[24] The Greeks had a corresponding distinction between natural and artificial salt. Herodotus calls the salt crystallised by the sun at the mouth of the Borysthenes ἅλες αὐτόματοι, automatic, or spontaneous salt, as distinguished from ἅλς ὀρυκτός, dug-out, or rock salt; iv. 53 and 185.
[25] Berthelot, iii. 153.
[26] Ib., i. 239. The forgeries in question may have been the work of several writers, but this does not affect the date given above.
[27] The Arabic works of the real Jabir are given by Berthelot in iii. 126 ff.; the Latin works of the false Jabir (or Geber) in i. 336 ff.
[28] Ib., i. 199, recipe 60.
[29] Ib., i. 308.
[30] Owing to the great number of Arabic words borrowed by the Persians it is extremely difficult to judge from a translation whether a lost original was Arabic or Persian, the more so as the Arabs borrowed largely from the Persian. Far more honour for scientific work has been paid to the Arabs, far less to the Persians, Syrians, and Hindus, than was their proper due. Renan says that Al-Kindi was the only Moslem philosopher of pure Arab blood.—Discours et Conférences, p. 391.
[31] Udoy Chand Dutt, “Materia Medica of the Hindus,” pp. 89-90. I presume that sora (being of foreign origin) was a corruption of the Persian شوره (shora) = saltpetre.
[32] “Hindu Chemistry,” by Praphulla Chandra Rāy, Professor of Chemistry, Presidency College, Calcutta, 1902, pp. 99-100.
[33] Yavakshara was apparently the “barley” used in a saltpetre mixture of the Arabic treatise (in Syriac characters) given by Berthelot, ii. 198.