434 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



The great libraries of Paris, Rome, Venice, Milan, Escurial, Cracow, Gotha, 

 Munich and Cologne preserve a large number of Greek alchemical manuscripts 

 of unknown authorship and uncertain date. Hoefer, the French historian of 

 of chemistry, refers them to the third and fourth centuries, but other authorities 

 with greater probability place them not earlier than the tenth and eleventh. 



The most celebrated of these essays are attributed to Zosimus, of whose his^ 

 tory nothing is certainly known, and bear these titles : " On Furnaces and Chem- 

 ical Instruments," ' On the Virtue and Composition of Waters," "On the Holy 

 Water," " On the Sacred Art of Making Gold and Silver." In a treatise attribu- 

 ted to Synesius, we find a description of a hydroscopium or hydrometer which 

 was rediscovered as long after as the sixteenth century. 



In a treatise attributed to Olympiodorus, he cites as authorities Democritus, 

 Anaximander, Zosimus, Pelagius, and Marie, a certain Jewess whom the later Al- 

 chemists confounded with Miriam, Moses' sister. 



In these manuscripts chemistry is called the "sacred art" and the exceed- 

 ingly obscure and figurative language in which they are written, makes it well 

 nigh impossible to separate fact from fancy ; Hoefer has indeed attempted to dis- 

 cover modern chemical conceptions in the allusions to Egyptian myths and the 

 ■chaotic collections of spagyric arcana. 



Of systematic nomenclature there is absolutely no trace ; indeed each author 

 seems to have aimed to write treatises intelligible only to himself^ and we grea ^' 

 doubt his success in even this respect. " Cadmia," we are informed, "is m; 

 nesia," and "magnesia is the female antimony of Macedonia;" " nitre is wl: 

 sulphur which produces brass;" equally clear is the statement that the "a 

 spermatism of the dragon is the mercury of cinnabar." That lexicons were ear. 

 in demand is not surprising; in fact some of the most ancient MSS. are " vocab 

 ularies of the sacred art," but even with their assistance it is difficult to form 

 satisfactory concepts of contemporaiy chemical science. 



Suidas, a Greek lexicographer of the eleventh century, states that Diocletian 

 having conquered the rebellious Egyptians (296 A. D.) destroyed their books on 

 the preparation of silver and gold, lest becoming rich by the practice of that art 

 they might again resist the Romans. Regrets at the wanton acts of this imperial 

 biblioclast are tempered by the reflection that modern scholars are spared the 

 study of such literary absurdities. 



The Chinese, that curious people who always claim a hearing when the ori- 

 gin or antiquity of arts and sciences is under consideration, were acquainted at a 

 very remote period with many branches of chemical technology. We do not 

 know of any special chemical literature produced by them, but the researches of 

 Rev. Joseph Edkins and of Dr. W. A. P. Martin make it highly probable that 

 scholars will yet discover contributions of no small importance to the early history 

 of chemistry. Prof. George Gladstone has endeavored to show that the Chinese 

 originated thfe doctrines and pursuit of alchemy and communicated it to the Ara- 

 bians by whom it was disseminated throughout Europe. 



The high state of civilization and extraordinary intellectual development of 



