In a letter written early in the summer of the year 1788 to the Rev. Mr. Madison, of William and Mary College, we find Jefferson again right and Buffon wrong on a scientific subject. The student of chemistry will smile at Buffon's opinion, while he can not but admire Jefferson's wonderful foresight in predicting the discoveries to be made in that science, even though he should have erred in his opinion of Lavoisier's chemical nomenclature. We quote the following from the above-mentioned letter: _To Rev. Mr. Madison._ Speaking one day with Monsieur de Buffon on the present ardor of chemical inquiry, he affected to consider chemistry but as cookery, and to place the toils of the laboratory on a footing with those of the kitchen. I think it, on the contrary, among the most useful of sciences, and big with future discoveries for the utility and safety of the human race. It is yet, indeed, a mere embryon. Its principles are contested; experiments seem contradictory, their subjects are so minute as to escape our senses; and their results too fallacious to satisfy the mind. It is probably an age too soon to propose the establishment of a system. The attempts, therefore, of Lavoisier to reform the chemical nomenclature is premature. One single experiment may destroy the whole filiation of his terms, and his string of sulphates, sulphites, and sulphures may have served no other end than to have retarded the progress of the science, by a jargon, from the confusion of which time will be requisite to extricate us. Accordingly, it is not likely to be admitted generally. The letter of which we now give the conclusion shows how closely and how minutely Jefferson watched and studied the improvements and progress made in the arts and sciences during his stay in Europe. This letter--to be found in both editions of his correspondence--was written in the spring of the year 1789, and addressed to Doctor Willard, professor in the University of Harvard, which University had just conferred on Jefferson a diploma as Doctor of Laws. After mentioning and criticising all the late publications bearing on the different branches of science and letters, he makes the following eloquent conclusion: _To Dr. Willard._