THE MONTHLY 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
NOVEMBER, 1879. 
I. LEGENDS OF SEPULCHRAL AND PERPETUAL 
LAMPS. 
By Prof. H. Carrington Bolton. 
QUU 1 VERY science and every art appears to have had, at 
(JBj some period in its history, aims and aspirations of an 
unphilosophical and superstitious character ; every 
branch of learning has had its infatuated enthusiasts working 
at unachievable projects and striving to reach unattainable 
goals. In astronomy, clever and learned men endeavoured 
to foretell the fate of mankind by a study of the stars ; in 
mechanics they sought for perpetual motion : in mathe- 
matics, for the quadrature of the circle ; in medical art for 
a universal panacea and an elixir of life ; and chemical 
science was for many centuries a fertile field for speculations 
no less chimerical and unsubstantial. 
The extraordinary delusions of the alchemists have been 
summarised by Wiegleb, a German chemist of the last 
century, in the following words : — “ At one time they turned 
their attention to the production of pearls and precious 
stones ; at another to the fixation of ordinary mercury, and 
hence to its extraction from natural metals ; some sought to 
transform water into vinegar, others eneavoured to make 
glass flexible and malleable. They sought also to prepare 
for the physician the much-needed elixir of life, to transform 
common salt into saltpetre, to prepare a universal solvent, 
to discover the means of causing lamps to burn perpetually , to 
reproduce plants and animals from their ashes, and even to 
effeCt the resurrection of the dead ! Besides these chimerical 
pursuits, the favourite and most enticing of all was the 
transmutation of the common or base metals into silver and 
gold.” * 
* Wiegleb, Hist. Krit. Untersuch. d. Alchemie. Weimar, 1777. i2mo. 
VOL. IX. (N.S.) 2 Z 
