CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMT. 



87 



spontaneously; and we know that a German alchemist, Eck of Sulzbach, 

 had ascertained the existence of oxygen, which was not demonstrated hy 

 Priestley until three hundred years afterwards. 



Alchemy was at the apogee of its celebrity in the beginning of the 

 fit'trcnth century, notwithstanding the royal edicts against it and the sus- 

 picions of imposture entertained concerning its adherents. Not only did 

 sovereigns ask them to supply gold for the mints (Figs. 133 and 134), but 

 the outside public, who put faith in the wonders of potable gold, purchased 



Fig. 134. The Officer of the Mint. Designed and engraved in the Sixteenth Century 



by J. Amman. 



from them, at an extravagant price, certain metallic mixtures combined with 

 ointments and vegetable juices which were warranted to cure diseases, 

 preserve the appearance of youth, render men invulnerable, produce pleasant 

 dreams, prolong human life, and so forth. 



It was at this period that were composed most of the treatises upon 

 alchemv, which were a crude mass of incoherent propositions and wild 

 assertions, a mixture of poesy and insanity, in which all logical ideas were 

 lost amidst a mass of stilted phraseology, but through which breathed a blind 

 but evidently fervent faith. Amidst this chaotic collection of absurdities 



