Chlorindine, Chlorindoptene, Chlorindatmit;
Chloranile, Chloranilam, and, Chloranilammon.
And yet, with all this practical skill in decoction, and accumulative industry in observation and nomenclature, so far are our scientific men from arriving, by any decoctive process of their own knowledge, at general results useful to ordinary human creatures, that when I wish now to separate, for young scholars, in first massive arrangement of vegetable productions, the Substances of Plants from their Essences; that is to say, the weighable and measurable body of the plant from its practically immeasurable, if not imponderable, spirit, I find in my three volumes of close-printed chemistry, no information what ever respecting the quality of volatility in matter, except this one sentence:—
"The disposition of various substances to yield vapour is very different: and the difference depends doubtless on the relative power of cohesion with which they are endowed."[[67]]
Even in this not extremely pregnant, though extremely
cautious, sentence, two conditions of matter are confused, no notice being taken of the difference in manner of dissolution between a vitally fragrant and a mortally putrid substance.
It is still more curious that when I look for more definite instruction on such points to the higher ranks of botanists, I find in the index to Dr. Lindley's 'Introduction to Botany'—seven hundred pages of close print—not one of the four words 'Volatile,' 'Essence,' 'Scent,' or 'Perfume.' I examine the index to Gray's 'Structural and Systematic Botany,' with precisely the same success. I next consult Professors Balfour and Grindon, and am met by the same dignified silence. Finally, I think over the possible chances in French, and try in Figuier's indices to the 'Histoire des Plantes' for 'Odeur'—no such word! 'Parfum'—no such word. 'Essence'—no such word. 'Encens'—no such word. I try at last 'Pois de Senteur,' at a venture, and am referred to a page which describes their going to sleep.
Left thus to my own resources, I must be content for the present to bring the subject at least under safe laws of nomenclature. It is possible that modern chemistry may be entirely right in alleging the absolute identity of substances such as albumen, or fibrine, whether they occur in the animal or vegetable economies. But I do not choose to assume this identity in my nomenclature. It may, perhaps, be very fine and very instructive to
inform the pupils preparing for competitive examination that the main element of Milk is Milkine, and of Cheese, Cheesine. But for the practical purposes of life, all that I think it necessary for the pupil to know is that in order to get either milk or cheese, he must address himself to a Cow, and not to a Pump; and that what a chemist can produce for him out of dandelions or cocoanuts, however milky or cheesy it may look, may more safely be called by some name of its own.
This distinctness of language becomes every day more desirable, in the face of the refinements of chemical art which now enable the ingenious confectioner to meet the demands of an unscientific person for (suppose) a lemon drop, with a mixture of nitric acid, sulphur, and stewed bones. It is better, whatever the chemical identity of the products may be, that each should receive a distinctive epithet, and be asked for and supplied, in vulgar English, and vulgar probity, either as essence of lemons, or skeletons.