large assemblage which embraced the alchemists already 

 named, the distinguished physician Christopher Guarinonius, 

 three gentlemen of the privy chamber, namely, Martin Rutzke, 

 Hans Marquardt, and Johannes Frank, the court poet Mardo- 

 chaeus de Delle, and the Vice Chancellor Jacob Curtius, who 

 arose to welcome the English guests of the evening and con- 

 ducted them to seats of honor. Curtius presided over the 

 informal gathering and discussion was opened by Claudius 

 Syrrus, who related some of his experience in seeking the 

 Philosophers' stone. He said the "red tincture" can be pro- 

 cured only by the conjunction of two substances, ordinary 

 gold (the male principle), and philosophical mercury (the 

 female principle), and to discover the latter was the great 

 problem ; he had sought it in common quicksilver, in arsenic, 

 tin, common salt, saltpetre, vitriol, and in the juices of many 

 plants without success ; he had also examined human bones, 

 flesh, blood, hair, saliva and other secretions, and he cautioned 

 his hearers against wasting their time and substance on these 

 materials. "It is quite evident/' he continued, "that tJie 

 substance nearest by nature to gold is quicksilver, which 

 needs only to be solidified and to have its color changed to 

 yellow. Now since all metals are composed of three primary 

 principles, volatility, fixedness and metallicity, all that is 

 necessary to be done is to deprive mercury of its volatility 

 and to change its color, for its metallicity is quite equal to 

 that of gold." 



Christopher von Hirschberg, replying to the speaker, said : 

 "The Philosophers' stone in its perfection is permanent in the 

 fire, it is not resolvable in any liquor, it has two distinct 

 parts, one volatile and one fixed, it contains in potentia gold 

 and silver; it is composed of 2, of 3, of 4 and of 5. Of 5, j 

 that is to say, of the quintessence; of 4, that is to say, of the 

 four elements ; of 3, that is to say, of the three principles of : 



23 



