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Excerpt from Dictionary of Chemistry, on the Basis of Mr. Nicholson's, Vol. 1 of 2: In Which the Principles of the Science Are Investigated Anew, and Its Applications to the Phenomena of Nature, Medicine, Mineralogy, Agriculture, and Manufactures, Detailed; With an Introductory Dissertation; Containing Instructions for Converting the Alp In this Introduction I shall first present a General View of the objects of chemistry, along with a scheme for converting the alphabetical arrangement adopted in this volume, into a systematic order of study. I shall then describe the manner in which this Dictionary seems to have been originally compiled, and the circumstances under which its present regeneration has been attempted. This exposition will naturally lead to an account of the principles on which the investigations of chemical theory and facts have been conducted, which distinguish this Work from a mere compilation. Some notice is then given of a treatise on practical chemistry, publicly announced by me upwards of three years ago, and of the peculiar circumstances of my situation as a teacher, which prompted me to undertake it, though its execution has been delayed by various obstructions. The forms of matter are numberless, and subject to incessant change. Amid all this variety which perplexes the common mind, the eye of science discerns a few unchangeable primary bodies, by whose reciprocal actions and combinations, this marvellous diversity and rotation of existence, are produced and maintained. These bodies, having resisted every attempt to resolve them into simpler forms of matter, are called undecomfounded, and must be regarded in the present state of our knowledge as experimental elements. It is possible that the elements of nature are very dissimilar; it is probable that they are altogether unknown; and that they are so recondite, as for ever to elude the sagacity of human research. The primary substances which can be subjected to measurement