8i OF THE ORIGIN OF CHEMISTRY. 



chemiftry, 2500 years before our Saviour : Tho* 

 it muft be confefied, they have left no writings 

 on this art behind them, to fupport fuch an opi- 

 nion*. But if China, as D. de Guignes alledges, 

 is a colony from Egypt, the dilliculty is not fo 

 great : And it is beyond all doubt, that many 

 excellent chemical arts and inventions had flou- 

 riihed long in China before it was vilitcd by the 

 Europeans. Among their chemical preparati- 

 ons it may be fuflicient to reckon nitre, borax, 

 alum, copperas, corrofive fublimate, calomel, 

 mercurial aethiops, mercurial ointment, fulphur, 

 explofive powder, fplendid fire-works, various 

 dyes in filk and linen, and veflels of porcelain 

 painted in elegant colours. Befules a great num- 

 ber of metals, as gold, filver, quicklilver, lead, 

 copper, iron, and tin, they cxtracl zinc, nearly 

 pure from the mines; and, with it and copper, 



niccolum 



* Hift. Sin. Lc Comptc, a Jcfuft mifllonary, in hi', ac- 

 count of Chinefe chemiils, makes mention of one celebrated 

 by his knowledge ot the philolopher* (tone, who lived 633 

 years before the Chriftian x-ra, and 150 before the time of Con- 

 fucius. Barchutcnius calls him Li-Lio-Kim or Li-Lao- Kiuru 

 In the Chincfe Atlas Martini has placed a lake near the city of 

 Pukiang, in the neighbourhood of which king Houang-ti \vho 

 lived 2500 years before our Saviour, is fuid to have prac~tifcd 

 alchcmiilry. The fame writer met with a large mafj of gold 

 on mount Zukin, which was reported to have been prepared 

 by the art of chemiftry, and to poflfefs the virtue of curing ma- 

 ny dif.afcs. He relates alfo a flory of nine virgin fillers, who 

 pafled their live* in celibacy intuit on-alchemical purfuits. 



