To begin with Adam: he is said to have foreseen the deluge, and, for the purpose of providing against that catastrophe, to have erected two tables of stone, which contained the foundation of this wisdom. One of them, after the flood, was found on Mount Ararat. Alchemy has as frequently been called the hermetic art, as it is more generally supposed to have been invented by Hermes, King of Egypt, and master of this science, when Egypt was the garden of God. According to chronologers, his era was before that of Moses. This was the true philosopher’s stone, which so enriched that kingdom, and by means of which all the arts flourished; but in quest of which so many persons of all nations and ages have since fruitlessly consumed both their fortunes and lives. Unlike their baffled successors, the Egyptians increased their wealth to that immense degree, that they studied means how to expend their exuberant stores in the erection of pyramids, obelisks, colossuses, monuments, pensile gardens, cities, and the labyrinth, and in forming the immense lake Mœris, and the like stupendous works, which cost so many millions of talents. “All these (say the believers in the science) are sufficient arguments of their skill in alchemy, whence they received so vast a supply of riches; for, since no authors mention any gold mines in the time of Osiris, or Hermes, whence could they have acquired such exceeding great wealth, but from the chemical art of transmuting metals?” The Egyptian priests, under a promise of secrecy, communicated the knowledge they possessed to the Alexandrian Greeks. The actual possession of much lucrative knowledge, and the reputation of still more valuable secrets, would attract the notice of the credulous and ignorant. With many the extent of the science was confined to the refining of metals, and preparations of chemical compounds; but the theoretical alchemist having in view a certain mysterious and unattainable object, despised the occupation of the mere chemist, and from policy, or want of clear ideas on the subject, the language of his art became more and more obscure. Knaves and impostors crept in, and, by impositions on the unwary and credulous, indemnified themselves for the ill success of their experiments. Those chemists who assumed the pompous title of alchemists, were persuaded that all metals were no other than nature’s rude unfinished essays towards the making of gold; which, by means of due coction in the bowels of the earth, advanced gradually towards maturity, till at last they were perfected into that beautiful metal. Their endeavours, therefore, were to finish what nature had begun, by procuring for the imperfect metals this much-desired coction; and upon this grand principle all their processes were dependent.