Febmary yth, iSgg.'] PROCEEDINGS. xv 



introduced. Two quotations, dated respectively 1581 and 1625, 

 are given in proof of this statement, but the one most suitable 

 for mention here is from Evelyn's ' Memoirs,' 1676, " Dined with 

 me Mr. Flamsteed, the learned astrologer and mathematician, 

 whom his Majesty had established in the new observatory in 

 Greenwich Park." Now, Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, 

 was anything but an astrologer in our sense of the term. 

 ' Astronomy ' appears to have been the earlier word of the two 

 in O.F. and M.F., however, with the meaning we now attach to 

 astrology, but by the end of the 17th century the differentiation, 

 as now understood, had become confirmed. 



The first recorded introduction of the word ' Chemistrie ' 

 into literature is found in 1605. Within half a century it appears 

 to have been held in very bad repute, for Gaule (1652) speaks of 

 it as " a kind of praestigious cheating covetous magick," but 

 this is mild compared with what was to follow in still more 

 recent times. Praestigious, it may be remarked, means ' juggling ' 

 or 'cheating.' Thus Bentham, in his ' Chrestomathia ' (1816) 

 describes it in this fearful language : " Idioscopic or crypto- 

 dynamic Anthropurgics has for its single-worded synonym the 

 unexpressive appellation 'Chemistry,'" 



Of a number of words which are more or less intimately 

 connected with this great science, the word 'Alcohol' has perhaps 

 the most curious history. The black native sulphide of antimony, 

 termed by the Arabians ' kohl,' was, as is well known, in early 

 use among Eastern ladies for purposes of adornment. Thus, in 

 2 Kings ix. 30, we read that Jezebel " put her eyes in paint," that 

 is to say, in kohl, and there is a similar allusion in Ezekiel xxiii. 

 40. The custom has been remarked by travellers from the most 

 remote times. Sandys (1615) says: "They put between tne 

 eyelids and the eye a certaine blacke powder made from a 

 minerall brought from the kingdom of Fez, and called ' Alcohole.' " 

 Bacon, in 1626, has a similar passage. But even as early as 

 1543 the word had begun to mean any fine impalpable powder, 

 produced by trituration, or especially by sublimation, as alcohol 

 martis for iron reduced from the oxide, alcohol of sulphur for 



