whole towns with gold and silver. Even their books proclaim their vanity, for they inscribe in them the names of Plato and Aristotle and other philosophers, in order that such high-sounding inscriptions may impose upon simple people and pass for learning. There is another class of alchemists who do not change the substance of base metals, but colour them to represent gold or silver, so that they appear to be that which they are not, and when this appearance is taken from them by the fire, as if it were a garment foreign to them, they return to their own character. These alchemists, since they deceive people, are not only held in the greatest odium, but their frauds are a capital offence.
No less a fraud, warranting capital punishment, is committed by a third sort of alchemists; these throw into a crucible a small piece of gold or silver hidden in a coal, and after mixing therewith fluxes which have the power of extracting it, pretend to be making gold from orpiment, or silver from tin and like substances. But concerning the art of alchemy, if it be an art, I will speak further elsewhere. I will now return to the art of mining.
Since no authors have written of this art in its entirety, and since foreign nations and races do not understand our tongue, and, if they did understand it, would be able to learn only a small part of the art through the works of those authors whom we do possess, I have written these twelve books De Re Metallica. Of these, the first book contains the arguments which may be used against this art, and against metals and the mines, and what can be said in their favour. The second book describes the miner, and branches into
Hermes Trismegistos was a legendary Egyptian personage supposed to have flourished before 1,500 B.C., and by some considered to be a corruption of the god Thoth. He is supposed to have written a number of works, but those extant have been demonstrated to date not prior to the second Century; he is referred to by the later Greek Alchemists, and was believed to have possessed the secret of transmutation. Osthanes was also a very shadowy personage, and was considered by some Alchemists to have been an Egyptian prior to Hermes, by others to have been the teacher of Zoroaster. Pliny mentions a magician of this name who accompanied Xerxes' army. Later there are many others of this name, and the most probable explanation is that this was a favourite pseudonym for ancient magicians; there is a very old work, of no great interest, in MSS in Latin and Greek, in the Munich, Gotha, Vienna, and other libraries, by one of this name. Agathodaemon was still another shadowy character referred to by the older Alchemists. There are MSS in the Florence, Paris, Escurial, and Munich libraries bearing his name, but nothing tangible is known as to whether he was an actual man or if these writings are not of a much later period than claimed. To the next group belong the Greek Alchemists, who flourished during the rise and decline of Alexandria, from 200 B.C. to 700 A.D., and we give them in order of their dates. Comerius was considered by his later fellow professionals to have been the teacher of the art to Cleopatra (ist Century B.C.), and a MSS with a title to that effect exists in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. The celebrated Cleopatra seems to have stood very high in the estimation of the Alchemists; perhaps her doubtful character found a response among them; there are various works extant in MSS attributed to her, but nothing can be known as to their authenticity. Lucius Apulejus or Apuleius was born in Numidia about the 2nd Century; he was a Roman Platonic Philosopher, and was the author of a romance, “The Metamorphosis, or the Golden Ass.” Synesius was a Greek, but of unknown period; there is a MSS treatise on the Philosopher's Stone in the library at Leyden under his name, and various printed works are attributed to him; he mentions “water of saltpetre,” and has, therefore, been hazarded to be the earliest recorder of nitric acid. The work here referred to as “Heliodorus to Theodosius” was probably the MSS in the Libraries at Paris, Vienna, Munich, etc., under the title of “Heliodorus the Philosopher's Poem to the Emperor Theodosius the Great on the Mystic Art of the Philosophers, etc.” His period would, therefore, be about the 4th Century. The Alexandrian Zosimus is more generally known as Zosimus the Panopolite, from Panopolis, an ancient town on the Nile; he flourished in the 5th Century, and belonged to the Alexandrian School of Alchemists; he should not be confused with the Roman historian of the same name and period. The following statement is by Boerhaave (Elementa Chemiae, Paris, 1724, Chap. I.): “The name Chemistry written in Greek, or Chemia, is so ancient
