130 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [FeB. 27 



Geber describes in detail the aludel (or sublimatory of glass), 

 the descensory, apparatus for filtration, and the water-bath. 

 This latter instrument, however, is said to have a more remote 

 origin, having been invented by an alchemist named Mary, who 

 is identified with Miriam the sister of Moses ; and the French 

 name bain-marie is advanced as proof of this claim. 



Perhaps the earliest drawings of strictly chemical apparatus 

 are those in the so-called manuscript of St. Mark, which is a 

 Greek papyrus on the " sacred art," preserved in Venice and 

 recently edited by Berthelot. This embraces among other 

 treatises the Ghrysopoeia of Cleopatra, which dates from the 

 beginning of the eleventh century. It contains, besides magical 

 symbols, figures of distilling apparatus, the chief being an 

 alembic with two beaks, resting on a furnace. 



In manuscript No. 2327 of the Bibliotheque nationale, Paris, 

 which bears the date 1478, are interesting drawings of furnaces, 

 alembics, matrasses, receivers, etc., of glass, earthenware and 

 metal. Some of them are copied from the manuscript of St. 

 Mark. Professor Maspero, the Egyptian explorer reports the 

 discovery by natives of the subterranean laboratory of an 

 alchemist of the sixth or seventh century, at a point not far 

 from Siout. This concealed laboratory contained a bronze 

 furnace, the bronze door of another larger furnace, about fifty 

 vases of bronze provided with beaks, some conical vessels 

 resembling modern sandbaths, vases of alabaster, and gold foil 

 of a low grade valued at over $350. In a corner of the dark 

 chamber lay a heap of black, fatty earth that the workmen 

 seized upon and carried off, saying they would use it to 

 transmute copper; "whiten" was their expression, but they 

 evidenced a belief that this material was the " powder of 

 IJrojection " capable of changing coj^per to silver. This was 

 in 1885. The substance on examination proved to be 

 impregnated with some compound of arsenic, which would of 

 course "whiten"' copper. 



The balance as an instrument of precision reached a high 

 development under the Arabians as early as the twelfth centur}'. 

 The "Book of the Balance of Wisdom," written in the year 

 515 of the Hegira (1121-1122 A. D.) by al-Khazini describes 

 minutely a water-balance of great ingenuity, and the specific 

 gravity determinations of solids and liquids made by its aid are 

 marvellously accurate. The author also describes a sj^ecific 

 gravity flask of a practical make which he calls the "conical 

 instrument of Abu-r-Raihan." This treatise, with its illustra- 

 tions of the balances and the flask, I analysed in a paper read 

 io the Academy in 1876. {Am. Chem., May, 1876.) 



