436 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Lille (b. 1 1 14), celebrated as a physician, theologian, -poet and historian, who 

 filled the episcopal chair at Auxerre; Roger Bacon (b. 12 14) an English cordelier; 

 Raymond LuUy (b. 1235), a Franciscan friar, and Albertus Magnus (b. 1193), 

 Bishop of Ratisbon. The latter, amid the monotonous routine of a Dominican 

 monastery, found leisure to distinguish himself in astronomy, medicine, alchemy 

 and, according to his enemies, in necromancy. At this remote period, accusa- 

 tions of dealing with magic were not unfrequently made against those whose 

 learning and skill in experimental sciences excited envy and superstitious zeal. 

 H< >i< ^ >l< ^ >1< 



Valentine's celebrated "Chariot of Antimony," extolling the medical vir- 

 tues of this metal, is perhaps the least obscure of his works ; the " Twelve Keys 

 of Philosophy " with its singular plates, one of the most unintelligible ; yet be- 

 neath the extravagant jargon characteristic of the period, glimpses are obtained 

 of light and intelligence. The latter work presents clearly the theory that all 

 metals are compounded of three principles : fixedness, raetallicity and volatility, 

 represented respectively by salt, mercury and sulphur, an hypothesis which long 

 completely controlled chemistry until it gave place to the seductive theory of 

 Phk)giston. It is uncertain whether the works ascribed to Valentine were first 

 written in Latin or in German; his writings were collected in the seventeenth cen- 

 tury and have been through many editions. Several of his treatises have been 

 translated into English and into French. 



In the fifteenth century the newly invented printing press was employed in 

 the production of few works which can be regarded as chemical, and these were 

 chiefly confined to isolated treatises of the ancient philosophers ; in the sixteenth 

 century the alchemists began to publish the results of their industry and specula- 

 tions, and in the succeeding century a prodigious number of alchemical works were 

 issued in Germany, France and England, creating literature of an extraordinary 

 type. ^ 



Some of these treatises, which are numbered by thousands, record valuable 

 experiments made by enthusiasts seeking the philosopher's stone, but the majori- 

 ty contain "a crude mass of incoherent propositions and wild assertions, a mix- 

 ture of poesy and insanity, in which all logical ideas are lost amidst the stilted 

 phraseology, but through which breathed a blind yet fervent faith." Great ob- 

 scurity of style, an enigmatical method of naming chemical substances which 

 found its highest development in the use of arbitrary symbols and the pictorial 

 representations of alchemical processes, the intimate association with astrology, 

 the honest or affected intermingling of pious comment and prayers, the extrava- 

 gant claims to interpret the mythology of Egypt and Greece on an alchemical 

 basis ; the endeavor to associate the mysteries of Hermes with the sacred truths 

 of the Christian religion, all combine to produce literary monstrosities as fasci- 

 nating to the student of chemical history as they are profitless to the practical 

 worker in modern science. 



Among the fabulous writings, highly esteemed by the credulous alchemists, 

 may be mentioned the celebrated inscription of Hermes Trismegistus upon an 



