wn marking-ink, was made
with nitrate of silver. Their knowledge of chemistry was far greater
than that of their neighbours, and the science is even now named from
the country of its birth. The later Arabs called it Alchemia, _the
Egyptian art_, and hence our words alchemy and chemistry. So also
Naphtha, or _rock oil_, from the coast of the Red Sea; and Anthracite,
or _rock fuel_, from the coast of Syria, both bear Egyptian names.
To some Egyptian stones the Romans gave their own names; as the black
glassy obsidian from Nubia they called after Obsidius, who found it;
the black Tiberian marble with white spots, and the Augustan marble with
regular wavy veins, were both named after the emperors. Porphyry was
now used for statues for the first time, and sometimes to make a kind of
patchwork figure, in which the clothed parts were of the coloured stone,
while the head, hands, and feet were of white marble. And it was thought
that diamonds were nowhere to be found but in the Ethiopian gold mines.

Several kinds of wine were made in Egypt; some in the Arsinoite nome on
the banks of the lake Mceris; and a poor Libyan wine at Antiplme on the
coast, a hundred miles from Alexandria. Wine had also been made in
Upper Egypt in small quantities a very long time, as we learn from the
monuments; but it was produced with difficulty and cost and was not
good; it was not valued by the Greeks. It was poor and thin, and drunk
only by those who were feverish and afraid of anything stronger. That
of Anthylla, to the east of Alexandria, was very much better. But better
still were the thick luscious Taeniotic and the mild delicate Mareotic
wines. This last was first grown at Plinthine, but afterwards on all the
banks of the lake Mareotis. The Mareotic wine was white and sweet and
thin, and very little heating or intoxicating. Horace had carelessly
said of Cleopatra that she was drunk with Mareotic wine; but Lucan, who
better knew its quality, says that the headstrong lady drank wine far
stronger than the Mareotic. Near Sebennytus three kinds of wine were
made; one bitter named Peuce, a second sparkling named AEthalon, and
the third Thasian, from a vine imported from Thasus. But none of these
Egyptian wines was thought equal to those of Greece and Italy. Nor were
they made in quantities large enough or cheap enough for the poor; and
here, as in other countries, the common people for their intoxicating
drink used beer or spirits made from barley.