EARLY CHEMISTS. 5 



the writings of the Arabian chemists ; the 

 knowledge they thus obtained being afterwards 

 communicated by them to others on their return 

 home. The crusaders also, on their return from 

 the Holy Land, are said to have brought the 

 knowledge of chemistry into Spain, and from 

 hence it spread into Germany, Italy, and France, 

 and eventually into England. 



Up to this time, which reaches to the twelfth 

 century, very little progress was really made in 

 chemical knowledge, and we might in a few 

 lines sum up every simple or compound sub- 

 stance whose nature was accurately known to 

 the early chemists. Passing these purely his- 

 torical details, we may go on to mention some 

 of those curiosities in the history of chemistry 

 which are of a more extraordinary and interest- 

 ing character than are to be found in the records 

 of any other science whatever. Astrology forms 

 a very curious portion, it is true, of the history 

 of the noble science, Astronomy; but neither 

 it nor any other delusion is te be compared to 

 those which are unfolded to us as we look upon 

 the chemistry of the past. 



We might say that chemists have had three 

 dreams. First was the dream that they could 

 turn the common metals into gold; next was 

 the dream that they could or might discover 

 the water of immortality; and, lastly, was the 

 singular dream that they could invent a liquid 

 which would dissolve every thing ! We can 

 ascribe it to no other cause than the deep-rooted 

 covetousness of the human heart, that, from 

 the very first, men regarded chemistry as a 

 means of making gold. It is a most remarkable 



