THE ARABS. 589 



rare seeds to be collected by his own travellers in Syria and 

 other countries of Asia. He planted, near the palace of 

 Rissafuh, the first date-tree known in Spain, and sang its 

 praises in a poem, expressive of plaintive longing for his 

 native Damascus. 



The most powerful influence exercised by the Arabs on 

 general natural physics was that directed to the advances of 

 chemistry ; a science for which this race created a new era. 

 It must be admitted that alchemistic and new Platonic fancies 

 were as much blended with chemistry as astrology with 

 astronomy. The requirements of pharmacy, and the equally 

 urgent demands of the technical arts, led to discoveries which 

 were promoted, sometimes designedly, and sometimes by 

 a happy accident depending upon alchemistical investiga- 

 tion into the study of metallurgy. The labours of Geber, or 

 rather Djaber (Abu-Mussah-Dschafar-al-Kufi), and the much 

 more recent ones of Razes (Abu Bekr Arrasi), have been 

 attended by the most important results. This period is cha- 

 racterized by the preparation of sulphuric and nitric acids,* 

 aqua regia, preparations of mercury and of the oxides of other 

 metals, and by the knowledge of the alcoholic process of fermen- 

 tation. f The first scientific foundation, and the subsequent 



Icari, by Pascual de Gayangos, voL i. 1840, pp. 209--211. "En su 

 Huerta planto el Eey Abdurrahman una palma que era entonces (756) 

 unica, y de ella procedieron todas las que buy en Espana. La vista del 

 arbol acrentaba mas que templaba su melancolia." (Antonio Conde, 

 Hist, de la Domination de los Arabes en Espana, t. i. p. 169.) 



* The preparation of nitric acid and aqua regia by Djaber (more 

 properly Abu-Mussah-Dschafar), dates back more than five hundred years 

 before Albertus Magnus and Eaymond Lully, and almost seven hundred 

 years before the Erfurt monk, Basilius Valentinus. The discovery of 

 these decomposing (dissolving) acids, which constitutes an epoch in 

 the history of science, was, however, long ascribed to the three last- 

 named experimentalists. 



+ For the rules given by Eazes for the vinous fermentation of amy- 

 lum and sugar, and for the distillation of alcohol, see Hofer, Hist, de 

 la Chimie, t. i. p. 325. Although Alexander of Aphrodisias (Joannis 

 Pliiloponi Grammatici in libr. de generatione et interitu Comm. 

 Venet. 1527, p. 97), properly speaking, only gives a circumstantial 

 description of distillation from sea- water, he also draws attention to 

 the fact that wine may likewise be distilled. This statement is the more 

 remarkable, because Aristotle (Meteorol. ii. 3, p. 358, Bekker) had 

 advanced the erroneous opinion, that in natural evaporation fresh water 

 only rose from wine, as from the salt water of the sea. 



