The birth of chemistry / by G.F. Rodwell.

George Farrer Rodwell

Date:: 1874

Credit: The birth of chemistry / by G.F. Rodwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$study, and to keep mind and matter as distinct as possible. From all this it resulted that your workers in metals and in curious arts, your makers of glass and pigments, kept their knowledge of matter to themselves, as secrets to be handed down from father to son. Seven metals were known to the ancients, viz., gold, silver, copper, tin, iron, lead, and mercury. The first six are mentioned by Homer, and appear to have been known from remote antiquity, while mercury was not known till a later date; it was, however, common in the ftrst century B.C. The Greek word fihaXkov, whence metallum and metal, signifies a mine, hence it was applied to anything found in mines, notably metals; jj,eTa\Xov is connected with (xeTaWdo), “ to search for diligently.” Gold has been valued from the earliest ages, on ac- count of the peculiarity of its colour, its lustre, and its unalterability in air. The metal is invariably found in the native state, that is, uncombined with other substances, hence no metallurgical operation is necessary for its extraction. It is very often met with in surface deposits, and in early times was un- doubtedly far more common in alluvium and the beds of rivers than now. It would thus be easily ex- tracted by washing, and the grains could readily be fused together into a mass. Gold mines formerly existed in Ethiopia, in which the gold was found in a matrix of quartz, like much of the Australian gold of the present day. These mines were worked by the Egyptians, who employed large gangs of slaves for the purpose. The quartz was crushed, and the$

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