56 life's beginning on the earth 



some outstanding trustworthy man that the "great magisterium," the 

 Philosopher's Stone, did exist. . . . 



Any layman who cares to glance over one single page out of the many 

 thousand pages of a handbook of chemistry must be amazed by the mass of 

 single facts which are recorded there. Almost every word in such a work 

 expresses an experience or a phenomenon. All these experiences did not 

 easily present themselves to the observer; they had to be searched for and 

 investigated with painstaking labor. What would modern chemistry do 

 without sulfuric acid which was discovered by the alchemists one thousand 

 years ago? What would it do without hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, 

 ammonia, or without alkali or the countless metallic compounds, without 

 alcohol, ether, phosphorus, or prussian blue? 



It is impossible to imagine the difficulties which the alchemists had to 

 overcome in their work. They were the inventors of tools and processes 

 for the making of their preparations. They were forced to make every- 

 thing they needed with their own hands. 



Among the alchemists there had always been a nucleus of true scientists. 

 Alchemy was the science in which were contained all chemical and technical 

 industries. The achievement of Glauber, Boettger, and Kunkel in this 

 line may well be compared with the greatest discoveries of our century. 



On this foundation the great modern science of chemistry 

 has been built. Chemistry has since outgrown the narrow 

 limits in which it was confined a century ago. It has cre- 

 ated many industries concerned with the manufacture of 

 thousands of articles in daily use, thus becoming a leading- 

 factor in the life of man. Rapidly it is pouring new powers 

 and luxuries into the lap of civilization. A wide and ever 

 growing literature, technical and popular, deals with these 

 developments. 



2. THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF SCIENTIFIC CHEMISTRY 



As the scene shifts to modern times the Manager of the 

 Performance decides to insert a lesson in elementary chem- 

 istry, just a brief one so as not to bore his audience, many of 

 whom may remember these well-known facts from their 

 school days. Consider one of the simplest chemical changes 

 which occurs if iron filings and powdered sulfur are mixed 

 together. Such a mixture remains unchanged if it is not 

 heated. Under a magnifying glass, one can see the yellow 



