Foreword

I have endeavored in the following pages to trace the rise and early development of a Very old Science, mainly that we may mark the attitude of thought which actuated the “scientific mind”; in bygone times, and may thus be led to compare the ancient with the modern method of evolving ideas, and building them up into a connected whole. With this object in view I have chosen the earlier history of the Science of Chemistry, in its various phases of: (a) primitive theories affecting the history of matter; (b) metallurgical chemistry of the ancients; (c) alchemy; (d) early ideas respecting the nature of combustion; and (e) the rise of pneumatic chemistry. The survey has been carried no farther than the time of the fathers of modern chemistry, Lavoisier, Priestley, Scheele, Bergman, Black, Cavendish, and Davy. The labors of these men belong to the later history of the Science.

G. F. RODWELL.

Marlborough,

Nov. 24th, 1873