NOTES. 



xlix 



of the elephant, which, at certain seasons particularly, secretes a strong 

 smelling fluid, often alluded to by the Indian poets. (Schlegel's Indische 

 Bibliothek, Bd. i. S. 163-166.) I notice this apparently trifling circumstance 

 thus particularly, because this small aperture was made known by accounts 

 given by Megasthenes, to whom, nevertheless, no one would be led to 

 attribute anatomical knowledge. (Strabo, lib. xv. p. 704 and 705, Casaub.) 

 I do not find in the different zoological works of Aristotle which have come 

 down to us anything which necessarily implies his having had the opportunity 

 of observing living elephants, or of his having dissected a dead one. Although 

 it is most probable that the Historia Animalium was completed before 

 Alexander's campaigns in Asia Minor, yet it is undoubtedly possible that the 

 work may, as Stahr supposes (Aristotelia, Th. ii. S. 98), have continued to 

 receive additions until the end of the Author's life, 01. 114, 3, three years 

 after the death of Alexander ; but direct evidence of such being the case is 

 wanting. The correspondence of Aristotle which we possess is not genuine, 

 (Stahr, Th. i. S. 194208, Th. ii. S. 169-234), and Schneider says very 

 confidently, (Hist, de Animal. T. i. p. 40), " hoc enim tanquam certissimum 

 sumere mihi licebit scriptas comitum Alexandri notitias post mortem demum 

 regis fuisse vulgatas." 



(s 38 ) p. 158. I have shewn elsewhere that although the decomposition of 

 sulphuret of mercury by distillation is described in Dioscorides, (Mat. Med. 

 v. 110, p. 667, Saracen) ; yet the first description of the distillation of a fluid, 

 (the distillation of fresh water from sea water), is to be found in the Com- 

 mentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias to Aristotle de Meteorol. ; see my 

 Examen critique de 1'histoire de la Geographic, T. ii. p. 308-316, and Joannis 

 (Philoponi) Grammatici in libro de Generat. et Alexandri Aphrod. in Me- 

 teorol. Comm. Venet. 1527, p. 97, b. Alexander of Aphrodisias in Caria, 

 the learned commentator of the Meteorologica of Aristotle, lived under the 

 reigns of Septimius Severus aud Caracalla ; and although in his writings 

 chemical apparatuses are called xwie a oqyava, yet a passage in Plutarch (do 

 Iside et Osir, c. 33), proves that the word Chemie, applied by the Greeks to 

 the Egyptian art, is not to be derived from x, (Hoefer, Histoire de la 

 Chimie, T. i. p. 91, 195 and 219, T. ii. p. 109). 



P) p. 158. Compare Sainte-Croix, Examen des historiens d'Alexandre, 

 1810, p, 207, and Cuvier, Histoire des Sciences naturelles, T. i. p. 137, with 

 Schneider ad Aristot. de Historia Animalium, T. i. p. 42-46, and Stahr, 

 Aristotelia, Th. i. S. 116-118. If the transmission of specimens from Egypt 

 and the interior of Asia appears according to these authorities to be rery 

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