ge ERS A So 
Piates 30, 31. 
Introduction. 
fw her rise and progress Chemistry presents a remarkable page in the 
history of science. While no other field of human knowledge remained so 
long untilled, no other ever presented such glorious results of flower and 
fruit, after the first germ had taken root. The purely abstract sciences, 
philosophy, and especially mathematics, find their origin in a hoary 
antiquity, and their earliest teachings may serve as means wherewith to 
form the youthful mind of the present generation ; they soon attained a 
rank among the true sciences, and what they taught has been but more 
firmly established by the lapse of ages. .Not so with the natural sciences. 
It is not easy to assign the reason why the ancient naturalists, with all their 
acuteness, should have permitted their strivings after truth to be frustrated 
by an almost utter neglect of observation: Yet. we cannot deny that 
efforts were made, with respect to many departments of science, to establish. 
them on a firm basis... Aristotle divided the natural world into three great 
classes. His views ef matter, however, as those of the other Grecian 
philosophers, could not stand a moment after chemistry became a science. 
Anaximander taught four elements as the primary constituents of our 
planet, fire, air, water, and earth; and centuries after no alteration was 
made in the doctrine, though the economical application of many 
substances, and the manipulation of many natural products, offered chemical 
facts which might have led the way to a scientific appreciation of chemical 
combinations and decompositions. The ancient Egyptians prepared many 
salts, as sal ammoniac, carbonate of soda, sulphate of iron, as also glass and 
tiles ; they were able to reduce many metals from their ores, and to make 
various alloys. The embalming of dead bodies, the preparation of 
medicines, the fabrication of vinegar, beer, and other artificial products, as 
practised by the Egyptians, presuppose some chemical experience. The 
knowledge possessed by the Egyptians. with respect to these and many 
other subjects, was diffused at.a later period among the Jews and Greeks, 
and perhaps among the Chinese also. Yet, notwithstanding all this, we 
cannot go beyond the end of the seventeenth century; for the origin of 
scientific chemistry. | 
The manner in which chemistry at this time commenced her career is 
exceedingly remarkable. It was not the effort to elucidate certain obscure 
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