CHAP. VI.
IT becomes extremely easy, from the principles laid down in the preceding chapter, to establish a systematic nomenclature for the acids: The word acid, being used as a generic term, each acid falls to be distinguished in language, as in nature, by the name of its base or radical. Thus, we give the generic name of its base or radical. Thus, we give the generic name of acids to the products of the combustion or oxygenation of phosphorus, of sulphur, and of charocal; and these products are respectively names, the phosphoric acid, the sulphuric acid, and the carbonic acid.
There is however, a remarkable circumstance in the oxygenation of combustible bodies, and of a part of such bodies as are convertible into acids, that they are susceptible of different degrees of saturation with oxygen, and that the resulting acids, though formed by the union of the same elements, are possessed of different properties, depending upon that difference of proportion. Of this, the phosphoric acid, and more especially the sulphuric, furnishes us with ex-
