Note 24 — BOOK VII.

[Pg 238][24] Camphor (camphora). This was no doubt the well-known gum. Agricola, however, believed that camphor (De Nat. Fossilium, p. 224) was a species of bitumen, and he devotes considerable trouble to the refutation of the statements by the Arabic authors that it was a gum. In any event, it would be a useful reducing agent.