Page:Lavoisier-ElementsOfChemistry.pdf/158

 have been changed almost into the nature of acids. This mode of classifying substances of so very opposite natures, under the same generic name, would have been quite contrary to our principles of nomenclature, especially as, by retaining the above term for this state of metallic substances, we must have conveyed very false ideas of its nature. We have, therefore, laid aside the expression metallic calx altogether, and have substituted in its place the term oxyd, from the Greek word.

By this may be seen, that the lanugage we have adopted is both copious and expressive. The first or lowest degree of oxygenation constitutes the class of acids, of which the specific names, drawn from their particular bases, terminate in ous, as the nitrous and sulphurous acids; the third degree of oxygenation changes these into the species of acids distinguished by the termination in ic, as the nitric and sulphuric acids; and, lastly, we can express a fourth, or highest degree of oxygenation, by adding the word oxygenated to the name of the acid, as has been already done with the oxygenated muriatic acid.

We have not confined the term oxyd to expressing the combinations of metals with oxygen, but have extended it to signify that first degree of oxygenation in all bodies, which,