TODAY'S WORD/PHRASE

GIBBERISH:

GIBBERISH indicates the style of Geber, the Arabian, who was the 

greatest alchemist of the eleventh century and who wrote several 

treatises on "the art of making gold" in the usual mystical jargon, 

because the ecclesiastics would have put to death anyone who openly 

written on the subject.  Friar Bacon gives a specimen of the gibberish, 

while giving the prescription for gun-powder, 

                                         Set tamen sals petrae

                                         Lurn move Cap Urbe

                                         Ei Sulphurics 

The second line is merely an anagram of carbonum pulvere which 

means pulverised charcoal.