462 HIS TOBY OF ALCHEMY. 



in experiments, Avould send the charlatan away to repeat the same trick on 

 another equally as gullible. Another sample of their swindling operations 

 was their powder of projections. By projecting or throwing this on the sur- 

 face of melted lead, they pretended it would change the lead to gold. The 

 secret of the trick was a hollow metallic stirring rod, into which they had 

 previously conveyed the gold. The powder was composed ot sulphur, salt- 

 petre and charcoal, which, when thrown into the crucible, made a great 

 deflagration or flash. Stirring vigorously with the hollow rod, thej' would 

 at length produce the golden grains to astonish the uninitiated. 



These fraiids, and finally the conduct of Paracelsus, began to alarm the 

 higher ranks of society, so that finally the whole class of alchemists were 

 brought into disrepute. Laws were enacted against them by different 

 princes of Europe, and learned men discussed the falsity of the doctrine of 

 transmutation. 



As knowledge increased. Alchemy now decreased so rapidly that after Par- 

 acelsus we find biit one true alchemist of sufficient note to demand our atten- 

 tion in this connection. This alchemist was Van Helmont, a disciple and 

 great admirer of Paracelsus. He was born at Brussels in 1577, read medi- 

 cine and received his degree at the age of twenty-two. Soon after, happen- 

 ing to get the itch and failing to cure himself with the regular treatment,, 

 he became disgusted with the profession and left it. Dividing his fortune 

 among his relatives, he spent some ten years in traveling, during which 

 time he became violently attached to the study of Alchemy, and resolved to 

 devote the remainder of his life to its investigations. He was a blind ad- 

 herent to the doctrines of his illustrious predecessor, yet he made many 

 valuable discoveries, and his writings had sufficient merit to give him con- 

 siderable celebrity. Yan Helmnot may justly be considered the last of the 

 alchemists, for with his death in 1644 the doctrine of a universal medicine 

 expired, and soon after that of the philosopher's stone also. His cotempo- 

 raries and,, immediate successors were such men as Agricola, Glauber, Be- 

 guin, Glazer, Erkern, Kunkle and Boyle, who attended strictly to the 

 refutation of those doctrines of the ancients, so that the whole alchemistical 

 science fell to ruin, thus ending about the middle of the seventeenth century 

 one of the most interesting and vital illusions to which the human mind has 

 ever been subjected. It undoubtedly originated, as I have before intimated, 

 in man's innate desire for wealth, his desire for knowledge, and a vigorous 

 body and a long life to enjoy them, the same objects for which we are 

 laboring to this day, viz : Gold for our purses, knowledge for our brains,, 

 and long life to enjoy both. Their labors were not entirely in vain, nor 

 have we the right to consider their system a fraud, although fraud may have 

 been connected with it at times. Astrology preceded astronomy, so Alchemy 

 laid the foundation for a sublimer chemistry. In their energetic search 

 after the philosopher's stone the alchemists made many valuable discoveries 

 which they did not appreciate at the time, but which in after years, when 

 collated and sifted from error, furnished the groundwoi'k of a nobler and 

 truer science. 



