WORD " CHEMIA " OR " CHEMISTRY/^ 105 



could make it fine. They seem also to have dissolved 

 metals for marking- ink^ showing that they used acids. 

 As to distillation (which used to be thought such a late 

 invention) the oil of cedar, used by the embalmers and 

 mentioned by Herodotus^ points distinctly to that process. 

 Soda was used ; and it was made caustic by lime, as Pliny 

 tells us, and exported to Gaul. This is a peculiarly che- 

 mical process. 



Judging from these facts, is it possible for us to consider 

 that the arts employing all these operations, for each of 

 which heat was used, could possibly have escaped having 

 a name ? Prof. Kopp does not, so far as I see, feel sure 

 that a name existed early ; and others have had similar 

 doubts, as we have seen, whilst there has been a strong 

 inclination to derive the word from some simple object or 

 fact. Such an origin for a word is probably more usual in 

 the history of language than any other ; and it is not to 

 be expected that the difference between abstract and 

 concrete words should have received much consideration 

 in Egypt, although not unknown, since we can point to a 

 distinct recognition of it. There is a manuscript which is 

 considered by Dr. Birch to have come from i loo b.c, which 

 has the following title : — " Principle of Arriving at the 

 Knowledge of Quantities, and of Solving all Secrets which 

 are in the Nature of Things.^' It is arithmetical and geo- 

 metrical. This I have obtained from Mahaffy^s ' Prolego- 

 mena of Ancient History;^ but I understand that we may 

 soon expect much more information on such points from 

 manuscripts now under examination. The medical treatises, 

 as well as the anatomical, show abundant abstract thinking^ 



From these considerations I see no difficulty in supposing 

 that the Egyptians used one word to designate the strange 

 phenomena produced in substances by means of heat. If 

 we consider the operations of a laboratory, we find it re- 



