CHEMICAL APPARATUS AND PRODUCTS. 



SCIENTIFIC chemistry must be considered as somewhat modern: 

 lor, although methodical chemical operations have been carried 

 out by man from the earliest times, it is only during the last two 

 centuries that any attempt has been made to group the various 

 facts discovered into a system, and to offer any philosophical 

 explanation of the chemical changes which have been observed. 



Doubtless the earliest chemical arts were metallurgical, for the 

 metals, gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, and mercury, were 

 known to the ancients. As gold occurs in nature almost always 

 in the metallic state, either in masses or in particles amongst river 

 sand, it could not fail to attract attention by its brilliancy and 

 high specific gravity, an accident would reveal the fact that it may 

 be melted by heat, and that the smaller pieces could be united. 

 Silver also is often found as metal, the minerals containing it are 

 heavy, and some of them are reduced to the metallic state by the 

 simple application of heat ; so that this is probably the second 

 metal which was noticed. Copper occurs native, and some of its 

 ores may be reduced without much difficulty ; but iron can only 

 be obtained from its minerals by the employment of considerable 

 metallurgical skill; consequently, we find, from the investigations 

 of ancient tombs, &c., that this latter metal did not come into use 

 until some time after copper or bronze. 



The Egyptians seem to have been in advance of other nations 



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