426 Symhola Aurea Mensa, S^c, [Dec. 



N. B. In (juibusdam speciminibus macula rotunda sanguinea 

 alas primores item apice ornat. An sexus varietas ? 



Nomen dedi in honorem D. Brightwell Norvicemis, insectorum 

 collector^ indefessi,felicis; iiidagatoris acuti, docti. 



The upper anal forceps in the specimens of this insect that I 

 have had an opportunity of examining were mutilated ; I cannot 

 therefore be positive that it does not approach nearer to Lestes 

 of Dr. Leach, the stigma of which its wings exhibit, than to 

 Agrion; but as these last are not suddenly narrower at their 

 base> as in the former genus, I have considered it as belonging 

 to the latter. 



Article VI. 



Some Account of Maier's Sj/mbola Aurea Mensa Duodecim 

 Nationum, By the Rev. J. J. Conybeare, MGS. 



{Concluded from p. 247.) 



Book V. Arabian School^ led by Avicenna. — Maier here 

 arrives at a period when the alchemical art did really flourish. 

 Many of the writers whom he quotes were addicted to its study, 

 and, in all probability, composed the works which pass under 

 their names. One may fairly, however, except the first hero of 

 this section, Mahomet, whom, after some questioning, he deter- 

 mines to have been a philosophus per ignem, upon his favourite 

 grounds, that the possession of those extensive pecuniary 

 resources always necessary for leaders or monarchs, is best 

 accounted for by the supposition that they had the secret. It 

 had been well for mankind if Mahomet, and some other of 

 Maier's alchemical warriors, had possessed no better means than 

 the Hermetic Gold of attaining to that had eminence for which we 

 usually suspect them to have been indebted rather to the Martial 

 Steel. Of Avicenna nothing very remarkable is stated. He is 

 followed by Geber, the obscurity of whose writings is acknow- 

 ledged and. defended at large, chiefly on the score of the enor- 

 mities which would follow if the chrysopoetic art were plainly 

 taught, and generally practised. It never seems to have 

 occurred to Maier that if gold were thus multiplied it would 

 become comparatively valueless. Artephius, the next associate 

 of Avicenna, appears to have written on metaphysics and necro- 

 mancy. Maier, however, contends, that it had all an alchemical 

 meaning. Next follows Rhazes, from one of whose dicta it 

 should appear, that the alchemist's secret lay not so much in the 

 materials with which he operated, as in their respective quanti- 

 ties. " Quicunque ignorat i^ondera, non laboret in nostris libris ; 

 nam philosophi nihil suarum rerum posuerunt, nee aliud occulta-' 



