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Show produces water, whne the aines of the wood form earth; therefore wood is at the bottom of all creation. A growing tree was used to show that water was the prime element by pouring on water every day untilthe tree had increased In size and weight and weighing the earth with which the roots were surrounded. This, said the old chemist, proved that water had given the tree, or the wood, its increase. Aristotle made up a schedule sched-ule of constructions and juggled with it to the mystification of all his followers. He said that the four elements fire, air, water and earth are not single and definite defi-nite substances, but derive their exist-tence exist-tence from other more primal elements. Tims, fire was composed of heat and dryness, dry-ness, air of heat and moisture, water of cold and moisture and earth of dryness and cold. On the basis of this table he constructed some very plausible questions and led the way to the idea of the discovery discov-ery of the one prime element with which one could transform any substance into anything else. . THE LOST ARTS. In ancient times the workers in metals and othor substances handed their secret down from generation to generation, and in time some of them were. lost. " These are the "lost arts", so often mentioned, which are Bimply lost' family secrets. From the Fifth to the Sixteenth century was the age of ' fabulous 'pretensions in alchemy,, when evory discovery was kept a profound secret, thus making the time one of almost total ignorance, . . The, old alchemists sometimes used good logic in their arguments as to the existence of the philosophers' stone, and all alchemy was not the fraud that modern mod-ern people would think. 'There' were some good, honest workers iu the ranks, searohers after the truth, at well as the knaves that are to be found iu every trade and every branch of life. There was one monk living in the Middle Mid-dle Ages who made a specialty of antimony. anti-mony. Thinking it to bo the great cure all he first tried some of it on his bogs and the beasts fattened so that he thought that it must be good for human beings. So he gave it to his brethren with fatal results. This is supposed to be the reason why the metal is called "antimony," from its bad effect on monks. There are alchemists of t'jday just as dishonest as those of old, men who swindle swin-dle and cheat others with tricks that are almost as primitive as those used by their predecessors in the crooked art. They have only changed their forms of delusion delu-sion and have struck for higher wages. Washington Star. FACTS ABOUT. ALCHEMY. SUCCINCT ACCOUNT OF THE MUCH ABUSED SCIENCE. yUdiejny Led to the Illwsowy of Many Important Problem! in the SeientlAa World It Also Hindered tin Study of Chemiitry l.OOO Yearn. Professor Fristoe, of the faculty of the Columbian university, delivered an interesting in-teresting lecture in the hall of that institution insti-tution on the subject of "Alchemy, the Infancy of Chemistry." He stated that fciodorn physical t oience dates from the litcoveries of Copernicus, the first real astronomer; Torricelli and Pasquelle, who discovered to the world the matter of the weight of the atmosphere, and Priestly, the discoverer of oxygen, thus giving three distinct eras. Alchemy first started in fornvfnost of the problems which science is still engaged in solving, sod it was the infant efforts of chemistry hat drew to the study many men whose donations to science have been beyond value. The search for gold was the crisis of these efforts, accompanied by a wild striving for the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life. The Bible contains many allusions to . the science, but the first record is to be found in an ancient Chinese work dating back into ages almost beyond computation, computa-tion, in which the elements are stated to be earth, fire, water, metal and wood. Moses was evidently an adept in the science, sci-ence, from several references in the Bible to his works. Rome carried the study to a great extent, and reached such a degree de-gree of proflcionoy that Dioclesian, upon the eve of a reported invasion by the Egyptians, ordered all books on the subject sub-ject to bs burned, lest they fall into the hands of the enemy and thus give them so much knowledge that they should be bis to make gold enough to enable them to own the earth. ABISTOTLK'S INFLUENCE. ': Aristotle forms quite a prominent figure fig-ure in the history of the science, he being the first man to advance the theory of a universal element binding all the others together, corresponding to what we should call "quintessence." Aristotle was faithfully believed by many students of alchemy up to a comparatively late day, and it is probably due to him that philosophy philos-ophy and chemistry did not make greater strides forward. They would have been a thousand years earlier had it not been for his influence. There were some funny theories held by those old philosophers as to the essences and elements of matter. One who lived about 600 years before Christ contended that water was the source of all things, another that air was the primary element, and each had a line of argument and analogy to prove his idea. A man who breathed about 430 B. C. took the ground that fire was the prime feature of tho combination aud that the human soul was a fiery vapor. SOME EARLY REASONINGS. One of the early lights was named Lucippus, who came near the truth when he said that the earth was made by the falling together of small particles. This is probably the first appearance of the atomic theory. This is a sample of the reasoning by which some of the ancients arrived at their conclusions as to the elements of matter: When wood is burned it produces fire, which gives off air. which, in turn, when condensed. |