ARABIAN AND MEDIEVAL SCIENCE. 



77 



etc. ; and effecting separations of elements by alembics and pelicans, 

 by decoction, reverberation, ascension, descension, fusion, ignition, 

 elementation, rectification, evaporation, conjunction, elevation, sub- 

 limation, and endless other sophistical rules. I was occupied in these 

 operations upwards of twelve years, so that I was then thirty-eight 

 years of age, still seeking to extract mercury from plants and animals ; 

 whilst I had spent about six thousand crowns." Twenty years more 

 were passed in calcining egg-shells, treating copperas with vinegar, 

 dissolving silver in aqua-fortis, and so on, without any result. He tells 



FIG. 30. ARS LONG A, VITA BREVIS. 



us that his health suffered from his application to the laboratory, so 

 that he became at length unable to eat or to drink, and " so thin and 

 haggard that everybody thought I was poisoned ; and I was now more 

 than fifty-eight years of age ! " After that he began to travel, in order 

 to see if he could not yet find the philosopher's stone in some remote 

 corner of the world. " We saw no end of whitenings and reddenings, 

 receipts and sophistications, in ever so many countries; in Rome, 

 Navarre, Scotland, Turkey, Greece, Alexandria, Barbary, Persia, Mes- 

 sina, Rhodes, France, Spain, the Holy Land, and the neighbouring 

 countries ; and throughout Italy, Germany, England, and almost every- 

 where in the world. But everywhere we found people who required 

 sophistical things, animal and vegetable matters, minerals, etc. ; and 

 never did we find them working with the right materials. In these 



