--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Lauritzen, Annie G. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 16 number: 2 published: 1912-12 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Annie G. Lauritzen, "“Thy Will Be Done.” A Poem," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 2 (December 1912): 117.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1602unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1602unse start_page: 117 end_page: 117 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1912-12) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1602unse publication_year: 1912 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1912, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # “Thy Will Be Done.” A Poem DEVELOPMENTS IN MODERN CHEMISTRY 119 and silver and its isolation from its impure sources. The origin of the term "chemia" is shrouded in mystery. It is said that "chemia" was the ancient name of Egypt, at that time, a name given to Egypt on account of the black color of its soil. The same term was also used to denote the black color of the eye, and therefore signifies dark and mysterious. It was about this time that Egypt was the seat of knowledge. It was therefore believed that those Egyptians who practiced this art of "chemia" were in league with the evil one, and therefore the mysterious distillations and fires that they used in their work were referred to as the "black art." In the seventh century, the Arabians overran Egypt and learned much regarding the practice of this "black" or mysterious art. The Arabians added the Arabian prefix (al) to the word "chemia," and hence we have the term alchemy. The Arabians, also, at this time, overran certain portions of Europe, such as Spain, and there established some of their universities where this science of alchemy was taught and many scholars from various parts of Europe went to the Spanish universities for the purpose of obtaining information regarding this mysterious practice. Geber was one of the earliest chemical writers. He was concerned solely with the object of the transmutation of the baser metals to the nobler metals, such, for example, as the converting of lead into gold. Geber knew of many of the chemical processes that we now carry on in the chemical laboratory. He knew of the process of distillation, of crystallization, and of sublimation. In the process of distillation, at that time, it would appear that he had a transmutation of one substance into another. For example, if wine was submitted to the process of distillation, the result was that the wine was converted from the liquid form over into the spirit form, and then re-condensed or re-transformed into a new substance, known as the spirits of wine, or as we know it today, alcohol. We thus readily see how the terms spirits of wine, spirits of hartshorn, spirits of turpentine originated. According to the earlier workers in the chemical field, those substances, by the process of heat, were converted from their original form, into the spirit world, and re-converted or transformed into a new substance known as the spirits of wine, spirits of hartshorn, spirits of turpentine, etc. Geber also knew of a number of the chemical com-