10 WILLIAM M. HAMLET. 



article 'the,' we have a number of words interesting to the chemist 

 including even the name given to the science itself. 



It may be interesting to make four of these words serve as the 

 frame-work or text of my address to you on this occasion, I there- 

 fore bring before your notice the words : — Alkemie, Alkali, 

 Alkaloid and Alkohol. Any historical survey of chemistry 

 necessarily leads us back to the days of early Egypt, back to the 

 age in which flourished the long extinct University of On, or 

 Heliopolis, or Diospolis, with its reputed hundred professors, 

 amongst whom we may reasonably conclude there must have been 

 someone corresponding to our modern professor, not of chemistry 

 but of Kemie — the black art. Time will not, nor will your 

 patience allow me to do more than glance at this fascinating 

 subject, but among the notable alchemists of a later age I will 

 mention two remarkable men, Geber and Paracelsus, and these 

 but briefly, since both Geber and Paracelsus have received atten- 

 tion from two of our members, Professor Liversidge 1 and Mr. F. B. 

 Guthrie, 2 in addresses given before the Australasian Association 

 for the Advancement of Science. 



Geber and Paracelsus both, stand out in prominent outline in 

 the records of history; Berthelot gives the name of the former as 

 Jabir ib Hayyam ; another authority gives the name as Gescheber. 

 However that may be, he was a physician of the eighth century, 

 and in the fulsome exaggeration of eastern writers, was said to be 

 the author of five hundred treatises ! He knew probably of the 

 properties of many metals and minerals, the hydrostatic balance, 

 the smelting furnace, the arts of distillation, sublimation, crystal- 

 lisation and filtration; all however subordinated to the search 

 after the Elixir Vitae and the Philosopher's stone. 



Paracelsus, who stands immortalised by the poet Robert Brown- 

 ing, was of the sixteenth century, born at Einsiedeln in Switzer- 

 land in 1493, (obiit 1541) and taught that the object of chemistry 



1 Presidential Address, Australasian Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, Sydney 1898. 



2 Address Chemical Section, Melbourne 1900. 



