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First Matter, still remained a mystery.
Then followed processes with iron and copper. After purification of the salts or vitriol of
these metals, of calcination, and the obtaining of a salt from the calcined metal by a
special process, followed by careful distillation and re-distillation in rectified spirits of
wine, the oil of these metals was obtained, a few drops of which used singly, or in
conjunction, proved very efficacious in eases of anemia and debility which the ordinary
iron medicine failed to touch.
The conjunction of iron and copper proved to be an elixir of a very stimulating and
regenerating character,
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the action being such as to clear the body from toxins, and I well remember on taking a
few drops one evening that the prospect of a spell of fairly strenuous mental work, even
after a really laborious day, seemed to hold no terrors for me!
But still the alkahest remained an enigma, and so further experiments were made with
silver and mercury. For those with silver, fine silver was reduced with nitric acid to the
salts of the metal, carefully washed in distilled water, sublimated by special process,
finally yielding up a white oil which had a very soothing effect on highly nervous cases.
In the case of mercury, the metal on being reduced to its oil, produced a clear crystalline
liquid with great curative properties, but unlike common mercury, no poisonous qualities.
After this I decided to work upon fine gold--gold, that is, without any alloy. This was
dissolved in Aqua Regia and reduced to the salts of gold; these were washed in distilled
water, which in its turn was evaporated in order to remove its very caustic properties. It
was at this point that a very real difficulty arose, for when these salts of gold lose their
acidity, they slowly but surely tend to return to their metallic form again. Nevertheless,
an elixir was finally produced from them by distillation, although even then a residue of
fine metallic gold remained behind in the retort.
Having got so far I realized that without the alkahest of the philosophers the real oil of
gold could not be obtained, and so again I went back and forth in the alchemists' writings
to obtain the clue. The experiments
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which I had already made considerably lightened my task, and one day while sitting
quietly in deep concentration the solution to the problem was revealed to me in a flash,
and at the same time many of the enigmatical utterances of the alchemists were made
clear.
. . . . . .
Here, then, I entered upon a new course of experiment, with a metal for experimental
purposes with which I had had no previous experience. This metal, after being reduced to
its salts and undergoing special preparation and distillation, delivered up the Mercury of
the Philosophers, the Aqua Benedicta, the Aqua Celestis, the Water of Paradise. The first
intimation I had of this triumph was a violent hissing, jets of vapour pouring from the
retort and into the receiver like sharp bursts from a machine-gun, and then a violent
explosion, whilst a very potent and subtle odour filled the laboratory and its
surroundings. A friend has described this odour as resembling the dewy earth on a June
morning, with the hint of growing flowers in the air, the breath of the wind over heather
and hill, and the sweet smell of the rain on the parched earth.
Nicholas Flamel, after searching and experimenting from the age of twenty, wrote when
he was eighty years old:
'Finally I found that which I desired, which I also soon knew by the strong scent and
odour thereof.'
Does this not coincide, this voice from the fourteenth century, with my own description
of the peculiar
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subtle odour? Cremer, also writing in the early fourteenth century, says
'When this happy event takes place, the whole house will be filled with a most wonderful
sweet fragrance, and then will be the day of the nativity of this most blessed preparation.'
Having arrived at this point my next difficulty was to find a way of storing this subtle gas
without danger to property. This I accomplished by coils of glass piping in water joined
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