THE CHEMICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES 205 



important by far were discovered in a tomb in Egypt, 

 almost a century ago. One is called the Leiden 

 papyrus, the other the Holmiensis papyrus. 1 They 

 were written in the third century a.d., but their matter 

 is much more ancient and is largely a reproduction of 

 the Physica et Mystica mentioned above. It is prob- 

 able that the possessor of these manuscripts had 

 requested that they should be buried with him at his 

 death in order to avoid trouble to his heirs ; for 

 Diocletian, from fear of coiners of base money, had 

 caused all books treating of the manufacture of gold, 

 silver and precious stones to be burnt. 



The Leiden and Holmiensis papyri are of great 

 importance, especially because they give exact and 

 detailed receipts for the working of metals and the 

 method of obtaining certain alloys (amongst others 

 the asemon), and also how to manufacture imitation 

 pearls, rubies and topazes. Magical and astrological 

 prescriptions were added to these receipts, for metal- 

 lurgical operations may be aided by propitious con- 

 junctions of stars and planets. " A metal was assigned 

 to each heavenly body. To the sun, gold ; to the 

 moon, silver ; to Mars, iron ; to Saturn, lead ; to 

 Jupiter, electrum ; to Hermes, tin ; to Venus, 

 copper." 2 



It was in the fourth century a.d. that the terms 

 Alchemy and Chemistry first made their appearance. 

 For a long time their authorship was attributed to the 

 astrologer Firmicus Maternus ; but in reality these 

 terms were introduced by the famous Zosimus of 

 Panopolis, who lived at about the same time as Firmicus 

 Maternus (a.d. 336). Zosimus derived the word 

 Chemistry from the name of the Jewish prophet 

 Chemes ; according to Diels it is more probable that 



1 For the history of these papyri, see 1 Berthelot, Introduc- 

 tion, p. 4, et seq., and 10 Diels, Antike, p. 118. 

 2 1 Berthelot, Introduction, p. 77. 



