in the form of bricks, incontestable witnesses of his success 

 as a disciple of Hermes. The facts are that after Rudolph's 

 death Matthias had an inventory made of the art treasures 

 in the palace, and the commission reported finding gold and 

 silver articles weighing twenty -four, and sixty hundred weight 

 respectively ; this did not include the silver dishes, the precious 

 stones and pearls, and other valuable objects, so that the 

 value of the entire treasure was set at seventeen millions. 



Augustus, Elector of Saxony, is likewise said to have left 

 several millions of thalers in his alchemical laboratory, and 

 after the death of Pope John XXII. in 1334, no less than 

 two hundred ingots of gold each weighing one hundred 

 pounds were found in secret storage; by such specious tales 

 were people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 

 strengthened in their belief in alchemy and in the other Follies 

 of Science. 



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