On the Art of Fermentation

Nor is the author ZOSIMUS to be spurned, if you consider what lies hidden within, as it were, and the chemical art itself. For he was the first, as far as is known, to write on furnaces and instruments (περὶ καμίνων καὶ ὀργάνων), with the designs of the furnaces added; he wrote of the various tinctures of metals, to which almost the entire art of the ancient chemists returns; he wrote, besides a commentary on DEMOCRITUS—who is without doubt the most ancient and leading author in this art—many and various things: on chemistry (περὶ χημευτικῆς), on the evaporation of divine water (περὶ ἐξατμίσεως τοῦ θείου ὕδατος), on weights (περὶ σταθμῶν) and on the weight of gilding (περὶ σταθμοῦ ξανθώσεως), on the burning of bodies (περὶ καύσεως σωμάτων), on the body of magnesia and its management (περὶ σώματος μαγνησίας καὶ οἰκονομίας), the management of lime (οἰκονομίαν τῆς ἀσβέστου), the production of crystals and soda (ποίησιν κρυσταλλίων καὶ σάκτης), and of lime (καὶ ἀσβέστου), on calcination (περὶ ὀπτήσεως), on the production of yellow copper (περὶ ποιήσεως χαλκοῦ ξανθοῦ), the dyeing of the copper discovered among the Persians, written from the beginning of Philip (βαφὴν τοῦ παρὰ Πέρσαις ἐξευρημένου χαλκοῦ γραφεῖσαν ἀπὸ ἀρχῆς Φιλίππου), the dyeing of Indian iron (βαφὴν τοῦ ἰνδικοῦ σιδήρου), on lights (περὶ φωτῶν), on the whitening of yellow pearls (περὶ λευκώσεως μαργαριτῶν κιῤῥῶν), etc. If these little works are examined with care, once the mask of obscure words is wiped away and the smoke of the philosophers is driven off, they contain many rudiments and beginnings of metallurgical chemistry, even if they are not expressed with the clarity that more recent chemists employ. At the very least, it seems that from a reading of ZOSIMUS one may sufficiently gather the method that the Greek chemists followed entirely, i.e., of making or rather dyeing silver and gold from copper by adding minerals pregnant with zinc and arsenic—for example, sulfur, arsenic, marcasite, tutty, magnesia, mercury, and antimony. But GEBER is a more certain and reliable author than these little Greeks, provided you believe that some certainty (ἀσφάλειαν) is to be assigned to that arcane art. Hence, I willingly subscribe to OL. BORRICHIUS 1):

1. Chemic. Ill. Lib. postum. N. 6. p. 6. TORB. BERGMANN listed more writings of such authors in de Primord. Chem. n. 25. and 26. p. 36. seq. Opp. Vol. IV. and in the German translation by WIEGLEB.