symbols is to be looked upon as consisting of mere abbreviations, which are not indispensably necessary: they need not be used in chemistry, but they are generally convenient in expressing the constitution of minerals, as they make the formula shorter and more simple. In chemical investigations, it would generally be better to use the other or systematic symbols. In these it will be observed that none but small letters are used (capitals and accents being confined to the abbreviated symbols). All metallic elements are represented by two letters the single letters used are, b, c, h, n, o, p, s. There is, I think, no part of the system in which any ambiguity can occur thus S and si refer to silica and its base, s, s', s' to sulphur and its acids: C, ca, lime and its base; c, c', c', carbon and its acids: cu, Cu, cb, Cb, cr, cr', &c. various metals and their combinations; N, na, soda and its base; n, n', n', nitrogen and its combinations. The use, however, of the grave accent, as s', n', &c. for the sulphurous, nitrous, &c. acids, would be almost superfluous, as these do not occur in minerals. : As an exemplification of the above symbols, take the constitution of Alamandine and Melanite, according to BeudantAlamandine (2S+ 3 Fe) + 2 (S+A). Melanite = (2 si + 0 + 3 fe + o) + 2 (si + o + al + o) 4 si+3 fe + 2 al + 9 0. = (2S+ 3 C) + 2 (S + Fes). = (2 si+o+3 ca + o) + 2 (si + 0 + fe + 0) = 4 si+ 3 ca+2 fe+ 10 o. The difference of these two expressions in the quantity of oxygen disappears according to the views of Berzelius, who considers S as si + 30, C as ca + 2o, Fe as fe+ 20, Fes as fe+ 30, A as al + 30. We have thus Alamandine (2 si + 3 0 +3 fe+20)+2 (si+3 o+al+30) = 4 si + 3 fe +2 al + 24 o. Melanite = (2 si + 3 0 + 3 ca + 20)+(si +30+ fe +30 4 si+3 ca+2 fe+ 240; and the two expressions are now analogous. The notation of Berzelius has already been widely diffused, and much valuable information has been embodied in it, espe cially on the subject of mineralogy; yet the objections to it are of the most weighty character. Its formulæ are merely unconnected records of inferences which are in some degree arbitrary; the analysis itself, the fundamental and certain fact from which the inferences are made, is not recorded in the symbol; and the connexion between different formulæ, the identity of which is a necessary and important circumstance, can be recognised only by an entire perversion of all algebraical rules. In the system which I have proposed, the fundamental analysis is the simplest shape of the formula; the various inferences from it are made by the most obvious changes, and the identity of these with the analysis, and with each other, is evident on the face of the notation. One method, by a misapplication of mathematical symbols, gives us a sign which can only record an opinion possibly false: the other represents simply what is certainly true, and enables us to reason from the fact to all its possible inferences, without considering anything except the notation itself. It will not long be possible to dispense with some such instrument in this country; and I should hope that what I have said may tend to induce our chemists to purify and improve the foreign system, before it is admitted to a familiarity and circulation among us, which may make the correction of its faults a task of great difficulty and inconvenience. Trinity College, Cambridge, ON THE PLANT INTENDED BY THE SHAMROCK OF IRELAND. By I. E. BICHENO, Esq., F.R.S., SEC. L. S., &c. [Read at the Linnean Society.] HE festival of St. Patrick has been so long recognised by THE those who traverse the streets of this great city, by the clover they see in the hats of the Irish, that any one who should entertain an opinion that this plant is not the original emblem of Ireland, will be thought to have no ground for MAY, 1831 VOL. I. 2 H differing from the established belief; yet, I think I am in a situation to prove, by abundant testimony, that the Trifolium repens is not that shamrock of the Irish nation, nor any other clover, but that the wood-sorrel, the Oxalis acetosella, is the plant originally intended. As it is a point of some curiosity, I shall venture to lay the evidence before the Linnean Society. It would seem a condition, at least suitable, if not necessary, to a national emblem, that it should be something familiar to the people, and familiar, too, at the season when the national feast is celebrated. Thus, the Welsh have given the leek to St. David, being a favourite oleraceous herb, and almost the only green thing which is to be found in Wales at the season of his feast; the Scotch, on the other hand, whose feast of St. Andrew is in the autumn, have adopted the thistle (probably the Carduus lanceolatus), a plant most abundant at that period of the year. Our own patron, St. George, is a saint who has fallen so much to the leeward with us, that I do not derive any assistance from him; and I am not aware that his warlike temperament was ever represented by a plant or flower. If the national emblem may be expected to be seasonable and familiar, the Trifolium repens is not a happy choice; for its leaves are scarcely expanded in the middle of March, and it produces its flowers in the summer,-its great merit in agriculture being to produce herbage during the droughts of summer and the autumnal months. Hence even in London, about which the earliest cultivation is found, we see in the hats of the meri Hiberni very starved specimens of the white, or Dutch clover, and sometimes the Medicago lupulina, and even chickweed and other plants substituted for it. But there is a still greater difficulty with regard to its being of common Occurrence. None of the trefoils are naturally abundant in Ireland, but have become so by cultivation. The Medicago is pretty extensively sown; and the Trifolium repens, though now neglected by the farmer, has a wonderful propensity to diffuse itself in improved countries, and is by no means of frequent occurrence in wild uncultivated places. It is one of those plants which the Americans describe as coming in with cultivation. It is not a favourite, or rather there is a prejudice against it, in America, yet it has completely naturalized itself in every dry pasture of the old states. We know that the trefoils are not of very ancient standing as cultivated plants in England; and that they were introduced into Ireland in the middle of the seventeenth century, of which a particular account is given in Master Hartlib's Legacy of Husbandry. The term Shamrock seems a general appellation for the trefoils, or three-leaved plants. Gerard says the meadow trefoils are called in Ireland shamrocks; and I find the name so applied by other authors. The Irish names for Trifolium repens are seamar-oge, shamrog, and shamrock. This plant,' says Threlkeld, who printed the earliest Flora we have of the country, "is worn by the people in their hats upon the 17th day of March, yearly, which is called St. Patrick's day; it being a current tradition, that by this three-leafed grass, he emblematically set forth to them the mystery of the Holy Trinity. However that be, when they wet their Seamar-oge, they often commit excess in liquor, which is not a right keeping a day to the Lord, error generally leading to debauchery.' The Trifolium pratense is called, in the statistic report of the county of Tyrone, the horse shamrock, evidently from its size. Threlkeld's and Keogh's Irish names (which are the best authority) for the Oxalis acetosella are so like those which are given to the Trifolium repens, both in spelling and sound, that they must be the same. Thus we have Threlkeld's names Scumsog and Samsog; while Keogh gives for the same plant Samsogy and Shamsoge. In Gaelic the name Seamrag is applied by Lightfoot to the Trifolium repens; while, in the Gaelic Dictionary, published by the Gaelic Society, under the word Seamrag, many plants are mentioned to which this word is prefixed as a generic term, as Seamrag chapuill, purple clover; Seamray chré, male speedwell; Seamrag m'huire, pimpernell. I conclude from this, that shamrock is a generic word common to the Gaelic and Irish languages, and, consequently, not limited to the Trifolium repens. The poets, too, have made use of the word, as I find in a quotation made in the Gaelic Dictionary, from an ancient Gaelic poem in Smith's collection, Air an t seamrag's agus an neòinean The translation of which I find to be, On the shamrock, and amidst the daisies, when the dream of youth shall come unto me.' Now I would suggest, that either the word shamrock here employed is not the Trifolium repens, as is thought, and which its connexion with the daisy would lead me to infer; or, the poem is not so ancient as has been supposed; for the Trifolium repens, probably, nay almost certainly, was not common in Scotland before the middle of the seventeenth century. In the early Irish authors we find the shamrock mentioned incidentally. I will take the liberty to quote a passage from Spenser's View of the State of Ireland, to prove that it was a plant eaten by the Irish, which is very unlikely to have been the case with any of the clovers. It is a description of the state of the poor Irish during the great Desmond war in Elizabeth's reign :-' Out of every corner of the woods and glynnes,' says he, they come creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them, they looked like anatomies of death, they spoke like ghosts crying out of their graves, they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them, yea, and one another soon after, insomuch as the very carcases they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and if they found a plot of watercresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue there withal, that in short space there were none left, and a most populous plentiful country suddenly left void of man and beast; yet sure in all that war there perished not many by the sword, but all by the extremity of famine, which they themselves had wrought.' That shamrocks were eaten, appears from various other authors, as in the following couplet from Wythe's Abuses Stript and Whipt, 8vo. Lond. 1613, p. 72, quoted in Brand's Popular Antiquities, by Ellis, p. 90: And, for my clothing, in a mantle goe, And feed on sham-roots, as the Irish doe. So the author of the Irish Hudibras, printed 1689, says- Which was both meat, and drink, and close. |