492  Romance  of  Chemical  Elements.    { Am'jJ?yr'IgIh8arm' 
and  Latin  minium  — red  lead,  because  it  was  used  as  a  substitute 
for  red  lead.  The  first  extensive  study  of  antimony  and  its  com- 
pounds was  made  by  an  alchemist,  Basil  Valentin,  who  wrote  the 
famous  treatise,  "the  Triumphal  Chariot  of  Antimony,"  which  re- 
veals a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  chemistry  of  antimony. 
Mercury. 
Cinnabar,  found  as  a  mineral,  was  well  known  as  a  pigment  to 
the  ancients,  but  its  constituent  mercury  was  unknown  to  the  an- 
cient Jews  and  early  Greek  writers.  Aristotle  and  Theophrastus 
(400-300  B.  C.)  mention  in  their  writings  v&pdpyvpos,  hydrargyros, 
from  vSwp,  hydor,  water,  and  apyvpos,  argyros,  silver,  being  prepared 
by  treating  cinnabar  with  vinegar.  The  Romans  know  it  as  hy- 
drargyrum and  argentum  vivum  =  "  living  silver."  The  alchemists 
called  it  mercurius  in  allusion  to  the  messenger  god  Mercurius,  who 
with  his  winged  hat  and  winged  sandals  was  the  conception  of 
speed,  and  mercury  as  a  liquid  metal  was  very  speedy  in  its  escape. 
Paracelsus  (1493-1541)  used  some  of  its  compounds  as  a  remedy 
and  introduced  it  thus  into  medicine,  though  some  of  his  treatments 
were  fatal  to  the  patients.  Solid  mercury  was  for  the  first  time 
prepared  by  Braune  of  Petrograd  in  1759. 
Arsenic. 
Like  cinnabar  so  the  sulphide  of  arsenic  was  well  known  as 
orpiment  (Latin  auripigment  =  gold  color).  Aristotle  mentions  it 
as  cravBdpaKr],  sandarake,  and  Theophrastus  as  apaeviKov,  arsenikon, 
which  means  "  the  masculine  one."  It  is  derived  from  apprjviKov, 
=  the  color  for  man,  and  comes  from  apayv,  arsen,  male  (Zend — 
arshan),  because  the  old  Greek  painters  used  the  sulphide  as  the 
color  for  the  sunburnt  faces  of  man,  women's  faces  being  painted 
white.  Among  the  alchemists  Albertus  Magnus  (1 193-1280)  was 
the  first  one  to  prepare  metallic  arsenic.  The  term  is  represented 
in  many  old  and  modern  languages,  e.  g.,  Arabic — zirnakun,  Syriac 
— zarnika,  Spanish,  Italian — arsenico,  German — arsen,  French — ar- 
senic, Hungarian — arzen. 
{To  be  continued.) 
