Volume 2

A system of chemistry...In four volumes / By J. Murray.

  • Murray, J. (John), -1820.
Date:
1809
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of chemistry...In four volumes / By J. Murray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    23/754 (page 11)
    1 AKD RELATIONS OF BODIES. ] 1 • scription of all the active chemical bodies, their history can be rendered most complete. I have not hesitated to form into an order the native combinations of Acids, Earths, Metals and Inflammable's, or the substances denominated Minerals. The characters of these are peculiar; so weak are their chemical agencies, that the greater number of them are rather considered as objects of natural history than of chemistry, and they are principally characterized by their natural properties. They are chemical compounds, however, and, so far at least as relates to their composition, are subjects of chemical science. i Vegetable and Animal Substances form the remain- ing orders. Their chemical constitution is very peculiar, .and their characters as chemical substances are therefore well defined. It is one of the advantages of the method I have adopted, that they are placed in the classification as orders, on the same grounds as the others ; /While, in synthetic arrangements, they have been excluded, or ad- mitted without being in conformity to the principles of the arrangement. After having stated this arrangement, I have, before I proceed to the chemical history of the substances placed under it, to offer some general observations on their more comprehensive chemical relations, so far as thev are de- veloped in the present state of the science. Substances are regarded by the chemist chiefly as they are compound, or as they are simple. The former are bodies which by chemical analysis can be resolved into