History of Ale hy my. 283 



base metal taken conjointly, was exceeded by that of the gold 

 produced. Such is Hiernes' history of Paykul's transmuta- 

 tion, who with six drachms of lead and one of powder, pro- 

 duced an ingot that was coined into 147 ducats ; and many 

 others. But the most celebrated history of transmutation is 

 that given by Helvetius in his " Brief of the golden Calf : dis- 

 covering the rarest miracle in Nature, how by the smallest por- 

 tion of the Philosopher's Stone a great piece of common lead 

 was totally transmuted into the purest transplendent gold, at 

 the Hague in 1666 :" and as it is aluminous epitome of all that 

 has been done on this subject, I shall briefly abridge the pro- 

 ceedings. 



" The 27th day of December 1666, in the afternoon, came a 

 stranger to my house at the Hague, in a plebeick habit, of 

 honest gravity and serious authority, of a rilean stature and a 

 little long face, black hair not at all curled, a beardless chin, 

 and about 44 years (as I guess,) of age, and born in North 

 Holland. After salutation he beseeched me with great reve- 

 rence to pardon his rude accesses, for he was a lover of the 

 Pyrotechnian art, and having read my treatise against the 

 sympathetic powder of Sir K. Digby, and observed my doubt 

 about the philosophic mystery, induced him to ask me if I really 

 was a disbeliever as to the existence of an universal medicine 

 which would cure all diseases, unless the principal parts were 

 perished or the predestinated time of death come. I replied, 

 I never met with an adept, or saw such a medicine, though I 

 had fervently prayed for it. Then I said, surely you are a 

 learned physician. No, said he, I am a brass-founder, and a 

 lover of chymistry. He then took from his bosom-pouch a neat 

 ivory box, and out of it three ponderous lumps of stone, each 

 about the bigness of a walnut. I greedily saw and handled 

 for a quarter of an hour this most noble substance, the value 

 of which might be somewhere about twenty tons of gold, and 

 having drawn from the owner many rare secrets of its admirable 

 effects, I returned him this treasure of treasures with a most 

 sorrowful mind, humbly beseeching him to bestow a fragment 

 of it upon lUf m pcr[)ctual memory of him, though but the size 



