President's Address. 9 



at was no doubt gunpowder, and yet, although thus early 

 known by one man, was not used till the year 1346, or 

 about sixty years after the death of one who, if not the 

 inventor, was at least well acquainted with its properties 

 and powers. Bacon unfortunately had had bitter experience 

 of the evil effects of speaking too plainly, and he con- 

 sequently adopted an obscure style in his writings, w^hich, 

 no doubt, as it made his meaning often difiicult to understand, 

 and not unfrequently hid it altogether, retarded very seriously 

 the early progress of chemical science. 



When we come to consider the character of a man of the 

 mental calibre of Bacon, and remember at the same time that 

 he was a zealous alchemist and a believer in the possibility 

 of the transmutation of the metals, we are fairly puzzled to 

 account for the grounds on which this absurd belief was 

 founded. A man of his stamp, even in these early un- 

 scientific days, must surely have had evidence of some 

 kind on which to found his belief; and yet, from what 

 we know, any evidence he could have possessed on this 

 subject must have been of the most flimsy description. 

 Alchemists, as is well known, believed in the possibility of 

 discovering a substance which they called the philosopher's 

 stone, and which they said would possess the power of trans- 

 muting the baser metals into gold and silver by merely being 

 brought in contact with them when in a state of fusion. The 

 only reason, and it is a very poor one, which, as far as I am 

 aware, they ever had for believing in the existence of any 

 power such as was said to be inherent in the philosopher's 

 stone, was the fact that certain metals by being melted with 

 other substances are changed in colour. Thus it was well 

 known before Bacon's time that red copper by being fused 

 with oxide of zinc was converted into golden yellow brass. 

 This change, however, could not have deceived these early 

 experimenters, for, as we have seen already, they knew quite 

 enough of chemistry to be able to distinguish gold from other 

 metals. What has always appeared to me to be supremely 

 ridiculous in this chase after gold is, that the very attainment 

 of the end in view would have defeated its object, for gold 

 would then have become so plentiful as to have been of little 



