OF THE ORIGIN OF CHEMISTRY. 19 



'There would he an end to all hiflorical truth, 

 if, from the difagrcc men t of records in rcfpeclto 

 form *,we were to deny the exiftcncc of the tilings 

 themfclves. But, liowevcr, who they pofuivcly 

 were remains dill infome obfcurity. Many agree- 

 ing with J. C. Kricgfman, fuppofe the firft to be 

 Canaan the fon of Cham*. Others, again, with 

 Kirchcr, imagine him to be Enoch. With Hu- 

 ct, he is called Mofes ; by Philo, the fon of Miz- 

 raim (Mifor) f. Nay, fomc of the moft modern 

 writers think they difcovcr Abraham under that 

 appellation J ; who, from the united tcftimonies 

 of Jofcphur, , Eupolcmus, and Artapanus ||, 

 intruded the Egyptians in the ufe of numbers, 

 and aflronomy, and dwelt among them for twen- 

 ty years. 



There is no doubt, that the defccndants of 

 Scth knowing that Adam had foretold the ge- 

 neral deftrudion of every thing, atone time by 

 the flood, and at another by a conflagration, 

 wrote all their inventions and difcoveries upon 

 f./o columns, left the knowledge of them fhould 

 pciifn. Jofcphus, who, upon the faith of others, 

 relates, that fuch a flone iiill cxiftud in his time 

 B 2 in 



* On the Smaragdinc table. 



f PLilo BiLlius rcporti from Sanchuniaton, that Mifor had 

 tSon named Taaut, called by t lie li^ypiiant Tho)th, the in- 

 e;.tor of the lit A elements uf \vriting. 



t Koclu Pharos dei Chron. 



} Antiq. I. i, C, 2 



1,' Euftdm Ptp. v. ix. c. 17, l8 



