Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman's 1775 listing of the symbols for phlogiston and the matter of heat, categorized as two types of "earths", of which he listed 15 types, as contrasted with the acids (25), alkalis (3), and metallic calces (16). [7] |
fire ()
earth ()
air ()
water ()
Left: Step pyramid (2,800 BC) out of which the dead were said to have arisen at the rise of the sun, carried by a fiery bird on its head out of the tip of the mound. Center: Heat, fire, or light rising out of the benben stone at the tip of one of the pyramids at gaza out of which Ra the sun god arose into the sky. Right: a campfire, making the shape of a pyramid or triangle, the symbol of fire or heat. |
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Left: Circa 1400 BC volcanic eruption of Thera (Santorini). Center: the "phoenix", the name assigned, by Herodotus, to Ra (bird) carrying the newborn sun out of the Nun (pyramid) following the birth of the earth. Right: German chemist Oswald Croll's 1609 alchemical symbols table, showing the “Δ” listed as the element of fire. [3] |