WORD " CHEMIA " OR " CHEMISTRY." 121 



orderly metliod in which knowledge was arranged in Egypt. 

 As to the secrets^ we know well that the Egyptians had 

 power enough to keep them ; and even when they tried to 

 convey knowledge, we, after a couple of thousand years^ 

 find it a very difficult thing to read any of their writing, 

 and he who can read a few lines is looked on by us as a very 

 learned man. 



It seemsj then, clear that chemistry came out of the 

 darkness with its name connected with metals in the fourth 

 century ; and in the works of Zosimus we find distillation 

 treated of side by side with metals, he and Synesius and 

 Democritus looking to Egypt as the land where all was 

 to be learnt. This I need not prove, but refer to Kopp's 

 'History of Chemistry,^ and to Hoefer, and to Olaus Bor- 

 richius, whose writings all must consult. In Zosimus we 

 have metals, " furnaces, and apparatus " spoken of; and he 

 came from Panopolis; he is sometimes called also of Alex- 

 andria. Until the contrary be proved wise, we seem obliged 

 to start clear from him as from a landmark of the ending 

 of the period of Egyptian secrecy, although we learn too 

 little from him. 



These facts enable us to trace the idea of chemistry as it 

 gradually consolidated itself : — going back in time to early 

 Egypt, where the word was used for "^ heat " in various re- 

 lations ; going into Syria and Palestine, where the word 

 was also used for *' heat," and for "" rage " or mental heat, 

 and for violence caused by intoxication ; moving onwards 

 to the Assyrians, who. also had the word as meaning heat ; 

 and following it into Bactria and India, where it associ- 

 ated itself with intoxicating liquors as well as with heat, and 

 where we find the vessels called kamu, as if in imitation 

 of the vessels for heat or the crucibles which must have 

 existed in Egypt, 



A chief intoxicating liquor of Asia still retains the name; 



