Art. X.— chemical TRANSFORMATIONS. 



The alcbemists of yore believed that a substance could be found 

 whose touch could transmute all the baser metals into gold ; or, by 

 purifying them of their dross, would leave gold the basis of all the 

 metals, pure and unalloyed. They toiled long and ardently in their 

 search after the ' Philosophers' stone,' and many a fine manly form 

 was prematurely bent, and paled in the dim garret, or dungeon-like 

 laboratory, peering into the furnace and inhaling the noxious fumes 

 of the seething retort or glowing crucible, until exhausted means or 

 stern death, put an end to the chimerical pursuit. 



These martyrs to a false Mth, however, labored not wholly in 

 vain, for they laid the foundation of that noble science which un- 

 derlies all other natural sciences, and which has been the means, in 

 the latter days, of more than realizing the fondest dreams of the 

 alchemist ; although it must be admitted, in a manner quite differ- 

 ent from that he anticipated. We still must dig the yellow metal 

 from the bowels of the earth, but by the aid of chemistry we effect 

 transformations as wonderful, and far more useful, than to turn all 

 things to gold — hard, yellow gold — which can neither be eaten, nor 

 drunken, nor worn for clothing. It rather teaches us to transform 

 the very stones, dirt and offal of the street, into the most useful and 

 valuable substances, which minister directly to our comfort and hap- 

 piness. 



So great has been the saving influence of chemistry in the arts of 

 life, that Dr. Playfair says, ' she is like the prudent housewife 

 which economizes every scrap.' The horse-shoe nails, dropped in 

 the street during the daily traffic, are carefully collected by her, and 

 re-appear in the form of swords and guns. The clippings of the 

 traveling tinker, are mixed with the parings of horses hoofs from 

 the smithy, or the cast-off woolen garments of the poorest inhabit- 

 ant, and soon afterwards, in the form of dyes of the brightest blue, 

 grace the dress of courtly dames. The main ingredient of the ink 

 with which I now write, was possibly once part of the broken hoop 

 of an old beer barrel. The bones of dead animals yield the chief 

 constituent of lucifer matches. The dregs of port-wine, carefully 

 rejected by the drinkers in decanting his favorite beverage, are tak- 



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