Mr. G. F. Rodwell on the Theory of Phlogiston. 11 



and bring them to an incombustible oyl, which will transmute 

 £ into O ." Sometimes a word was compounded of a symbol 

 with the addition of letters, and was declined by the addition of 

 the case- terminations to the symbol; thus, to take sulphur, 

 £:— N. Q; G. £is; D. ^i; A. ^emj V. ^; Abl. 



A e. It is obvious that this could only be done with words 



which increase in the genitive ; but the symbol was often other- 

 wise applied, and (itself denoting a substantive) was made part 

 of an adjective : thus the symbol for sal with inus added would 

 signify salinus ; the symbol for aqua with tills added would sig- 

 nify aquatilis, and so on. It is some satisfaction to know that 

 this barbarous custom never became very general. The following 

 example is from the first part of StahPs Fundamenta Chemice: — 

 " Facilius solvitur ille nexus 0ini hujus et ^ e i concreta per 

 alcalia 0ia ; subtilius per volatilia Qosa ; grossius per fixa in- 

 cinerata, solutioni Oinis eadem soluta sub -jn_ et olei per deli- 

 quium nomine instillando/'' 



It is a sheer waste of time to read even the most celebrated 

 treatises of the old chemists : the obscurity of one is reproduced 

 in all ; moreover they are excessively prolix ; and if they do con- 

 tain anything of interest, it is so buried in a mass of utterly irre- 

 levant matter that it is scarcely worth the labour of extracting. 

 I give below a few extracts from typical chemical works, and I 

 do not apologize for the digression ; for while it indicates the 

 character of old chemical literature, it also gives us an insight 

 into the condition of chemistry prior to the time of Becher, 

 without the knowledge of which we cannot judge fairly of the 

 theory of phlogiston, or of the manner of its evolution. 



Let us, in the first place, hear the opinions of Basil Valentine* 

 concerning the generation of metals, as expressed in his famous 

 Currus Triumphalis Antimonii: — " Therefore think most dili- 

 gently about this ; often bear in mind, observe, and comprehend 

 that all minerals and metals together in the same time, and after 

 the same fashion, and of one and the same principal matter, are 

 produced and generated. That matter is no other than a mere 

 vapour, which is extracted from the elementary earth by the su- 

 perior stars as by a sydereal distillation of the macrocosm ; which 

 sydereal hot infusion with an airy sulphureous property descend- 

 ing upon inferiors, so acts and operates, as in those metals and 

 minerals is implanted spiritually and invisibly a certain power 

 and virtue, which fume afterwards resolves itself in the earth into 

 a certain water, from which mineral water all metals are thence- 

 forth generated and ripened to their perfection, and thence pro- 



* Born 1394, wrote about 1415. 



