4 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
from society, they porecl over philosophical works, and passed 
whole days and nights in experimenting upon the elements, and 
in submitting the baser metals to every conceivable process, 
with a view to them conversion into gold. 
We have his picture before us — the old alchemist ! There 
he sits in his vaulted chamber, upon his carved, high-backed 
arm-chair. His head, of which little else is visible than his long 
bowing hair and beard, leans upon his left hand, whilst with 
the right he turns over the pages of some mouldering volume 
in search of the “ hidden treasure.” Around him may be seen 
the emblems of his craft. In one corner is a small furnace, 
fitted with a primitive pair of bellows, on which stands an iron 
still. Mortars, pestles, crucibles, air-pumps, weights and scales, 
flasks, funnels, pincers, jars, and vessels of every kind lie 
scattered about in confusion. On a board or rude table, sur- 
rounded by these appliances, sits the great black cat, and, 
suspended over the head of the hoary philosopher, the stuffed 
owl with outspread wings sways gently to and fro. 
They never found the hidden treasure, these misguided but 
persevering workers, but they broke through the hardened 
incrustation of ignorance in which mankind was buried in their 
day ; and it was left for their posterity, for practical men of 
science, to prepare the soil, sow the seeds, and reap the golden 
harvest. And what, after all, was the object they sought to 
attain, compared with the indirect results of their labours? 
They desired to convert the baser into the more valuable 
metals. 
This has since been accomplished; but so much more won- 
derful have been the other victories of science, that this one is 
barely known to the world. Who cares to be informed that whole 
services of plate which grace the banquets of the affluent have 
been wrought from silver extracted from the crude ore of lead ? 
or that the brilliant ornaments of aluminium which adorn the 
persons of the faff have been tortured from a lump of despicable 
clay ? — ay, from the meanest soil whereon you trod, and winch 
Avas not deemed worthy of your regards, profound philosopher 
and alchemist ! 
