ALCHEMIST'S GOLD. 817 



In 1704 a goldsmith of Lubeck, named Stolle, received a visit 

 from a stranger, supposed to be the celebrated adept Lascaris, 

 who, after a discussion respecting the transmutation of metals, 

 left with him, as a proof of the possibility of the operation, an 

 ingot weighing about a half-livre, which he said he had just 

 made ; he asked Stolle to treat it with antimony to purify it, heat 

 it, and cut it into seven pieces. He then left two of the pieces 

 with the goldsmith as a souvenir, and added eight ducats. One 

 of the pieces was given to King Augustus of Poland, and the 

 other was deposited in the collection of medals at Lubeck. They 

 bore the inscription " O tu . . . philosophorum " (" O thou ... of 

 philosophers !"), which the adept had had engraved by the gold- 

 smith. 



A Provencal locksmith, named Jean Troins, who called him- 

 self the Sieur Delisle,* fabricated in the presence of M. de Saint- 

 Maurice, president of the mint at Lyons, and at the Chateau Saint- 

 Auban, two ingots of " gold," one from mercury and the other 

 from lead. On trying to strike medals from this preparation at 

 Lyons, the minter found it " so hard that it was not possible to 

 work it." It was then sent to Paris, to the controller-general of 

 finance, who had a number of medals struck from it bearing the 

 inscription " Aurum ex arte factum " (" Gold made by art "). One 

 of the medals was deposited in the Royal Cabinet, and, according 

 to Langlet-Dufresnoy, its allotted square was still existing at the 

 mint in 1762. I have handled and have an impression of a piece 

 which, although the inscription is not identical with that described 

 by Dufresnoy, was most probably made from Delisle's metal, f 

 Its density is perceptibly different from that of gold, and that 

 should give it a place in the class of tokens without value. Some 

 spots of verdigris disappeared under the action of nitric acid, 

 which did not attack the rest of the metal. Delisle likewise made, 

 under similar circumstances, but with a different powder, an ingot 

 of " silver," from which two crowns, two half-crowns, two quar- 

 ters, and three ten-sous pieces were struck. 



In 1717 Landgrave Ernest Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, who 



* Delisle is accused of having been the servant of Lascaris, and of having assassinated 

 him in Savoy, in order to steal his powder. After this crime, in 1706, he established him- 

 self at Sisteron, where he married and soon achieved a great local notoriety by changing 

 nails, knives, shoe-buckles, rings, etc., of iron and steel into " gold " or " silver." Some 

 of these transformed objects might, perhaps, still be found in the country if one should be 

 at the pains of searching for them. Delisle resided in succession at Sisteron, the chateau 

 of Palud Digne, where he is said to have enriched a merchant named Taxis ; at Castellane, 

 and at Senez, where he performed several times before the bishop. 



f Possibly, however, this was a mock token, like those which were struck in England in 

 1815, when Napoleon was sent to St. Helena. That token was just like a twenty-franc 

 piece, and bore the figure of the emperor on one side and a ship on the other, with the 

 inscription " This is copper." 

 vol. xxxvi. 52 



