Chapter I: Of Alchymy (2)

Sometimes they have a solution of silver in nitric acid, or of gold in aqua regia, or an amalgam of gold or silver, which being adroitly introduced, furnishes the requisite quantity of metal. A common exhibition was to dip nails into a liquid, and take them out half converted into gold. The nails consisted of one-half gold, neatly soldered to the iron, and covered with something to conceal the colour, which the liquid removed. Sometimes they had metals one-half gold the other half silver, soldered together, and the gold side whitened with mercury; the gold half was dipped into the transmuting liquid and then the metal heated; the mercury was dissipated, and the gold half of the metal appeared.[22]

[22] Mem. Paris, 1722, p. 61.

As the alchymists were assiduous workmen--as they mixed all the metals, salts, &c. with which they were acquainted, in various ways with each other, and subjected such mixtures to the action of heat in close vessels, their labours were occasionally repaid by the discovery of new substances, possessed of much greater activity than any with which they were previously acquainted. In this way they were led to the discovery of sulphuric, nitric, and muriatic acids. These, when known, were made to act upon the metals; solutions of the metals were obtained, and this gradually led to the knowledge of various metalline salts and preparations, which were introduced with considerable advantage into medicine. Thus the alchymists, by their absurd pursuits, gradually formed a collection of facts, which led ultimately to the establishment of scientific chemistry. On this account it will be proper to notice, in this place, such of them as appeared in Europe during the darker ages, and acquired the highest reputation either on account of their skill as physicians, or their celebrity as chemists.[23]

[23] The original author, whom all who have given any account of the alchymists have followed, is Olaus Borrichius, in his Conspectus Scriptorum Chemicorum Celebriorum. He does not inform us from what sources his information was derived.

1. The first alchymist who deserves notice is Albertus Magnus, or Albert Groot, a German, who was born, it is supposed, in the year 1193, at Bollstaedt, and died in the year 1282.[24] When very young he is said to have been so remarkable for his dulness, that he became the jest of his acquaintances. He studied the sciences at Padua, and afterwards taught at Cologne, and finally in Paris. He travelled through all Germany as Provincial of the order of Dominican Monks, visited Rome, and was made bishop of Ratisbon: but his passion for science induced him to give up his bishopric, and return to a cloister at Cologne, where he continued till his death.

[24] Sprengel’s History of Medicine, iv. 368.

Albertus was acquainted with all the sciences cultivated in his time. He was at once a theologian, a physician, and a man of the world: he was an astronomer and an alchymist, and even dipped into magic and necromancy. His works are very voluminous. They were collected by Petr. Jammy, and published at Leyden in twenty-one folio volumes, in 1651. His principal alchymistical tracts are the following:

1. De Rebus Metallicis et Mineralibus.

2. De Alchymia.

3. Secretorum Tractatus.

4. Breve Compendium de Ortu Metallorum.

5. Concordantia Philosophorum de Lapide.

6. Compositum de Compositis.

7. Liber octo Capitum de Philosophorum Lapide.

Most of these tracts have been inserted in the Theatrum Chemicum. They are in general plain and intelligible. In his treatise De Alchymia, for example, he gives a distinct account of all the chemical substances known in his time, and of the manner of obtaining them. He mentions also the apparatus then employed by chemists, and the various processes which they had occasion to perform. I may notice the most remarkable facts and opinions which I have observed in turning over these treatises.

He was of opinion that all metals are composed of sulphur and mercury; and endeavoured to account for the diversity of metals partly by the difference in the purity, and partly by the difference in the proportions of the sulphur and mercury of which they are composed. He thought that water existed also as a constituent of all metals.

He was acquainted with the water-bath, employed alembics for distillation, and aludels for sublimation; and he was in the habit of employing various lutes, the composition of which he describes.

He mentions alum and caustic alkali, and seems to have known the alkaline basis of cream of tartar. He knew the method of purifying the precious metals by means of lead and of gold, by cementation; and likewise the method of trying the purity of gold, and of distinguishing pure from impure gold.

He mentions red lead, metallic arsenic, and liver of sulphur. He was acquainted with green vitriol and iron pyrites. He knew that arsenic renders copper white, and that sulphur attacks all the metals except gold.

It is said by some that he was acquainted with gunpowder; but nothing indicating any such knowledge occurs in any of his writings that I have had an opportunity of perusing.[25]

[25] It is curious that Olaus Borrichius omits Albertus Magnus in the list of alchymistical writers that he has given.

2. Albertus is said to have had for a pupil, while he taught in Paris, the celebrated Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican, who studied at Bologna, Rome, and Naples, and distinguished himself still more in divinity and scholastic philosophy than in alchymy. He wrote,

1. Thesaurum Alchymiæ Secretissimum.

2. Secreta Alchymiæ Magnalia.

3. De Esse et Essentia Mineralium; and perhaps some other
works, which I have not seen.

These works, so far as I have perused them, are exceedingly obscure, and in various places unintelligible. Some of the terms still employed by modern chemists occur, for the first time, in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Thus the term _amalgam_, still employed to denote a compound of mercury with another metal, occurs in them, and I have not observed it in any earlier author.

3. Soon after Albertus Magnus, flourished Roger Bacon, by far the most illustrious, the best informed, and the most philosophical of all the alchymists. He was born in 1214, in the county of Somerset. After studying in Oxford, and afterwards in Paris, he became a cordelier friar; and, devoting himself to philosophical investigations, his discoveries, notwithstanding the pains which he took to conceal them, made such a noise, that he was accused of magic, and his brethren in consequence threw him into prison. He died, it is said, in the year 1284, though Sprengel fixes the year of his death to be 1285.

His writings display a degree of knowledge and extent of thought scarcely credible, if we consider the time when he wrote, the darkest period of the dark ages. In his small treatise De Mirabili Potestate Artis et Naturæ, he begins by pointing out the absurdity of believing in magic, necromancy, charms, or any of those similar opinions which were at that time universally prevalent. He points out the various ways in which mankind are deceived by jugglers, ventriloquists, &c.; mentions the advantages which physicians may derive from acting on the imaginations of their patients by means of charms, amulets, and infallible remedies: he affirms that many of those things which are considered as supernatural, are merely so because mankind in general are unacquainted with natural philosophy. To illustrate this he mentions a great number of natural phenomena, which had been reckoned miraculous; and concludes with several secrets of his own, which he affirms to be still more extraordinary imitations of some of the most singular processes of nature. These he delivers in the enigmatical style of the times; induced, as he tells us, partly by the conduct of other philosophers, partly by the propriety of the thing, and partly by the danger of speaking too plainly.

From an attentive perusal of his works, many of which have been printed, it will be seen that Bacon was a great linguist, being familiar with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic; and that he had perused the most important books at that time existing in all these languages. He was also a grammarian; he was well versed in the theory and practice of perspective; he understood the use of convex and concave glasses, and the art of making them. The camera obscura, burning-glasses, and the powers of the telescope, were known to him. He was well versed in geography and astronomy. He knew the great error in the Julian calendar, assigned the cause, and proposed the remedy. He understood chronology well; he was a skilful physician, and an able mathematician, logician, metaphysician, and theologist; but it is as a chemist that he claims our attention here. The following is a list of his chemical writings, as given by Gmelin, the whole of which I have never had an opportunity of seeing:

1. Speculum Alchymiæ.[26]

2. Epistola de Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturæ et
de Nullitate Magiæ.

3. De Mirabili Potestate Artis et Naturæ.

4. Medulla Alchymiæ.

5. De Arte Chemiæ.

6. Breviorium Alchymiæ.

7. Documenta Alchymiæ.

8. De Alchymistarum Artibus.

9. De Secretis.

10. De Rebus Metallicis.

11. De Sculpturis Lapidum.

12. De Philosophorum Lapide.

13. Opus Majus, _or_ Alchymia Major.

14. Breviarium de Dono Dei.

15. Verbum abbreviatum de Leone Viridi.

16. Secretum Secretorum.

17. Tractatus Trium Verborum.

18. Speculum Secretorum.

[26] This tract and the next, which is of considerable length, will be found in Mangetus’s Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa, i. 613.

A number of these were collected together, and published at Frankfort in 1603, under the title of “Rogeri Baconis Angli de Arte Chemiæ Scripta,” in a small duodecimo volume. The Opus Majus was published in London in 1733, by Dr. Jebb, in a folio volume. Several of his tracts still continue in manuscript in the Harleian and Bodleian libraries at Oxford. He considered the metals as compound of mercury and sulphur. Gmelin affirms that he was aware of the peculiar nature of manganese, and that he was acquainted with bismuth; but after perusing the whole of the Speculum Alchymiæ, the third chapter of which he quotes as containing the facts on which he founds his opinion, I cannot find any certain allusion either to manganese or bismuth. The term _magnesia_ indeed occurs, but nothing is said respecting its nature: and long after the time of Paracelsus, bismuth (_bisematum_) was considered as an impure kind of _lead_. That he was acquainted with the composition and properties of _gunpowder_ admits of no doubt. In the sixth chapter of his epistle De Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturæ et de Nullitate Magiæ, the following passage occurs:

“For sounds like thunder, and coruscations like lightning, may be made in the air, and they may be rendered even more horrible than those of nature herself. A small quantity of matter, properly manufactured, not larger than the human thumb, may be made to produce a horrible noise and coruscation. And this may be done many ways, by which a city or an army may be destroyed, as was the case when Gideon and his men broke their pitchers and exhibited their lamps, fire issuing out of them with inestimable noise, destroyed an infinite number of the army of the Midianites.” And in the eleventh chapter of the same epistle occurs the following passage: “Mix together saltpetre, luru vopo vir con utriet, and sulphur, and you will make thunder and lightning, if you know the method of mixing them.” Here all the ingredients of gunpowder are mentioned except charcoal, which is doubtless concealed under the barbarous terms _luru vopo vir con utriet_.

But though Bacon was acquainted with gunpowder, we have no evidence that he was the inventor. How far the celebrated Greek fire, concerning which so much has been written, was connected with gunpowder, it is impossible to say; but there is good evidence to prove that gunpowder was known and used in China before the commencement of the Christian era; and Lord Bacon is of opinion that the thunder and lightning and magic stated by the Macedonians to have been exhibited in Oxydrakes, when it was besieged by Alexander the Great, was nothing else than gunpowder. Now as there is pretty good evidence that the use of gunpowder had been introduced into Spain by the Moors, at least as early as the year 1343, and as Roger Bacon was acquainted with Arabic, it is by no means unlikely that he might have become acquainted with the mode of making the composition, and with its most remarkable properties, by perusing some Arabian writer, with whom we are at present unacquainted. Barbour, in his life of Bruce, informs us that guns were first employed by the English at the battle of Werewater, which was fought in 1327, about forty years after the death of Bacon.

Two novelties that day they saw,
That forouth in Scotland had been nene;
Timbers for helmes was the ane
That they thought then of great beautie,
And also wonder for to see.
The other _crakys_ were of war
That they before heard never air.

In another part of the same book we have the phrase _gynnys for crakys_, showing that the term crakys was used to denote a gun or musket of some form or other. It is curious that the English would seem to have been the first European nation that employed gunpowder in war; they used it in the battle of Crecy, fought in 1346, when it was unknown to the French, and it is supposed to have contributed materially to the brilliant victory which was obtained.

4. Raymond Lully is said to have been a scholar and a friend of Roger Bacon. He was a most voluminous writer, and acquired as high a reputation as any of the alchymists. According to Mutius he was born in Majorca in the year 1235. His father was seneschal to King James the First of Arragon. In his younger days he went into the army; but afterwards held a situation in the court of his sovereign. Devoting himself to science he soon acquired a competent knowledge of Latin and Arabic. After studying in Paris he got the degree of doctor conferred upon him. He entered into the order of Minorites, and induced King James to establish a cloister of that order in Minorca. He afterwards travelled through Italy, Germany, England, Portugal, Cyprus, Armenia and Palestine. He is said by Mutius to have died in the year 1315, and to have been buried in Majorca. The following epitaph is given by Olaus Borrichius as engraven on his tomb:

Raymundus Lulli, cujus pia dogmata nulli
Sunt odiosa viro, jacet hic in marmore miro
Hic M. et CC. Cum P. cœpit sine sensibus esse.

M C C C in these lines denote 1300, and P which is the 15th letter of the alphabet denotes 15, so that if this epitaph be genuine it follows that his death took place in the year 1315.

It seems scarcely necessary to notice the story that Raymond Lully made a present to Edward, King of England, of six millions of pieces of gold, to enable him to make war on the Saracens, which sum that monarch employed, contrary to the intentions of the donor, in his French wars. This story cannot apply to Edward III., because in 1315, at the time of Raymond’s death, that monarch was only three years of age. It can scarcely apply to Edward II., who ascended the throne in 1305: but who had no opportunity of making war, either on the Saracens or French, being totally occupied in opposing the intrigues of his queen and rebellious subjects, to whom he ultimately fell a sacrifice. Edward the First made war both upon the Saracens and the French, and lived during the time of Raymond: but his wars with the Saracens were finished before he ascended the throne, and during the whole of his reign he was too much occupied with his projected conquest of Scotland, to pay much serious attention to any French war whatever. The story, therefore, cannot apply to any of the three Edwards, and cannot be true. Raymond Lully is said to have been stoned to death in Africa for preaching Christianity in the year 1315. Others will have it that he was alive in England in the year 1332, at which time his age would have been 97.

The following table exhibits a list of his numerous writings, most of which are to be found in the Theatrum Chemicum, the Artis Auriferæ, or the Biblotheca Chemica.

1. Praxis Universalis Magni Operis.

2. Clavicula.

3. Theoria et Practica.

4. Compendium Animæ Transmutationis Artis Metallorum.

5. Ultimum Testamentum. Of this work, which
professes to give the whole doctrine of alchymy, there
is an English translation.

6. Elucidatio Testamenti.

7. Potestas Divitiorum cum Expositione Testamenti
Hermetis.

8. Compendium Artis Magicæ, quoad Compositionem
Lapidis.

9. De Lapide et Oleo Philosophorum.

10. Modus accipiendi Aurum Potabile.

11. Compendium Alchymiæ et Naturalis Philosophiæ.

12. Lapidarium.

13. Lux Mercuriorum.

14. Experimenta.

15. Ars Compendiosa vel Vademecum.

16. De Accurtatione Lapidis.

Several other tracts besides these are named by Gmelin; but I have never seen any of them. I have attempted several times to read over the works of Raymond Lully, particularly his Last Will and Testament, which is considered the most important of them all. But they are all so obscure, and filled with such unintelligible jargon, that I have found it impossible to understand them. In this respect they form a wonderful contrast with the works of Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon, which are comparatively plain and intelligible. For an account, therefore, of the chemical substances with which he was acquainted, I am obliged to depend on Gmelin; though I put no great confidence in his accuracy.

Like his predecessors, he was of opinion that all the metals are compounds of sulphur and mercury. But he seems first to have introduced those hieroglyphical figures or symbols, which appear in such profusion in the English translation of his Last Will and Testament, and which he doubtless intended to illustrate his positions. Though what other purpose they could serve, than to induce the reader to consider his statements as allegorical, it is not easy to conjecture. Perhaps they may have been designed to impose upon his contemporaries by an air of something very profound and inexplicable. For that he possessed a good deal of charlatanry is pretty evident, from the slightest glance at his performances.

He was acquainted with cream of tartar, which he distilled: the residue he burnt, and observed that the alkali extracted deliquesced when exposed to the air. He was acquainted with nitric acid, which he obtained by distilling a mixture of saltpetre and green vitriol. He mentions its power of dissolving, not merely mercury, but likewise other metals. He could form aqua regia by adding sal ammoniac or common salt to nitric acid, and he was aware of the property which it had of dissolving gold.

Spirit of wine was well known to him, and distinguished by him by the names of aqua vitæ ardens and argentum vivum vegetabile. He knew the method of rendering it stronger by an admixture of dry carbonate of potash, and of preparing vegetable tinctures by means of it. He mentions alum from Rocca, marcasite, white and red mercurial precipitate. He knew the volatile alkali and its coagulations by means of alcohol. He was acquainted with cupellated silver, and first obtained rosemary oil by distilling the plant with water. He employed a mixture of flour and white of egg spread upon a linen cloth to cement cracked glass vessels, and used other lutes for similar purposes.[27]

[27] Gmelin’s Geschitte der Chemie, i. 74.

5. Arnoldus de Villa Nova is said to have been born at Villeneuve, a village of Provence, about the year 1240. Olaus Borrichius assures us, that in his time his posterity lived in the neighbourhood of Avignon; that he was acquainted with them, and that they were by no means destitute of chemical knowledge. He is said to have been educated at Barcelona, under John Casamila, a celebrated professor of medicine. This place he was obliged to leave, in consequence of foretelling the death of Peter of Arragon. He went to Paris, and likewise travelled through Italy. He afterwards taught publicly in the University of Montpelier. His reputation as a physician became so great, that his attendance was solicited in dangerous cases by several kings, and even by the pope himself. He was skilled in all the sciences of his time, and was besides a proficient in Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. When at Paris he studied astrology, and calculating the age of the world, he found that it was to terminate in the year 1335. The theologians of Paris exclaimed against this and several other of his opinions, and condemned our astrologer as a heretic. This obliged him to leave France; but the pope protected him. He died in the year 1313, on his way to visit Pope Clement V. who lay sick at Avignon. The following table exhibits a pretty full list of his works:

1. Antidotorium

2. De Vinis.

3. De Aquis Laxativis.

4. Rosarius Philosophorum.

5. Lumen Novum.

6. De Sigillis.

7. Flos Florum.

8. Epistolæ super Alchymia ad Regem Neapolitanum.

9. Liber Perfectionis Magisterii.

10. Succosa Carmina.

11. Questiones de Arte Transmutationis Metallorum.

12. Testamentum.

13. Lumen Luminum.

14. Practica.

15. Speculum Alchymiæ.

16. Carmen.

17. Questiones ad Bonifacium.

18. Semita Semitæ.

19. De Lapide Philosophorum.

20. De Sanguine Humano.

21. De Spiritu Vini, Vino Antimonii et Gemmorum Viribus.

Perhaps the most curious of all these works is the _Rosarium_, which is intended as a complete compend of all the alchymy of his time. The first part of it on the theory of the art is plain enough; but the second part on the practice, which is subdivided into thirty-two chapters, and which professes to teach the art of making the philosopher’s stone, is in many places quite unintelligible to me.

He considered, like his predecessors, mercury as a constituent of metals, and he professed a knowledge of the philosopher’s stone, which he could increase at pleasure. Gold and gold-water was, in his opinion, one of the most precious of medicines. He employed mercury in medicine. He seems to designate bismuth under the name _marcasite_. He was in the habit of preparing oil of turpentine, oil of rosemary, and spirit of rosemary, which afterwards became famous under the name of Hungary-water. These distillations were made in a glazed earthen vessel with a glass top and helm.

His works were published at Venice in a single folio volume, in the year 1505. There were seven subsequent editions, the last of which appeared at Strasburg in 1613.

6. John Isaac Hollandus and his countryman of the same name, were either two brothers or a father and son; it is uncertain which. For very few circumstances respecting these two laborious and meritorious men have been handed down to posterity. They were born in the village of Stolk in Holland, it is supposed in the 13th century. They certainly were after Arnoldus de Villa Nova, because they refer to him in their writings. They wrote many treatises on chemistry, remarkable, considering the time when they wrote, for clearness and precision, describing their processes with accuracy, and even giving figures of the instruments which they employed. This makes their books intelligible, and they deserve attention because they show that various processes, generally supposed of a more modern date were known to them. Their treatises are written partly in Latin and partly in German. The following list contains the names of most of them:

1. Opera Vegetabilia ad ejus alia Opera Intelligenda
Necessaria.

2. Opera Mineralia seu de Lapide Philosophico
Libri duo.

3. Tractat vom stein der Weisen.

4. Fragmenta Quædam Chemica.

5. De Triplice Ordine Elixiris et Lapidis Theorea.

6. Tractatus de Salibus et Oleis Metallorum.

7. Fragmentum de Opere Philosophorum.

8. Rariores Chemiæ Operationes.

9. Opus Saturni.

10. De Spiritu Urinæ.

11. Hand der Philosopher.

Olaus Borrichius complains that their _opera mineralia_ abound with processes; but that they are ambiguous, and such that nothing certain can be deduced from them even after much labour. Hence they draw on the unwary tyro from labour to labour. I am disposed myself to draw a different conclusion, from what I have read of that elaborate work. It is true that the processes which profess to make the philosopher’s stone, are fallacious, and do not lead to the manufacture of gold, as the author intended, and expected: but it is a great deal when alchymistical processes are delivered in such intelligible language that you know the substances employed. This enables us easily to see the results in almost every case, and to know the new compounds which were formed during a vain search for the philosopher’s stone. Had the other alchymists written as plainly, the absurdity of their researches would have been sooner discovered, and thus a useless or pernicious investigation would have sooner terminated.

7. Basil Valentine is said to have been born about the year 1394, and is, perhaps, the most celebrated of all the alchymists, if we except Paracelsus. He was a Benedictine monk, at Erford, in Saxony. If we believe Olaus Borrichius, his writings were enclosed in the wall of a church at Erford, and were discovered long after his death, in consequence of the wall having been driven down by a thunderbolt. But this story is not well authenticated, and is utterly improbable. Much of his time seems to have been taken up in the preparation of chemical medicines. It was he that first introduced antimony into medicine; and it is said, though on no good authority, that he first tried the effects of antimonial medicines upon the monks of his convent, upon whom it acted with such violence that he was induced to distinguish the mineral from which these medicines had been extracted, by the name of _antimoine_ (hostile to monks). What shows the improbability of this story is, that the works of Basil Valentine, and in particular his Currus triumphalis Antimonii, were written in the German language. Now the German name for antimony is not _antimoine_, but _speissglass_. The Currus triumphalis Antimonii was translated into Latin by Kerkringius, who published it, with an excellent commentary, at Amsterdam, in 1671.

Basil Valentine writes with almost as much virulence against the physicians of his time, as Paracelsus himself did afterwards. As no particulars of his life have been handed down to posterity, I shall satisfy myself with giving a catalogue of his writings, and then pointing out the most striking chemical substances with which he was acquainted.

The books which have appeared under the name of Basil Valentine, are very numerous; but how many of them were really written by him, and how many are supposititious, is extremely doubtful. The following are the principal:

1. Philosophia Occulta.

2. Tractat von naturlichen und ubernaturlichen
Dingen; auch von der ersten tinctur, Wurzel und
Geiste der Metallen.

3. Von dern grossen stein der Uhralten.

4. Vier tractatlein vom stein der Weisen.

5. Kurzer anhang und klare repetition oder Wiederholunge
vom grosen stein der Uhralten.

6. De prima Materia Lapidis Philosophici.

7. Azoth Philosophorum seu Aureliæ occultæ de
Materia Lapidis Philosophorum.

8. Apocalypsis Chemica.

9. Claves 12 Philosophiæ.

10. Practica.

11. Opus præclarum ad utrumque, quod pro Testamento
dedit Filio suo adoptivo.

12. Letztes Testament.

13. De Microcosmo.

14. Von der grosen Heimlichkeit der Welt und ihrer
Arzney.

15. Von der Wissenschaft der sieben Planeten.

16. Offenbahrung der verborgenen Handgriffe.

17. Conclusiones or Schlussreden.

18. Dialogus Fratris Alberti cum Spiritu.

19. De Sulphure et fermento Philosophorum.

20. Haliographia.

21. Triumph wagen Antimonii.

22. Einiger Weg zur Wahrheit.

23. Licht der Natur.

The only one of these works that I have read with care, is Kerkringius’s translation and commentary on the Currus triumphalis Antimonii. It is an excellent book, written with clearness and precision, and contains every thing respecting antimony that was known before the commencement of the 19th century. How much of this is owing to Kerkringius I cannot say, as I have never had an opportunity of seeing a copy of the original German work of Basil Valentine.

Basil Valentine, like Isaac Hollandus, was of opinion that the metals are compounds of salt, sulphur, and mercury. The philosopher’s stone was composed of the same ingredients. He affirmed, that there exists a great similarity between the mode of purifying gold and curing the diseases of men, and that antimony answers best for both. He was acquainted with arsenic, knew many of its properties, and mentions the red compound which it forms with sulphur. Zinc seems to have been known to him, and he mentions bismuth, both under its own name, and under that of _marcasite_. He was aware that manganese was employed to render glass colourless. He mentions nitrate of mercury, alludes to corrosive sublimate, and seems to have known the red oxide of mercury. It would be needless to specify the preparations of antimony with which he was acquainted; scarcely one was unknown to him which, even at present, exists in the European Pharmacopœias. Many of the preparations of lead were also familiar to him. He was aware that lead gives a sweet taste to vinegar. He knew sugar of lead, litharge, yellow oxide of lead, white carbonate of lead; and mentions that this last preparation was often adulterated in his time. He knew the method of making green vitriol, and the double chloride of iron and ammonia. He was aware that iron could be precipitated from its solution by potash, and that iron has the property of throwing down copper. He was aware that tin sometimes contains iron, and ascribed the brittleness of Hungarian iron to copper. He knew that oxides of copper gave a green colour to glass; that Hungarian silver contained gold; that gold is precipitated from aqua regia by mercury, in the state of an amalgam. He mentions fulminating gold. But the important facts contained in his works are so numerous, while we are so uncertain about the genuineness of the writings themselves, that it will scarcely be worth while to proceed further with the catalogue.

Thus I have brought the history of alchymy to the time of Paracelsus, when it was doomed to undergo a new and important change. It will be better, therefore, not to pursue the history of alchymy further, but to take up the history of true chemistry; and in the first place to endeavour to determine what chemical facts were known to the Ancients, and how far the science had proceeded to develop itself before the time of Paracelsus.