Sed tamen salis petrae. VI. Part V. NOV. CORVLI. ET V. sulphuris, et sic facies toniitrum et coruscationem: sic facies artificium.
But, however, of saltpetre take six parts, live of young willow (charcoal), and five of sulphur, and so you will make thunder and lightning, and so you will turn the trick.
Bacon's recipe for Gunpowder, partly expressed as an anagram in the original Latin.

GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels.

I denounce to you the Coryphaeus—the leader of the chorus—of charlatans, Sieur Lavoisier, son of a land-grabber, apprentice-chemist, pupil of the Genevan stock-jobber [Necker], a Farmer-General, Commisioner for Gunpowder and Saltpetre, Governor of the Discount Bank, Secretary to the King, Member of the Academy of Sciences.
Marat's denunciation of 1791

It is well to observe the force and virtue and consequence of discoveries, and these are to be seen nowhere more conspicuously than in those three which were unknown to the ancients, and of which the origins, although recent, are obscure and inglorious; namely, printing, gunpowder, and the magnet. For these three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, insomuch that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these mechanical discoveries ... . But if a man endeavour to establish and extend the power and dominion of the human race itself over the universe, his ambition (if ambition it can be called) is without doubt both a more wholesome thing and a more noble than the other two. Now the empire of man over things depends wholly on the arts and sciences. For we cannot command nature except by obeying her.

Printer's ink has been running a race against gunpowder these many, many years. Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries.

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered other things [of greater value].