Sept. 8, 1870] 
MAT ORE 
371 
we have extracts from five of Neri’s books: from the book 
segniato A, 155 pages; from B, 78 pages; from D, 5 
pages ; from E, 13 pages ; and from F,6 pages. Between 
E and F are inserted 26 pages of “Operationi Copiate da 
un libro antico qui in Pisa;” also 8 pages about the Greex 
Lion, and to pages of extremely mystical and unintel- 
ligible matter, replete with symbols and Arabic words 
concerning a certain Doxum Det. 
An account of the subject-matter of the extracts from 
the book designated A will, I think, give a fair idea of 
that of the whole MS. In the first place, we have an 
account of mercury, to which metal is assigned no less 
than thirty-five different names, and twenty-two symbols. 
The Eastern element, then very apparent in chemistry, 
is noticeable in such names as Chaibach, Azoch, and 
Baruchet. Various fisa¢zon¢ of mercury are described, 
and the formation of some of its compounds. Gold and 
silver are next discussed ; the latter has fifteen names and 
ten symbols. The fixation and calcination of gold, the 
calcination of silver, the solution and tincture of silver, 
and the conversion of silver into gold are then described. 
Venus (copper) follows, among the fifteen names of which 
are Tubalchain, Marchaal, and Cobon, but not Cuprum, 
or Orichalcum, or As Cyprium, which is surprising. 
Then come iron, lead, and tin; then vitriol, which has 
seven symbols; sal-ammoniac, which has fourteen 
symbols ; sulphur, which has sixteen ; arsenic, antimony, 
sal-alchali, sal-alembrot, sal-tartaro, sal-anticar, and cin- 
nabar. The extracts from book A are concluded by 
accounts of the calcination of various metals, of the 
philosopher’s stone, and of the work of transmuta‘ion. 
The short extracts from the other books contain matter of 
a similar nature ; various well-known salts are described, 
together with new and varied modes of making them ; 
and different solutions of the metals, compounds, and 
operations. 
The ideas suggested by this MS. are manifold. We 
can but be struck by the excessive complexity of chemistry 
at this period. When a substance possesses more than 
thirty distinct names, and more than twenty symbols, and 
when these are used indiscriminately in one sentence, 
some idea may be formed of a chemical treatise of two 
centuries and a half ago. Symbols were used lavishly, 
not alone to express substances both simple and com- 
pound, but for operations and instruments. But the 
alchemists and old chemists had a special object in pre- 
serving the mysticism out of which their science had 
sprung, and which still, as a thick vapour, shrouded it in 
obscurity. Their precious secrets would otherwise have 
been at the command of the vulgar, and the result of their 
years of toil would have been sown broadcast over the 
world. The true science was but just beginning to loom 
through the darksome mists which surrounded it. At 
this time the science was made up of alchemy and iatro- 
chemistry, with a strong flavour of Kabbalism. As 
to the matter itself, we find in the works of the period 
scarcely anything more than had been enunciated by 
Geber some eight centuries earlier ; in fact, there was too 
much beating about the bush to allow of any real progress. 
Antonio Neri was a somewhat sensible chemist for the 
period. His leanings towards alchemy were not excessive ; 
he was not a violent Paracelsian ; indeed, he was rather a 
metallurgical chemist than an iatro-chemist. 
Such is a brief sketch of an MS., the matter of which, in 
a completer form, the priest Antonio Neri had intended to 
publish had his life been longer spared. Whether the 
original MS. exists we know not. Perchance it may be 
hidden in some old monastic library among volumes of 
Canon Law and countless folios of Middle Age Casuistry ; 
perchance in some dusty nook zt d€dibus Vaticanis, 
among the thunderbolts of a past Hierarchy. Who can 
tell? Oh! if some Sovereign Pontiff would issue a mandate 
apud S, Petrum sub annulo Piscatoris,” to command the 
cataloguing of the library of the Vatican, how would not 
Literature,and Science, and Art be benefited by the means! 
and how would not Italy receive yet greater honour as the 
focus from which emanated the glorious light of Western 
civilization ! 
GEORGE FARRER RODWELL 
CATLIN’S AMERICAN GEOLOGY 
The Lifted and Subsided Rocks of America, with their 
Influences on the Oceanic, Atmospheric, and Land 
Currents, and the Distribution of Races. By George 
Catlin. (London: Triibner, 1870.) 
I N this free-speaking record of what Mr. Catlin has seen 
of American geology, and of his interpretation thereof, 
we have the results of strong observational powers and ot 
limited scientific knowledge, stated earnestly and ruggedly, 
with a faithful adherence to what was first mastered in 
books, and to the views of nature that early teaching gave. 
Such works are not rare, but they are not often noticed at 
large, unless, as in this instance, the author's individuality, 
sincerity, and earnestness are true and striking. We find 
in this book on the “ Rocks of America” that the author 
believes, first, in the hypothetical granite of a primeval 
world ; secondly, ina “schistoze zone, quite around the 
globe, and undoubtedly more or less an open and defined 
fissure between the two systems” of granite below and 
“sedimentary formations” above (p. 81); thirdly, “that 
these vast sedimentary beds, underlying secondary rocks 
on almost every portion of the globe, have been laid by the 
agency of water, with the disintegrated particles of granite, 
and by some (as yet mysterious) process become solidified 
and crystallised much in the same form, and certainly 
with the same ingredients, as the granite from which they 
came” (p. 80). It appears, also, that these low-seated 
sediments comprise the “azoic and palzozoic rocks” ot 
books ; “ that the remains of rhizopod and alge life [szc] 
may be found below gneiss” (p. 140), but not in the lime- 
stone in the gneiss ; that the acceptation of the Laurentian 
system of rocks, as worked out and explained by the 
Geological Surveyors of Canada, is to be deprecated ; that 
the Laurentian limestones have been deposited in “ the 
caverns formed underneath submarine mountains, which 
are free from all currents of the ocean, by the infiltration 
of water from the overlying calcareous rocks ;” “that in 
these caverns the first movements of organic life (which 
could not have existed exposed to the currents of the 
ocean) began ;” and that these limestones were thus 
“imbedded, and in horizontal strata, beneath azoic rocks, 
and containing the ‘ ozone Canadensis’ [sic], and other 
rhizopod remains which have excited so much attention 
of late, and been ingeniously used to undermine the 
