CHEMISTRY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENT. 235 



hydrogen gas (as we now call it) can be real air, whereas Boyle had 

 unhesitatingly accepted it for such. 



Mayow was only twenty-nine years of age when he published these 

 researches, in which he describes many new experiments, and incor- 

 porates all that his predecessors had advanced on the subject which 

 could be accepted as verified truths. Unfortunately for science, Mayow's 

 life was cut short at the early age of thirty-four, or he might have ad- 

 vanced by a century the knowledge we owe to Lavoisier, as he was on 

 a track which could not have failed to bring him to the goal at which 

 the illustrious Frenchman afterwards arrived. After Mayow's death 

 the path in which he set out was not pursued, but on the subject of 

 combustion philosophers were completely led astray by the false theory 

 of phlogiston. Scarcely anything is known of Mayow's life beyond the 

 facts that he was born in Cornwall, graduated as Doctor of Medicine 

 at All Souls' College, Oxford, practised as a physician in Bath, and 

 died in London in 1679. 



We place before our readers the records only of such discoveries in 

 chemistry as have contributed more especially to the philosophical 

 structure of the science. It is needless to say that vast stores of useful 

 facts were being accumulated in every branch of applied or industrial 

 chemistry, such as pharmacy, metallurgy, and technology, but a cata- 

 logue of these could not possibly interest the general reader. The 

 widespread interest in chemical studies during the seventeenth century 

 is manifested by great numbers of handbooks of chemistry, which were 

 published not only in Latin but in the modern languages. These 

 treatises were in general devoted to some branch of applied chemistry, 

 especially to pharmacy and medicine. 



The old alchemical pursuits had not ceased to allure men's imagi- 

 nations at the period of which we are now speaking. There were 

 founded, even towards the close of this period, small societies having 

 among their objects the discovery of the philosopher's stone, the elixir, 

 and the like. Alchemists there were who actually pretended to ex- 

 hibit transmutations ; but these were no doubt cunning impostors. 

 But in Germany there originated a confraternity which professed to 

 possess the great secrets. This was the Brotherhood of the Rosy 

 Cross, so called because the founder was named Rosenkreuz. He 

 was said to have acquired in Arabia more than the fabled wisdom of 

 the East, and he ordered that a hundred years after his death his 

 tomb should be opened. When this was done, in 1604, a book was 

 found written in letters of gold, in which great secrets were revealed. 

 The brethren of the Rosy Cross declared that they were destined to 

 regenerate the world, and their doctrines were, as usual, mixed up 

 with much religious mysticism. The principal powers of which they 

 claimed the possession were the transmutation of metals, the art of 

 preserving life for several centuries, of knowing all that was passing 

 in different countries, and generally of obtaining by the mysteries of 



