590 



A'W J UK1£ 



[October 20, 1923 



Early Greek Chemistry. 



It is generally recognised that chemistry began, as 

 the " divine [or, perhaps, " sulphurous "J art " {Qua, 

 ^^X>'v) in ilellenistic Egypt, in Alexandria, during the 

 first centuries of our era. The books of its practi- 

 tioners have existed as copies in most European 

 libraries for many centuries. Those in the Kmg's 

 Library at Paris were mentioned by Olaus Borrichius 

 in the seventeenth century : parts of the most im- 

 portant were published and translated by Hoefer 

 e.irly in the nineteenth century, and the whole corpus 

 was published, with a translation, by Berthelot and 

 Ruelle as the " Collection des anciens alchimistes 

 grecs," under the auspices of the French Minister of 

 Public Instruction, in 1887-88, in four volumes. It is 

 not a little surprising to find such an eminent writer 

 on cognate subjects as Reitzenstein, as a result of 

 admittedly hasty examination of the Paris MSS., 

 offering rather severe criticism of the work of 

 Berthelot and Ruelle, since the text of the latter is 

 based on the collation of existing MSS., and not 

 merely on those of Paris. The production of it and 

 of the translation was a work of no small difficultv. 

 as might have been anticipated from the place of 

 origin and date of the original. A very large number 

 of words have no place even in siich exhaustive 

 works as Du Cange's " Lexicon." 



It is, therefore, particularly gratifying to find 

 Prof. St^phanides, of the University of Athens, now 

 undertaking a revision of the text and translation 

 of the " Collection " in many places where thev are 

 obscure. His knowledge of chemistry, the literature 

 of alchemy, and — particularly — of modern Greek, are 

 brought into use. Mme. Hammer- Jensen, it is true, 

 has recently attempted in her essay, " Die alteste 

 Alchymie," Copenhagen, 1921, to reconstruct the 

 theories underlying the Greek alchemical MSS., and 

 to rearrange them in order of date. But her evident 

 lack of broad chemical knowledge, and her approach 

 from the way of the so-called " classical " philology, 

 have noticeably hampered her contribution. 



Prof. Stephanides' article, published in the Revue 

 des etudes grecques, tome 35, No. 162, Paris, 1922, a 

 copy of which he has just sent me, is one of great 

 interest and value. The following may be mentioned 

 as an indication of the type of emendation which he 

 has been able to suggest — throughout with a full 

 appreciation of Berthelot. Many words left untrans- 

 lated are now given meanings, e.g. xa''5pa =" false 

 pearl " in modern Greek. The explanation of the 

 obscure passage given on p. 6 (206, 8) of Stephanides' 

 paper is very ingenious. Some of Berthelot and 

 Ruelle's translations read as nonsense, but in the 

 hands of Prof. Stdphanidds the text reveals its mean- 

 ing : " de la largeur d'un petit miroir tres mince ' 

 becomes " en forme trds mince de pierre specularis 

 [mica]." The passage given by Berthelot and Ruelle 

 as, " Quelques-uns apres cela font boir un oiseau 

 depuis le soir jusqu'a une heure, puis ils laissent 

 mourir de soif le petit oiseau, en le privant de boisson," 

 etc., is completely incorrect, and should read : 

 "Quelques-uns donnent <les perles> a avaler a 

 une poule <afin qu'elle les garde dans le gezier> 

 depuis le soir jusqu'a une heure, en privant I'oiseau 

 de boisson, et puis, en le sacnfiant, on trouve les 

 espdces <les perles> brillantes." (Improvement of 

 pearls by the action of the gastric juice : a well-known 

 operation in ancient technology.) 



There will be some criticism of such renderings as 



" viTpeXaiov-acide azotique," and XaXdvirpov ijyow 



ffKtvofidTavov as " fioTavov pour la vKtvi)," because " les 

 Byzantins appelaient ^oTavt) la poudre a canon et aKevr) 

 le canon." aorapiov puzzled Hoefer ; it has become 



NO. 2816, VOL. I 12] 



fashionable to render it " magic plant." 

 obscurities are put down to assonance, and bch 

 " sympathy " (cf. the Kp^ot and xp*»"» of the Stoics). 



J. R. Partington. 

 45 Kensington Gardens Square. W.a. 



The Musk Ox In Arctic Islands. 



During my various arctic expeditions I have learnt 

 a good deal about the ovibos (musk ox) from convcr^.i 

 tion with the Eskimos, and perhaps more from .1 

 observation. Especially when we were in .M< 

 Island (1916-17) we were in almost continuous 

 a.ssociation with the animal. It has occurretl to m<' 

 that what we know of the present habits and 'I 

 bution of ovibos throws a light on one of the 

 logical problems of the American arctic. 



All my inquiries from the Eskimos and all the 

 observations of our own party indicate that both 

 herds and single animals move slowly — no fasitr 

 ordinarily than strictly required by the feed. This 

 means that in fertile arctic grass lands, herds mo\e 

 less than five miles a month. But — more important 

 — we have neither observed nor heard about their 

 crossing sea ice. We have never seen ovibos tracks 

 more than one or two hundrefl yards from shore. It 

 seems that, if they "thoughtlessly" start out upon 

 the ice, they pause within 200 yards, look around for 

 land, and turn in a direction where land is visible. 



This means that, through observation and hearsay, 

 I have concluded that the ovibos never cross from 

 one island to another, either by swimming the water 

 or by walking across ice. If this has always been 

 their nature, we can explain their presence on several 

 of the arctic islands only by assuming that once upon 

 a time these islands were connected land. 



Some of the arctic islands have numerous raised 

 beaches and other indications that they have been 

 rising rapidly in recent times — the Ringnes Islands. 

 Borden Island, King Christian Island, and Lougheed 

 Island. In none of these have we found any evidence 

 that ovibos were ever present. 



Since the living ovibos or remains of the dead are 

 found, so far as I know, in all the other arctic islands, 

 we must conclude that these islands were once upon 

 a time connected with each other, either directly or 

 by way of the mainland of either North .\merica or 

 Asia. It seems clear that the islands where ovibos 

 have never been were at that time either separated by 

 water channels from the land mass which later became 

 the main part of the Canadian Archipelago, or else, 

 and more probably, that they were then beneath the 

 sea. ViLHTjALMUR Stefansson. 



New Court, Middle Temple, 

 London, E.C.4, September 24. 



Scientific Names of Greek Derivation. 



On looking through some arrears of N.\ture after 

 the vacation I see, on August 18, p. 241, Dr. W. D. 

 Matthew, in discussing the spelling of names derived 

 from the Greek, asks if we should \vrite " Deinosaur " 

 or " Dinosaur " ? 



For the spelling it is no great matter, but it does 

 matter for the pronunciation. For example, at one 

 time it was customary, perhaps more or less may 

 still be, to spell Pheidias " Phidias " ; consequently, 

 the unlovely pronunciation " Phiddias " was preva- 

 lent. So had we liot better keep to Deinosaur ? 



Clifford ALi.Burr. 



St. Radegund's, Cambridge, 

 October 10. 



