1877. ] The Philosopher's Stone. 35 
his melting friend, fire. When the sulphides were heated, they 
would give off the fumes of sulphur, and would form oxides of 
iron and copper, which, though he might not recognize them by 
these names, he would identify as the same substances that he 
found in the cells of the quartz with the gold. When he came 
to wash the product that the fire had made from the sulphides, 
and found there was no gold, he would be much surprised. But 
his faculties of perception are very keen; he has them to depend 
upon, and no books or so-called schools of mines to go to for in- 
formation, and he has learned to study nature by looking at her 
square in the face. Now we will suppose him, under such con- 
ditions of mental capacity, to be examining a piece of quartz in 
which there are two features of particular interest in this connec- 
tion, and these features found to consist of two well-defined cubi- 
form cells which have been opened by the fracture of the piece, 
and which before its rupture were hermetically sealed, and in- 
closed within the quartz matrix. These cells both appear to have 
been shaped by the same agency, the crystalline form of the sul- 
phides. One of the cells is filled with the sulphides, the other 
contains oxides of iron and copper, which he recognizes as the 
substances produced from this material by the fire ; and with them, 
within the cell, as it appears, is a small aggregation of gold. He 
properly assumes that the square form of the cells has been given 
to them by the crystalline form of the sulphides, and that the 
latter was the first occupant, and made the cell. How did the 
sulphide get out, so that the gold could move in, when all the 
approaches to the cell were sealed up by the surrounding quartz 
matrix? He reasons that since it could not get out, or the gold 
move in, the former substance and occupant has been changed, 
and produced the new-comer, gold. 
When these phenomena as presented to ancient alchemy are 
also before us, we, who claim to be much wiser than the old al- 
chemists, have a way of settling the matter; and we proceed to 
analyze the sulphides, and from them we do get a trace of gold, 
though not one ten thousandth proportion of the amount existing 
in the other cell. We have learned that to investigate any chem- 
ical fact, we must take nothing for granted if we seek the truth ; 
and right here, when we fancy we have unraveled the whole 
mystery, we are met with the troublesome query whether the 
trace of gold that we have found may not be due to a metamor- 
phosis commenced in the one, and completed in the other; for 
the amount we have found in the one is but a trifle, compared 
