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expressions which conveyed a definite meaning to one of their number, but which would appear a meaningless jumble to an outsider. Some of these writers declared openly that their writings were intended to convey an entirely erroneous impression, and were sent out only for that purpose.

However, while it may have been true that the vagaries of their writings were made purposely, the case is probably more correctly explained by saying that the very nature of the art made definite statements impossible. They were dealing with something that did not exist--could not exist. Their attempted descriptions became, therefore, the language of romance rather than the language of science.

But if the alchemists themselves were usually silent as to the appearance of the actual substance of the philosopher's stone, there were numberless other writers who were less reticent. By some it was supposed to be a stone, by others a liquid or elixir, but more commonly it was described as a black powder. It also possessed different degrees of efficiency according to its degrees of purity, certain forms only possessing the power of turning base metals into gold, while others gave eternal youth and life or different degrees of health. Thus an alchemist, who had made a partial discovery of this substance, could prolong life a certain number of years only, or, possessing only a small and inadequate amount of the magic powder, he was obliged to give up the ghost when the effect of this small quantity had passed away.

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This belief in the supernatural power of the philosopher's stone to prolong life and heal diseases was probably a later phase of alchemy, possibly developed by attempts to connect the power of the mysterious essence with Biblical teachings. The early Roman alchemists, who claimed to be able to transmute metals, seem not to have made other claims for their magic stone.

By the fifteenth century the belief in the philosopher's stone had become so fixed that governments began to be alarmed lest some lucky possessor of the secret should flood the country with gold, thus rendering the existing coin of little value. Some little consolation was found in the thought that in case all the baser metals were converted into gold iron would then become the "precious metal," and would remain so until some new philosopher's stone was found to convert gold back into iron--a much more difficult feat, it was thought. However, to be on the safe side, the English Parliament, in 1404, saw fit to pass an act declaring the making of gold and silver to be a felony. Nevertheless, in 1455, King Henry VI. granted permission to several "knights, citizens of London, chemists, and monks" to find the philosopher's stone, or elixir, that the crown might thus be enabled to pay off its debts. The monks and ecclesiastics were supposed to be most likely to discover the secret process, since "they were such good artists in transubstantiating bread and wine."

In Germany the emperors Maximilian I., Rudolf II., and Frederick II. gave considerable attention to the search, and the example

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they set was followed by thousands of their subjects. It is said that some noblemen developed the unpleasant custom of inviting to their courts men who were reputed to have found the stone, and then imprisoning the poor alchemists until they had made a certain quantity of gold, stimulating their activity with tortures of the most atrocious kinds. Thus this danger of being imprisoned and held for ransom until some fabulous amount of gold should be made became the constant menace of the alchemist. It was useless for an alchemist to plead poverty once it was noised about that he had learned the secret. For how could such a man be poor when, with a piece of metal and a few grains of magic powder, he was able to provide himself with gold? It was, therefore, a reckless alchemist indeed who dared boast that he had made the coveted discovery.

The fate of a certain indiscreet alchemist, supposed by many to have been Seton, a Scotchman, was not an uncommon one. Word having been brought to the elector of Saxony that this alchemist was in Dresden and boasting of his powers, the elector caused him to be arrested and imprisoned. Forty guards were stationed to see that he did not escape and that no one visited him save the elector himself. For some time the elector tried by argument and persuasion to penetrate his secret or to induce him to make a certain quantity of gold; but as Seton steadily refused, the rack was tried, and for several months he suffered torture, until finally, reduced to a mere skeleton, be was rescued by a rival candidate of the elector, a Pole named Michael Sendivogins, who drugged the guards. However, before Seton could be "persuaded" by his new captor, he died of his injuries.

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But Sendivogins was also ambitious in alchemy, and, since Seton was beyond his reach, he took the next best step and married his widow. From her, as the story goes, he received an ounce of black powder--the veritable philosopher's stone. With this he manufactured great quantities of gold, even inviting Emperor Rudolf II. to see him work the miracle. That monarch was so impressed that he caused a tablet to be inserted in the wall of the room in which he had seen the gold made.

Sendivogins had learned discretion from the misfortune of Seton, so that he took the precaution of concealing most of the precious powder in a secret chamber of his carriage when he travelled, having only a small quantity carried by his steward in a gold box. In particularly dangerous places, he is said to have exchanged clothes with his coachman, making the servant take his place in the carriage while he mounted the box.

About the middle of the seventeenth century alchemy took such firm root in the religious field that it became the basis of the sect known as the Rosicrucians. The name was derived from the teaching of a German philosopher, Rosenkreutz, who, having been healed of a dangerous illness by an Arabian supposed to possess the philosopher's stone, returned home and gathered about him a chosen band of friends, to whom he imparted the secret. This sect came rapidly into prominence, and for a short time at least created a sensation in Europe, and at the time were credited with

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having "refined and spiritualized" alchemy. But by the end of the seventeenth century their number had dwindled to a mere handful, and henceforth they exerted little influence.

Another and earlier religious sect was the Aureacrucians, founded by Jacob Bohme, a shoemaker, born in Prussia in 1575. According to his teachings the philosopher's stone could be discovered by a diligent search of the Old and the New Testaments, and more particularly the Apocalypse, which contained all the secrets of alchemy. This sect found quite a number of followers during the life of Bohme, but gradually died out after his death; not, however, until many of its members had been tortured for heresy, and one at least, Kuhlmann, of Moscow, burned as a sorcerer.

The names of the different substances that at various times were thought to contain the large quantities of the "essence" during the many centuries of searching for it, form a list of practically all substances that were known, discovered, or invented during the period. Some believed that acids contained the substance; others sought it in minerals or in animal or vegetable products; while still others looked to find it among the distilled "spirits"--the alcoholic liquors and distilled products. On the introduction of alcohol by the Arabs that substance became of all-absorbing interest, and for a long time allured the alchemist into believing that through it they were soon to be rewarded. They rectified and refined it until "sometimes it was so strong that it broke the vessels containing it," but still it failed in its magic power. Later, brandy was substituted for it, and this in turn discarded for more recent

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discoveries.

There were always, of course, two classes of alchemists: serious investigators whose honesty could not be questioned, and clever impostors whose legerdemain was probably largely responsible for the extended belief in the existence of the philosopher's stone. Sometimes an alchemist practised both, using the profits of his sleight-of-hand to procure the means of carrying on his serious alchemical researches. The impostures of some of these jugglers deceived even the most intelligent and learned men of the time, and so kept the flame of hope constantly burning. The age of cold investigation had not arrived, and it is easy to understand how an unscrupulous mediaeval Hermann or Kellar might completely deceive even the most intelligent and thoughtful scholars. In scoffing at the credulity of such an age, it should not be forgotten that the "Keely motor" was a late nineteenth-century illusion.

But long before the belief in the philosopher's stone had died out, the methods of the legerdemain alchemist had been investigated and reported upon officially by bodies of men appointed to make such investigations, although it took several generations completely to overthrow a superstition that had been handed down through several thousand years. In April of 1772 Monsieur Geoffroy made a report to the Royal Academy of Sciences, at Paris, on the alchemic cheats principally of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this report he explains many of the seemingly marvellous feats of the unscrupulous alchemists. A very

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common form of deception was the use of a double-bottomed crucible. A copper or brass crucible was covered on the inside with a layer of wax, cleverly painted so as to resemble the ordinary metal. Between this layer of wax and the bottom of the crucible, however, was a layer of gold dust or silver. When the alchemist wished to demonstrate his power, he had but to place some mercury or whatever substance he chose in the crucible, heat it, throw in a grain or two of some mysterious powder, pronounce a few equally mysterious phrases to impress his audience, and, behold, a lump of precious metal would be found in the bottom of his pot. This was the favorite method of mediocre performers, but was, of course, easily detected.

An equally successful but more difficult way was to insert surreptitiously a lump of metal into the mixture, using an ordinary crucible. This required great dexterity, but was facilitated by the use of many mysterious ceremonies on the part of the operator while performing, just as the modern vaudeville performer diverts the attention of the audience to his right hand while his left is engaged in the trick. Such ceremonies were not questioned, for it was the common belief that the whole process "lay in the spirit as much as in the substance," many, as we have seen, regarding the whole process as a divine manifestation.

Sometimes a hollow rod was used for stirring the mixture in the crucible, this rod containing gold dust, and having the end plugged either with wax or soft metal that was easily melted. Again, pieces of lead were used which had been plugged with lumps of gold carefully covered over; and a very simple and impressive

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demonstration was making use of a nugget of gold that had been coated over with quicksilver and tarnished so as to resemble lead or some base metal. When this was thrown into acid the coating was removed by chemical action, leaving the shining metal in the bottom of the vessel. In order to perform some of these tricks, it is obvious that the alchemist must have been well supplied with gold, as some of them, when performing before a royal audience, gave the products to their visitors. But it was always a paying investment, for once his reputation was established the gold-maker found an endless variety of ways of turning his alleged knowledge to account, frequently amassing great wealth.

Some of the cleverest of the charlatans often invited royal or other distinguished guests to bring with them iron nails to be turned into gold ones. They were transmuted in the alchemist's crucible before the eyes of the visitors, the juggler adroitly extracting the iron nail and inserting a gold one without detection. It mattered little if the converted gold nail differed in size and shape from the original, for this change in shape could be laid to the process of transmutation; and even the very critical were hardly likely to find fault with the exchange thus made. Furthermore, it was believed that gold possessed the property of changing its bulk under certain conditions, some of the more conservative alchemists maintaining that gold was only increased in bulk, not necessarily created, by certain forms of the magic stone. Thus a very proficient operator was thought to be able to increase a grain of gold into a pound of pure metal, while one less expert could only double, or possibly treble, its

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original weight.

The actual number of useful discoveries resulting from the efforts of the alchemists is considerable, some of them of incalculable value. Roger Bacon, who lived in the thirteenth century, while devoting much of his time to alchemy, made such valuable discoveries as the theory, at least, of the telescope, and probably gunpowder. Of this latter we cannot be sure that the discovery was his own and that he had not learned of it through the source of old manuscripts. But it is not impossible nor improbable that he may have hit upon the mixture that makes the explosives while searching for the philosopher's stone in his laboratory. "Von Helmont, in the same pursuit, discoverd the properties of gas," says Mackay; "Geber made discoveries in chemistry, which were equally important; and Paracelsus, amid his perpetual visions of the transmutation of metals, found that mercury was a remedy for one of the most odious and excruciating of all the diseases that afflict humanity."' As we shall see a little farther on, alchemy finally evolved into modern chemistry, but not until it had passed through several important transitional stages.

ASTROLOGY

In a general way modern astronomy may be considered as the outgrowth of astrology, just as modern chemistry is the result of alchemy. It is quite possible, however, that astronomy is the older of the two; but astrology must have developed very shortly

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after. The primitive astronomer, having acquired enough knowledge
from his observations of the heavenly bodies to make correct

predictions, such as the time of the coming of the new moon, would be led, naturally, to believe that certain predictions other than purely astronomical ones could be made by studying the heavens. Even if the astronomer himself did not believe this, some of his superstitious admirers would; for to the unscientific mind predictions of earthly events would surely seem no more miraculous than correct predictions as to the future movements of the sun, moon, and stars. When astronomy had reached a stage of development so that such things as eclipses could be predicted with anything like accuracy, the occult knowledge of the astronomer would be unquestioned. Turning this apparently occult knowledge to account in a mercenary way would then be the inevitable result, although it cannot be doubted that many of the astrologers, in all ages, were sincere in their beliefs.

Later, as the business of astrology became a profitable one, sincere astronomers would find it expedient to practise astrology as a means of gaining a livelihood. Such a philosopher as Kepler freely admitted that he practised astrology "to keep from starving," although he confessed no faith in such predictions. "Ye otherwise philosophers," he said, "ye censure this daughter of astronomy beyond her deserts; know ye not that she must support her mother by her charms."

Once astrology had become an established practice, any considerable knowledge of astronomy was unnecessary, for as it

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