JUGGLIXGS OF THE ALCHEMISTS. 7 



amount of falsehood and deception which cha- 

 racterises the records of the alchemists ; yet, 

 on a smaller scale, it -is undoubtedly true that 

 they appeared to possess the power of pro- 

 ducing gold at pleasure. It was effected by 

 clever juggling. Sometimes a piece of gold was 

 slipped into the crucible by sleight of hand, 

 sometimes the instrument used to stir the 

 mixture contained it, and sometimes the cru- 

 cible was artfully scooped out at the bottom, a 

 small mass of gold having been put in, and 

 covered over so as to be rendered invisible by 

 a little paste. When the heat of the furnace 

 had driven off the volatile substances forming 

 the pretended mixture, the glittering yellow 

 metal would then be discovered lying at the 

 bottom. A similar trick was to make a nail 

 half of gold, half of iron, which was painted over 

 so as to look like a rusty nail, and on being put 

 into a crucible would, of course, come out half 

 as they said turned into gold. Sometimes we 

 cannot doubt that the experimenters were sincere, 

 although they were the victims of deceit on 

 the part of others, or of self-deception in them- 

 selves. 



Such was the first, and, strange to say, the 

 last also of the chemical dreams ; for while the 

 two others were of little influence and short 

 duration, this lived down even to the end of the 

 last century, one of its latest victims being a 

 Dr. Price, of Guildford, who destroyed himself 

 in disappointment at discovering the delusion 

 under which he had been labouring. We need 

 scarcely say the philosopher's stone, that won- 

 derful compound, which was to turn all metals 



