The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry

---- on the principle of acidity, 59, 155. ---- on the reactions of metals with acids, 158. ---- on the transmutation of water to earth, 152. Lockyer, on spectra of elements, 181. Lucretius, his theory of nature, 16. Magic, characteristics of, 23, 24. Material changes, Greek theory of, 15. Metals, alchemical connexion between, and plants, 34. ---- compared by alchemists with vegetables, 33. ---- mortification of, 65. ---- seed of, 34. ---- their desire to become gold, 40. ---- transmutation of, 33, 39, 46. Natural state of bodies, 39, 43. Oxygen, 144, 145. Paracelsus, his description of alchemists, 25. ---- his distinction between natural and artificial mortification, 65. ---- sketch of life of, 117. Pelican, 92. Perfection, alchemical teaching regarding, 27, 40. Phlogistic theory, 133, 139. Phlogiston, 126, 130, 137. Priestley, his discovery of oxygen, 144. Principles, the alchemical, 49, 51, 54, 60, 133. ---- Lavoisier's use of the word, 163, note. Radio-active substances, are they elements? 191, 194, 195; properties of, 185-187. Radio-activity, characteristics of, 183, 184; of radium, 186; of thorium, 193; of uranium, 193. Radium, emanation of, 187; heat from, 186; rays from, 186. Ramsay, on transmutation of elements, 199. Regimens, the alchemical, 72. Sacred art, the, 122. Scientific theories, general characters of, 21, 150. Seed, alchemical doctrine of, 56. Seeds of metals, 34. Simplicity, asserted by alchemists to be the mark of nature, 28, 38. ---- is not necessarily the mark of verity, 138. Solids, liquids, and gases, atomic explanation of, 19. Stahl, his phlogistic theory, 130.