occasions. Thus the Hydracids are _Wasserstoff-säuren_; and of these, the Hydriodic Acid is _Iodwasserstoff-säure_, and so of the rest. In like manner, the translator of Berzelius has found German names for the sulpho-salts of that chemist; thus he has _Wasserstoffschwefliges Schewefellithium_, which would be (if we were to adopt his theoretical view) hydro-sulphuret of sulphuret of lithium: and a like nomenclature for all other similar cases. 3. In English we have no power of imitating this process, and must take our technical phrases from some more flexible language, and generally from the Latin or Greek. We are indeed so much accustomed to do this, that except a word has its origin in one of these languages, it hardly seems to us a technical {323} term; and thus by employing indigenous terms, even descriptive ones, we may, perhaps, lose in precision more than we gain in the vividness of the impression. Perhaps it may be better to say _cuneate_, _lunate_, _hastate_, _sagittate_, _reniform_, than _wedge-shaped_, _crescent-shaped_, _halbert-headed_, _arrow-headed_, _kidney-shaped_. _Ringent_ and _personate_ are better than any English words which we could substitute for them; _labiate_ is more precise than _lipped_ would readily become. _Urceolate_, _trochlear_, are more compact than _pitcher-shaped_, _pulley-shaped_; and _infundibuliform_, _hypocrateriform_, though long words, are not more inconvenient than _funnel-shaped_ and _salver-shaped_. In the same way it is better to speak (with Dr. Prichard[57\4],) of _repent_ and _progressive_ animals, than of _creeping_ and progressive: the two Latin terms make a better pair of correlatives. [Note 57\4: _Researches_, p. 69.]