76 OF THE ORIGIN OP CHEMISTRY, 



fa, Alexander the Great found in the royal trcn- 

 furc purple to the value of 50,000 talents, which 

 had lain there 192 years, and Hill retained its 

 original beauty. We ure told by Pliny in what 

 manner they ufed the coccus amttbvjlinus and 

 byfginus for the purpofe of dying cloths *. Men- 

 tion is often made in Exodus of argaman, which 

 is generally underitood to mean purple. 



Herodotus relates, that the Pha-niciuns fetch- 

 ed tin and amber from diftant countries. 



From the colonies which they hud fettled in 

 Spain, and other places, they drew vail quan- 

 tities of gold and iilver. In Greece alfo, the 

 Phoenicians were the fufl who fought for ores, 

 and extracted their metals. 



Among others, Mofchus of Sidon is efteem- 

 <*! as the mod antient interpreter of nature; 

 and Pofidonius in Strabo, and SixtusEmpiricus 

 tell us, that he invented the doctrine of atoms. 

 ' Cadmus, who is not celebrated for any know- 

 ledge in phyfics, is imagined to have brought 

 thofe letters from the Phoenicians, which they 

 had obtained from Aflyria, into Greece, and had 

 adapted them to the Pclufgian tongue f. Of 

 Sunchuniaton, an author fufpc'clcj by many, 

 and who is believed to have lived before the full 

 of Troy, we have fpokcn at fulKcient length 

 already. 



According to Diodorus, Babylon, in the time 



of 



9 l, ix. .41. 4 Biuker, I.e. 



