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THE CHEMIST’S AIM IN VARIOUS AGES. 
(With Experiments). 
By LEVI WALTON. March 1 6th, 1909. 
The historical sources of information as to the aims of 
early chemists are small, and are obscured by many mythical 
traditions. 
The earliest chemists of whom we can learn are Egyptians, 
Phoenicians, and Jews. The word “ chemistry ” is attributed 
by some to the word “ Chemic,” the old name for northern 
Egypt. The earliest chemical record is the Leyden Papyrus. 
Another valuable source is the writings of the Alexandrians 
from the third to the seventh centuries A.D. The chemists 
of that period made imitation gold and silver, probably 
identical with our alloys of copper. These imitations were 
looked upon as actual changes in matter, and for more than 
a thousand years people believed in the transmutation of 
metals such as copper and lead into the nobler metals, gold 
and silver. To effect this change was the principal object 
of chemists up to the end of the sixteenth century. Tradition 
says that the art of ennobling metals was brought from heaven 
to earth by demons. Alchemy was considered as a divine 
art and was kept secret and fostered by the priesthood, the 
sons of kings and a few eminent philosophers only being 
initiated. Among these we find the names of Solon, Pytha- 
goras, Herodotus, Plato, Democritus, and Aristotle. 
The astrologers of Babylon fused astrology and magic, 
and it is to this that we owe the supposed relations of the 
metals with the sun and the planets. Gold corresponded 
to the sun, silver to the moon ; we still have silver nitrate 
described as lunarcaustic. 
Pliny treated the transformation of copper into gold and 
silver as an accomplished fact. We find this belief in the 
transformation of metals carried down continually, the 
