WHEN ALCHEMY WAS AN HONEST SCIENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 108, 8 May 1937, Page 8 (Supplement)

WHEN ALCHEMY WAS AN HONEST SCIENCE.

Modem Dupes Of The Black Art

FAMOUS SEEKERS OF TRANSMUTATION.

ABOUT ten years ago Erich von Ludendorff, tlie most brilliant of i Germany's World War generals, was approached by one Franz Tausend, a man with an interesting proposition. I Backed by sufficient Financing, Tausend I ! believed that he could convert certain | ' cheap chemicals into gold. Ludendorff j turned over to him a large part of his ! savings. When the anticipated profits I of the scheme failed to materialise 1 Ludendorff and the other investors had ■ i Tausend arrested. i I ] From his cell Tausend indignantly demanded an opportunity to prove his innocence of any attempt to deceive. For the sake of justice he was allowed to demonstrate his process in the laboratories of the German mint. He was supplied with chemicals of tesited purity, which he handled only in the presence of a jury of chemists. He ignited a mixture of lime, mercury, sodium and potassium and cooked this with lead i chloride. When he got through the chemists analysed his product and found it contained a few grains of gold, which apparently had been produced at a cost of only 8/ a pound. The chemists were astounded, since this was quite the reverse of what existing chemical theory would predict. Scarcely less surprising was the fact that Herr Tausend had never studied chemistry, but was a plumber by trade, and a none too competent one. Fortunately for the gold standard, however, it was found that Tausend had previously inserted a wad of gold leaf into one of his cigarettes and had flicked the ash into the crucible. As a result of this finding the rascal was sent to prison. This is not an isolated caee. In 1898 a certain English Jack-of-all-trades by the name of Stephen Emmens, announced the discovery of a method of converting : silver into an alloy of silver and gold. To prove it he sent a brick of alloy, which he claimed to have made, to the American assay office which verified its gold content. Backed by this success, he sold stock in his project and paid dividends on the stock by selling more stock. He got intc trouble when the authorities found thai he was really unable to make gold. A Swindled Emperor. In 1867 the Emperor Franz Josef oi Austria-Hungary conferred with thret suave persons, the Conde de Fresno j Landres, Col. Jiminez de la Rosa, anc Father Roccatani. These three pointe< out that there was lots of gold in Cali fornia, and also a large amount o silver, mercury and Californian sunshine Obviously the gold must have beei

About 2000 Years Old. The science, if we may call it that, had its origin about 2000 years ago in the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria, at I the mouth of the Nile, where Greek : philosophy first came into contact with j Egyptian" technology. Its founder, ! according to tradition, was a Greek named Hermes, whose name we still honour whenever we speak of a container as being hermetically sealed, i Since men love gold, it was only natural that the followers of Hermes, I interested as they were in the transformations of matter, should attempt to convert cheaper substances into gold. Only fragmentary records remain of their attempts, but it appears that the successful accomplishment of the project was claimed by the first female spiontist Marv the Jewess, who is also

formed by the action of sunshine on the Other two metals, and the three men had found a way in which Austrian sunshine could be used to bring this change about. The emperor gave them a grant of money and told them to demonstrate their process under close supervision. They set the chemists to heating certain chemicals for a prolonged period. After four months the was analysed and no gold was found, but the three men had disappeared and were never heard of again. Subsequent investigation revealed that the names they gave were not their real ones. Yet the chemists who exposed these swindlers hardly could 6how any great indignation at them. In fact, thej should have been more than a little reverent, since they were seeing theii science as it once was. The science ol chemistry is a direct descendant of th< medieval science of alchemy, the prin cipal activity of which was the attemp to transmute base metals into gold.

They argued somewhat in this manner: Is the change of lead into gold any more remarkable than the change of a seed into a tree ? It is known that the properties of gold can be changed by alloying it with baser metals; is it possible that the baser metals are gold contaminated with impurities? The Creator does not produce an" adult man all at once, but allows him to develop from infancy; is it not likely that he would similarly allow gold, the noblest of metals, to evolve to its present state by way of the less noble metals? Often Lead But Never Gold. During the nineteenth qpntury it was more fashionable to smile at the futile efforts of the alchemists, because it was then believed that the various elements, including lead and gold, were incapable of being converted into each other. Now we know that under certain conditions the atoms of one element can change into those of another, although such conversions probably never will he industrially practical. Ironically enough, the product of such changes is frequently lead, but never gold. The medieval alchemists did not enjoy a very high social standing. It wa«

said to have invented that piece of j laboratory apparatus known as the water bath. French chemists still recognise her priority in the invention by calling it the "bain marie." Mary's method of manufacturing gold was not very complicated. She simply melted up equal weights of copper and gold. The resulting metal resembled gold and weighed twice as much as the gold used in making it. Obviously it was an alloy so crude that it could not get past the door of an assay office today, and even at that time probably did not fool any of the experts at the imperial mint. Still we can hardly believe that Mary and her colleagues were guilty of intentional deception. The very fact that she published her method is proof of her sincerity. When the Arabs conquered Egypt in the seventh century they quickly absorbed the culture of their subjects and soon were adding their own contributions to it! A number of Arab scholars became interested in this science of transforming matter and gave it the name of "al khem," which has been variously translated as "the black art" or "the Egyptian art."" By the tenth century the Arabs and Moors had cornered most of the world's culture and numbered among their scholars such great alchemists as Geber Avicenna, Rhazes, and Averroes. They invented distillation, and their influence is still preserVed in our use of siicl words as alchohol and alkali, whicr are of Arabic origin, and even the wore chemistry, which is derived from a khem by way of alchemy.

popularly believed that they consorted with demons in their effort to learn the secrets of Nature. Moreover, as time went on the profession was afflicted with an increasing number of charlatans, more adept at extracting gold from the pockets of gullible patrons than from lead. Consequently alchemy was officially frowned upon by both Church and State. Men of keen scientific abilities, like Bacon and Aquinas and Raymond Lully, were compelled to keep their scientific interest as secret as possible. Bacon, one of the greatest scientists of all time, ' was threatened with imprisonment by Oxford University unless he ceased experimenting. The Dominican Order prohibited the study of alchemy among its members. In 1404 all alchemists were ordered to leave England, although this edict never was thoroughly enforced. On another occasion a certain Duke of Wurtemberg, who probably had been fleeced, erected a special gallows for the exclusive use of alchemists. Appropriately, the frame was gilded. Because of the need of secrecy, and because they believed that the common knowledge of how to make gold would do awav with the divinely ordained

Elixir and Philosopher's Stone. From the Moorish universities in Spain the knowledge of alchemy gradually filtered into Europe during the earlv middle ages. Inasmuch as the knowledge of reading and writing was limited almost exclusively to the clergy, the Church at first supplied almost all of flic alchemists. Among the greatest of early European alchemists, Roger Bacon was a Franciscan monk, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas were Dominican friars, and Arnoldus Vilanovaims was a professor at the University of Barcelona. During its centuries of travel from Egypt to Europe alchemy underwent certain modifications. It was no longer primarily a study of the nature of matter, but had become a search for two hypothetical substances, the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone. The former was an essence supposedly capable of giving its user eternal youth. The. latter, the object of far greater interest, was a material that could change base metals I into gold. It is not correct to assume that the medieval alchemists were fakers like I the man who swindled General von I Ludendorff. For the most part they were | honest and intelligent scientists who I were simply following a mistaken idea. Their beliefs were quite reasonable, in view of the knowledge available at the time.

poverty of the masses, the alchemists either kept notes in code or described their .experiments in a fantastic jargon that both amuses and exasperates translators. For instance, they called gold the red lion, silver the lily bride, sulphur the yellow scorpion, mercury the dragon, and lead the black crow. Some of their terms exist at the present time —aqua regia (royal water), sal ammoniac (salt of Amnion), oleum (oil of vitriol), sugar of lead, butter of antimony, and cream of tartar. A typical alchemist, in describing the dissolving of gold by a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids, might say, "The raging lion devoureth [ the sun," the meaning of which is as obscure as that of certain present-day patents. And yet we owe a great debt to the alchemists. Short of money and harassed by authority, they pursued a goal that always seemed just a little ahead of them; a quest all the more pathetic because it was hopeless. i 'One Happy Ending. Living on crusts in order to buy charcoal for their furnaces, and clay crucibles and stills that were always breaking, they distilled and calcined everything on which they could lay their hands, even such odd materials as snakes, dog milk, and human brains. They discovered sulphuric acid by distilling copperas, allcohol, by distilling wine, alum by calcining a mixture of clay, sulphuric acid, and salt, phosphorous by distilling dried urine and sand, and formic acid by distilling ants. From their failures has grown the modern science of chemistry. Since we like happy endings, it is appropriate to mention that the lasl great alchemist found gold, but not ir the way he expected. Around 170 C Johann Friedrich Bottger persuadec Augustus, the elector of Saxony, tc finance his alchemical researches ii return for a share of the gold produced Results were not forthcoming as quickh as the elector desired, so Bottger wai locked in his laboratory with orders ti make gold within a certain time or elsi suffer an unpleasant fate. Bottger's ingenuity was greatl; stimulated. As the deadline approaches he gave up gold making, invented bar fired porcelain, and persuaded the electo to accept this discovery instead. As , result Bottger became one of the riches men in Saxony and Dresden china estal lished a reputation for excellence whic i it has held to this day.—Dr. Thoma M. Beck, in the "Chicago Tribune."