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saltpetre, and its various uses be more easily discoveredthan in India ; where the soil is so rich in nitrous particles,that nothing; is necessary but lixivialion to obtain saltpetre;and where this substance is so abundant, that almost all thegunpowder used in the different w-ars, with which European sovereigns, except the Russian , have tormented themselves,and cursed the world from its invention,—has been madefrom Indian saltpetre.
Should not saltpetre have been known in Europe beforethe thirteenth century, neither could gunpowder or aqua-fortis have existed before that period ; and for the best ofreasons, that neither can be made without saltpetre or nitre.But should the truth appear that this neutral salt was knownin India , long anterior to that period, and used by Indiansas well as Arabians before they were employed by Europeans ,and considering the former to have practised chymistryprevious to the latter. Should this have been proved,perhaps a similar proof will necessarily await upon the articlesaquafortis and gunpowder. Because, should that predicatebe established, this will be the inference, then it will be dis-covered that Europeans knew nothing of aquafortis untilafter the Arabian chymists. It appears, that no chymicalwriter, or natural philosopher, has spoken of that causticbefore Galen; it being thought that those works, of whichwe have Latin translations, were the productions of thepersons whose name they import, as existing in the eighthor ninth century.
Although probability appears to favour this idea, that at,or about the twelfth century* the accumulated number ofconsequents, from the improvement in European science,the arts we now possess, were introduced into the European catalogue, i. e. nitre, aquafortis, and gunpowder.
As the period of the existence of Svnesius does notappear to be ascertained, who was an eminent Greek chymist,or perhaps alchymist, because he mentions among chymicalsolvents, ivater of saltpetre ; we cannot have any other ideaof this than aquafortis ; but as he also mentions aquafacis,he would seem, it is thought, to allude by the last expres-sion, to the nitrum of the ancients, or perhaps to strongalkaline lees, which can dissolve many bodies.
The monk Theophilus, who, perhaps, lived in thetwelfth century, was also acquainted with aquafortis. Insome of his passages, quoted by Raspe, in his Treatise onOil Painting, published in London, 1781, 4to. p. 145, hespeaks of an acid which dissolved all metals. In the writingsof Vincent Bellovaceusis, in the thirteenth century, traces,