The Boy's Playbook of Science / Including the Various Manipulations and Arrangements of Chemical and Philosophical Apparatus Required for the Successful Performance of Scientific Experiments in Illustration of the Elementary Branches of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy

by John Henry Pepper

The Giant's Causeway.

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CHAPTER X.

CHEMISTRY.

Fig 92

Alchemists at work

There is hardly any kind of knowledge which has been so slowly acquired as that of chemistry, and perhaps no other science has offered such fascinating rewards to the labour of its votaries as the philosopher's stone, which was to produce an unfailing supply of gold; or the elixir of life, that was to give the discoverer of the gold-making art the time, the prolonged life, in which he might spend and enjoy it.

Hundreds of years ago Egypt was the great depository of all learning, art, and science, and it was to this ancient country that the most celebrated sages of antiquity travelled.