6 INTRODUCTION. 



circumstance, that whether derived from ancient 

 Egypt or the remote empire of China, early 

 chemistry was chiefly occupied in the attempt to 

 turn the baser metals into gold. In short, for 

 ages chemistry was supposed to have no other 

 object in view, no other value than this ; and 

 the alchemists, its first professors, were men 

 who, from youth to age, toiled on in the arduous 

 and ruinous task of attempting this art, called the 

 transmutation of metals. Had they then no suc- 

 cess? Were we to credit their own accounts, we 

 must acknowledge that in a few instances their 

 success was remarkable. Thus, one of them tells 

 us, " I had long doubted whether gold could 

 be made from quicksilver. One who wished to 

 convince me of my error, sent me a drachm of 

 a certain powder of a red colour having a pecu- 

 liar odour, with which I was to make the expe- 

 riment. To avoid the possibility of fraud, I 

 purchased the requisite vessels and materials 

 from an ordinary warehouse : I put the mercury 

 into the vessel and cast the powder into it ; a 

 strong heat was then applied, and immediately 

 the whole mass was transmuted into ten drachms 

 of the finest gold!" We are even told in his- 

 tory that a celebrated philosopher, in the pre- 

 sence of King Edward VI., by means of a 

 certain powder, converted a mass of iron into 

 gold, which was afterwards coined into rose- 

 nobles. The powder of the true philosopher's 

 stone (if one could only procure some of it) was 

 so powerful, it was said, that a few grains of it 

 would turn twenty tons of lead into gold ! 



These statements are sufficient of themselves 

 to satisfy the modern reader of the painful 



