566  Romance  of  Chemical  Elements.    {Ar%^Xst  igis""' 
mankind  that  the  physical  world  was  governed  by  unchangeable 
laws,  which  man  cannot  alter.  Man's  position  to  the  physical  world 
was  thus  altered,  and  he  became  an  experimenter  and  investigator, 
who  could  only  try  to  find  out  those  physical  laws,  and  apply  them 
to  his  welfare.  While  man  failed  in  the  achievement  of  his  theory, 
that  of  transformation  of  the  base  metals  into  gold,  he  acquired  a 
great  deal  of  chemical  knowledge,  which  paved  the  way  to  the  rapid 
advancement  of  science  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  century. 
The  discoveries  during  the  alchemistic  period  were  always  acci- 
dental, but  some  of  them  of  great  importance  for  science. 
Bismuth. 
Among  the  elements,  discovered  by  some  unknown  alchemist,  is 
bismuth,  which  is  for  the  first  time  mentioned  by  Basil  Valentin  in 
1459  as  wismut,  and  described  as  a  bastard  of  tin.  Paracelsus 
also  speaks  of  wissmat  and  in  the  writings  of  Georgius  Agricola  we 
find  it  as  wissmuth  and  in  the  Latinized  form  bisemutum.  Accord- 
ing to  Koch  the  name  is  very  probably  derived  from  the  Arabic  wiss 
majat,  which  means  a  metal  that  easily  melts,  for  the  alchemists 
studied  eagerly  the  Arabic  writings  and  were  familiar  with  Arabic 
terms.  This  explanation  is  more  plausible  than  the  following  ones. 
Kluge,  e.  g.,  derives  it  from  the  name  of  the  oldest  bismuth  mine, 
"St.  Georgen  in  der  Wiesen  "  (near  Schneeberg),  and  connects  it 
with  an  old  miner's  term,  "  muten  " — to  go  prospecting,  thus  indi- 
cating the  metal  found  by  prospecting  "  in  der  Wiesen."  Mathesius 
tries  to  connect  it  with  the  German  "  wiesenmatte,"  and  its  older 
form,  "  wesemot "  —  a  cut  meadow,  which  shall  in  the  late  autumn 
present  the  different  colors  sometimes  observed  on  the  metal. 
Sanders  finally  attempts  to  explain  it  as  "bi-smut" — bei-schmutz, 
or  dirt,  as  it  should  be  an  impurity  of  other  metals.  The  last  expla- 
nations are,  however,  not  plausible.  Bismuth  or  wismuth  has  been 
often  confused  with  other  metals,  so,  e.  g.,  in  1595  Libavius  holds 
it  as  antimony,  in  1675  Lemery  thinks  it  to  be  zinc,  until  in  1739 
J.  H.  Pott  studied  its  properties  and  establishes  it  as  an  element. 
Zinc. 
In  the  form  of  alloys  zinc  has  been  used  by  the  ancients,  e.  g., 
Aristotle  speaks  of  a  metal  of  the  tribe  of  the  Mosyncegy  obtained 
