ALCHEMY REDIVIVUS. 671 



but the forests yield regular and, for Europe, high interest. We 

 must soon acquire, by purchase or otherwise, such control of our 

 still forested areas as will insure their preservation and intelli- 

 gent use, else the boastful prophecy which I have heard more 

 than once in Germany will come true, that Germany will be ex- 

 porting wood to America within fifty years ! The Forestry Divi- 

 sion of the United States Department of Agriculture, and the 

 small forestry associations scattered here and there in the cities, 

 precisely where there can be no forests, are doing all they can to 

 arouse public interest in the matter, and to prevent further reck- 

 less deforestizing. But to leave the trees unfelled is not all ; 

 to replant where replanting is still possible, to fell the trees that 

 are now of useful size, to thin out that others may attain better 

 proportions, to protect against fires, these are equally important. 

 To do all this well demands intelligence, knowledge, and train- 

 ing. The training of the skilled forester must be largely botan- 

 ical ; for though he must know enough about zoology to be able 

 to distinguish and to combat insect and other animal pests, yet he 

 must know the principles of vegetable physiology and pathology. 

 For these he must study under some thoroughly trained botanist. 

 I have attempted to sketch, I fear in very impressionistic 

 fashion, the scope of a science whose value to man is great and 

 personal, which is naany-sided, and which is worthy of the devo- 

 tion and activity of those to whom it is an absorbing interest. 







ALCHEMY REDIVIVUS. 



By ALEXANDER E. OUTERBEIDGE, Jr. 



BASIL-VALENTINE, a famous alchemist of the middle ages, 

 was the most noted exponent of the belief in the transmuta- 

 tion of metals. He thought that the germ of the precious metal 

 gold was hidden in the base metal antimony, and claimed that by 

 following certain mystic formulas the gold could be recovered. 

 About the year 1445 he published in the Latin tongue a celebrated 

 treatise entitled The Triumphal Car of Antimony, which had a 

 great reputation, not only among his contemporaries but among 

 his successors. The treatise was couched in cabalistic phraseol- 

 ogy a sort of abracadabra which, of course, the vulgar people 

 could not comprehend ; it was designed only for his disciples. 

 The book purports to contain the " twelve keys of the great stone 

 of the ancient philosophers." 



His formula for converting antimony into gold is interesting 

 at the present time, in view of the fact that a modern alchemist 

 has actually succeeded in inducing the Secretary of the Treasury 



