ALCHEMIST'S GOLD. 819 



from furnaces charged with portions of gold which had been ad- 

 mittedly slipped in while it was molten. 



" Some alchemists have imposed on their spectators with nails 

 half of iron and half of gold or silver. They make believe that 

 they effect a real transmutation of half of these nails by dipping 

 it into a pretended tincture. Nothing is more seductive at first ; 

 but it is, after all, only a trick. The nails, which seemed to be all 

 iron, were really in two pieces neatly soldered, the gold or silver 

 to the iron, and washed with an iron-colored wash, that disap- 

 peared when they were dipped into a suitable liquid. Of this 

 character was the gold and iron nail formerly to be seen in the 

 cabinet of the Grand Duke of Tuscany ; of like nature are those 

 half-silver and half-iron nails which I present to this society to- 

 day. Such also was the knife which a monk once presented to 

 Queen Elizabeth of England, in the earlier years of her reign, the 

 end of the blade of which was of gold ; as well also those knives, 

 half silver and half iron, which a famous quack scattered a few 

 years ago over Provence. It is true that they say that this last 

 performer operated on knives that were given him, and which he 

 gave back after a time with the ends of the blades silvered. But 

 there is reason for supposing that the change was made by cut- 

 ting off the end of the blade and soldering on a similar end 

 of silver. 



" There have been also pieces of money and medals half gold 

 and half silver. Such pieces were said to have been originally 

 all silver, half of which was turned into gold by dipping them 

 half-way into the philosopher's mixture, without the outer form 

 or the engraved designs being essentially changed. I say that no 

 such medal was ever all silver, but that they were in two pieces, 

 one of silver the other of gold, so soldered together as to preserve 

 the proper arrangement of the characters. The thing could be eas- 

 ily done by having several silver medals of the same kind, a little 

 worn, and making molds of them in sand for casting copies in gold. 

 The sand would not even have to be very fine. Then let the med- 

 als be cut exactly to rule, fitted by filing, and the complementary 

 halves soldered together with care, to have the designs precisely 

 correspond. Any trifling flaw could be mended with the graver. 

 The part of the medal that is of gold, having been cast in sand, 

 looks a little grainy and is rougher than the silver part, which 

 was pressed; but this fault was given out to be an effect or a 

 proof of the transmutation ; because a given quantity of silver, 

 having a larger volume than a like quantity of gold, the silver 

 shrunk some in changing into gold, leaving the pores or spaces 

 that constituted the grain. The operator, besides, took pains to 

 make the golden part a little thinner than the silver, to keep up 

 the semblance ; and to use only as much or not quite as much 



