Jackson in his “Antiquities” tells us that, Sanchoniatho states that the most ancient Phœnician records show that letters were invented soon after the dispersion of mankind, by Tsaut, the son of Mizor or Misraim, who was the first Egyptian Hermes or Thoth. He went out of Phœnicia, and first, with a colony of Mizrites, settled and reigned in Egypt, and, according to Cicero, gave both laws and letters to the Egyptians.
This Hermes was born in the second generation after the flood, and was not only the inventor of letters and writing, but he is also said to have delineated the sacred characters or symbols of the elements and planets, viz.,—sun, moon, earth, air, fire, water, &c.
These symbols are without doubt of very ancient origin, and Boerhæve in his Theory of Chemistry explains them hieroglyphically as follows:—
The symbols are shown as images at the end of the file.
＋ Denotes anything sharp, gnawing, or corrosive; as vinegar or fire: being supposed to be stuck around with barbed spikes.
☉ Denotes a perfect immutable simple body, such as gold, which has nothing acrimonious or heterogeneous adhering to it.
☽ Denotes half gold, whose inside, if turned outward, would make it entire gold, as having nothing foreign or corrosive in it; which the alchemists observe of silver.
☿ Denotes the inside to be pure gold, but the outer part of the colour of silver and a corrosive underneath, which, if taken away, would leave it mere gold, and this the adepts affirm of mercury.
♀ Denotes the chief part to be gold; whereto, however, adheres another large, crude, corrosive part, which, if removed, would leave the rest possessed with all the properties of gold, and this the adepts affirm of copper.
♂ Likewise denotes gold at the bottom, but attended with a great proportion of a sharp corrosive, sometimes amounting to a half of the whole, whence half the character expresses acrimony; which, accordingly, both alchemists and physicians observe of iron, and hence that common opinion of the adepts that the aurum vivum, or gold of the philosophers, is contained in iron, and that the universal medicine is rather to be sought in this metal than in gold itself.