 Nearly doubling the scope of the 2nd edition, Macfarquhar's encyclopedic vision was finally realized.Recruited by Gleig, several illustrious authorities contributed to this edition, such as Dr. Thomas Thomson, who introduced modern chemical nomenclature in a chart appended to the Chemistry article, and would go on to re-write that article in the 1801 supplement (see below), and John Robison, Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, who wrote several well-regarded articles on sciences then called natural philosophy.The third edition established the foundation of the "Britannica" as an important and definitive reference work for much of the next century.