82 



NA TURE 



[November 28, 1901 



is the benefactor of mankind. Thus it is that the tangible 

 utility of scientific results has convinced the State that laboratory 

 work should be encouraged and sustained, because it is econo- 

 mically a benefit to all, and for the public health. Science 

 carries still further its legitimate pretensions. It claims to- 

 day at once the material direction, the intellectual direction, 

 and the mor.al direction of human society. Under its impulse 

 modern civilisation marches with a more and more rapid 

 stride. 



Since the first half of the century that has just gone by, not 

 to go further back, the world has strangely changed its face. 

 Men of my generation have beheld coming on the scene by the 

 side of and above that nature which had been known since 

 antiquity, if not an antiphysis, a counter nature, as is sometimes 

 said, yet a superior and in a way transcendent nature where the 

 power of the individual is multiplied a hundredfold by the trans- 

 formation, hitherto unknown or not understood, borrowed from 

 light, magnetism and electricity. Nor is this all. Let us rise to 

 a loftier and more fruitful range of ideas. From the deeper 

 knowledge of the universe and the physical and moral constitu- 

 tion of man there results a fresh conception of human destiny 

 governed by the fundamental ideas of human solidarity between 

 all classes and all nations. In proportion as the ties uniting 

 the peoples are multiplied and made tighter by the progress of 

 science and the unity of doctrines and precepts which science 

 deduces from the facts which it notes and which it imposes with- 

 out violence, yet relentlessly, upon all convictions, these ideas 

 have assumed a growing and more and more irresistible im- 

 portance. They are tending to become the purely human bases 

 of moral life and of the politics of the future, f lence the rdU 

 of savants as individuals and as a social class has constantly 

 grown in modern States. 



But our duties towards other men grow at the same time, let 

 us never forget that. Let us proclaim it in this enclosure, in 

 this palace of French science. It is for no selfish satisfaction of 

 our private vanity that to-day the world does homage to the 

 savants. No ! It is because it is aware that a savant really 

 worthy of the name devotes a disinterested life to the great work 

 of our epoch, I mean to the amelioration, too slow, alas, to our 

 mind, of the lot of all, from the rich and fortunate to the 

 humble, the poor, the sufl'ering. This was what nine years ago 

 in this very hall the State and the authorities aftirmed by honour- 

 ing Pasteur. This is what my friend Chaplain has sought to 

 express on this fine medal which the President of the Republic 

 is to offer me. I know not if I have completely fulfilled the 

 noble ideal tr.aced by the artist, but I have striven, at all events, 

 to make it the object and the end, the governing aim of my exist- 

 ence. 



The medal (or rather plague) with suitable inscription 

 was then presented to M. Berthelot by M. Loubet, the 

 President of the Republic, and, according to continental 

 fashion, the ceremony was concluded with a fraternal 

 embrace. 



Such is a brief account of the proceedings at this very 

 interesting ceremony ; and one is led to seek for analogies 

 in our own country. The Kelvin jubilee at Glasgow and 

 the .Stokes jubilee at Cambridge may be cited as events 

 of a similar character ; but in Fr.ince the ceremony ap- 

 peared to be of greater national importance, owing to the 

 presence of the Head of the State, the Ministers and 

 the Ambassadors. In his reply M. Berthelot alluded 

 humorously to the former position of science ; it was 

 regarded as a harmless pursuit, carried on by amateurs 

 and men of leisure at the charge of the working classes, 

 for the amusement and distraction of those favoured 

 by fortune ; it has now become one of the most 

 potent influences for civilisation that the world has 

 known, and will ever retain that position. Is it pos- 

 sible that in England the former view of science still 

 retains some hold on the people, and that in France 

 this aspect of science has long been outlived ? Whether 

 this be so or not it is certain that all Englishmen will join 

 with the whole French nation in congratulating M. 

 Berthelot on the completion of so many years of work, 

 and will wish him health and a long life during which 

 he may enrich the world by further investigations into 

 the wide domain of Nature. 



NO. 1674, VOL. 65] 



BERTHELOT, AND THE METALS OF 

 ANTIQUITY. 



'X*HE metals of antiquity are among the many subjects 

 ■•• which, from time to time, have been studied by 

 M. Berthelot. It is principally by two different methods 

 that he has investigated the matter: (i) the writings of 

 ancient alchymists, (21 the analysis of metallic objects 

 sent him by modern explorers. In 1885 Berthelot pub- 

 lished a handsome volume, " Les Origines de I'jMchimie," 

 in which he described his researches among the Greek 

 papyri, and the still older documents of the Egyptian, 

 Chaldean, Jewish, Gnostic and Chinese philosophers. In 

 succeeding years he brought out several volumes under 

 the title of "Collection des Anciens Alchimistes Grecs," 

 under the auspices of the Minister of Public Instruction. 

 By far the most important for the present purpose is 

 the collection of papyri. at Leyden. The Papyrus .\ is 

 more especially chemical. It dates from the end of the 

 third century, but contains the lore of earlier times. It 

 is described in fairly full detail in the Annales de 

 CInmic et de Physique, 1886, \o\. ix. Berthelot shows 

 that the earlier alchemy was not founded upon purely 

 chimerical fancies, but rests upon positive experiment, by 

 which the adepts made imitations of gold and silver and 

 precious stones, or taught how to increas<; their weight. 

 In interpreting these ancient writings we are met with a 

 great difficulty in fixing the meaning of the terms used 

 for the metals and gems and the preparations made from 

 them, the vagueness of the language being augmented 

 by the idea that these substances were susceptible of 

 transmutation into one another, and also by the Platonic 

 doctrine of a primary matter from which everything may 

 be derived. In this particular papyrus there are no less 

 than loi receipts for making gold, ascm (electrum), silver, 

 &c., and the processes to be adopted. These are de- 

 scribed by Berthelot as being genuine and definite, and 

 not overlaid with fanciful notions ; but the later philoso- 

 phers and commentators were strangers to practical work 

 and governed by mystic ideas : thus there w^as supposed 

 to be a connection between the seven known metals and 

 the seven planets, seven colours and seven transmuta- 

 tions. The later alchymists threw their energies into the 

 search after the philosopher's stone which was to trans- 

 mute baser metals into gold. 



More important, perhaps, than his studies of the ancient 

 manuscripts has been the prominent part which Berthelot 

 has taken in examining chemically the metallic objects 

 which have been unearthed by the great explorers of the 

 present day. These researches are being carried on over 

 the greater part of the countries bordering the Mediter- 

 ranean and extending to the Persian Gulf It is hardly 

 necessary to say that they are enabling us to picture to 

 ourselves these great nationalities of old in a way that 

 was never before possible. The part that Berthelot has 

 taken is not that of an explorer, but that of a scientific 

 analyst ; and it has been mainly confined to the metals 

 employed in these ancient civilisations. He commenced 

 by examining different Assyrian objects froin ancient 

 Chald;ua, some from the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad, 

 others from the mounds of Tello excavated by M. de 

 Sarzec, now in the museum of the Louvre. M. Place 

 had found in the palace of Sargon a stone coffer contain- 

 ing votive tablets, covered with cuneiform inscriptions 

 giving the date of foundation of the palace as B.C. 706. 

 Of the four now in the museum of the Louvre, one is of 

 gold, another of silver, a third of bronze and the fourth 

 of the rare mineral crystallised carbon.ite of magnesia, 

 judging from the inscriptions two of the other tablets are 

 believed to have been of lead and tin. The discoveries at 

 Tello consisted of a vase of antimony, a metal which had 

 subsequently been lost sight of for many centuries ; a 

 tablet of metallic copper, much corroded, but free from 

 tin ; and a little figure of pure copper, bearing the name 



