[3] The work did not have a lasting impact on science in the medieval Islamic world, but it became important in Europe after it was translated to Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the twelfth century.
[3] By the thirteenth century, it had become one of the three main sources for medieval knowledge on geology, together with Aristotle's Meteorology and Avicenna's De Mineralibus.
[4] When scholars started to recognize during the Renaissance that De Proprietatibus Elementorum was not written by Aristotle, it was removed from the academic curriculum.
Winds and waters present at the foot of the mountain could set fire to this sulfur, particularly in the case of Mount Etna.
Theophrastus or the pseudo-Aristotle first dismisses several explanations provided by Democritus, Mileus and Rentifolus, the latter two possibly Thales and Xenophanes.