CHEMISTRY IN 1727. 609 
People who work in quicksilver mines all die in a little time. One man 
after six years was so full of it that, holding a piece of gold in his mouth a little 
while, it became of a silver color and heavier than before. 
With reference to stones, he speaks thus: 
Stones are popularly divided into two classes, vulgar and precious; or, 
which amounts to the same thing, opaque and transparent. The distinguishing 
mark of precious stones, as of metals, is the weight. Whatever stone has the 
weight of a diamond is really a diamond. 
He explained what we call ‘“ fossils,’’ in the following manner : 
Stones grow like plants. When the seed of a stone gets into a shell of an 
animal, it grows and is molded ,into the shape of the shell; for example, cornua. 
ammonis, our ammonite. 
The stones most opposite hereto, as chalk and boles, are little else than 
earth ill bound together by a very small quantity of crystalline juice. If this 
crystalline juice found its way in quantity into the midst of any concretion and 
evaporated, the result was an agate or onyx. 
Under the head of sulphur he speaks of Arsenic: 
The second is arsenic, the most fatal of the whole tribe. It destroys all 
animals and man as the name indicates: Amer, man, and nkao, to conquer. In 
an ancient MS. ascribed to the Sibyls i is a verse which plainly indicates Arsenic : 
Tetrasyllabus sum; prima pars met virum, secunda victoriam significat. 
Coral was considered a plant. Thus I might multiply examples; but I have 
already gone too far. Such were the lessons taught by ‘‘ very learned ” men about. 
one hundred and fifty years ago! And yet I have heard people declare that the 
world was not advancing in knowledge; that there ‘‘ was nothing new under the 
sun ;” and such like expressions. 
In conclusion take this—an item from physiological chemistry : 
The component parts of animals are spirit, water, salt, oil and earth. Spirit 
is an oily or sulphureous matter so subtilized as to be volatile by the smallest fire, 
and miscible with water. That there is such a spirit and a peculiar one, too, in 
every man, is evident from dogs. They track any one man or beast among a 
thousand; ergo some specific matter distinguishes the dog’s master from the 
effluvia of all others. 
Hippocrates would indeed presently pronounce the sentence of death upon 
any one sick of an unknown distemper wherein the secretions were obstructed 
and the skin appeared squalid, dry and parched. Butachemist would go deeper 
into the thing and show you that the aqueous and spirituous parts of the blood 
being here wanting, the salts which are now rendered more corrosive and sharp, 
are brought by the laws of circulation to the fine tender vessels of the cerebrum 
and cerebellum, which they either wound or tear, or else prevent the secretion 
of animal and vital spirits therein; whence death must necessarily ensue, which 
is saying something that satisfies the mind and rationally accounts for the thing. 
