CHE^ffSTRY AND ALCHE.V)'. 199 



they would consult their interests always the main motive of human 

 progress by allowing them to construct blast-furnaces, foundries, and 

 manufactories, and in this way they transformed in a few years the whole 

 social system. The savants devoted their attention to metallurgic chemistry, 

 which did in reality make gold in the sense that it extracted mineral matter 

 from all kinds of metals, and submitted the metals themselves to all 

 the changes which they underwent in manufacture. In Germany, for 

 instance, the learned Pole, Tycho Brahe, so famous as an astronomer, spent 

 nearly his whole time in a laboratory with the Emperor Rudolph II., who 

 expended large sums in scientific experiments, but who paid no heed to the 

 philosopher's stone. So, too, in England, Roger Bacon, who has deservedly 

 been called the father of experimental physics, did not think it beneath him 

 to engage in chemical researches ; while in France Bernard Palissy, whose 

 labours have already been referred to, did much for technical chemistry. 



