The Practical Methods of the Alchemists.
§ 28. We will conclude this chapter with some few remarks regarding the practical methods of the alchemists. In their experiments, the alchemists worked with very large quantities of material compared with what is employed in chemical researches at the present day. They had great belief in the efficacy of time to effect a desired change in their substances, and they were wont to repeat the same operation (such as distillation, for example) on the same material over and over again; which demonstrated their unwearied patience, even if it effected little towards the attainment of their end. They paid much attention to any changes of colour they observed in their experiments, and many descriptions of supposed methods to achieve the magnum opus contain detailed directions as to the various changes of colour which must be obtained in the material operated upon if a successful issue to the experiment is desired.[40] In [plates 5] and [6] we give illustrations of some characteristic pieces of apparatus employed by the alchemists. Plate 5, [fig. A], and plate 6, [fig. A], are from a work known as Alchemiae Gebri (1545); plate 5, [fig. B], is from Glauber’s work on Furnaces (1651); and plate 6, [fig. B], is from a work by Dr. John French entitled The Art of Distillation (1651). The [first figure] shows us a furnace and alembics. The alembic proper is a sort of still-head which can be luted on to a flask or other vessel, and was much used for distillations. In the present case, however, the alembics are employed in conjunction with apparatus for subliming difficultly volatile substances. Plate 5, [fig. B], shows another apparatus for sublimation, consisting of a sort of oven, and three detachable upper chambers, generally called aludels. In both forms of apparatus the vapours are cooled in the upper part of the vessel, and the substance is deposited in the solid form, being thereby purified from less volatile impurities. Plate 6, [fig. A], shows an athanor (or digesting furnace) and a couple of digesting vessels. A vessel of this sort was employed for heating bodies in a closed space, the top being sealed up when the substances to be operated upon had been put inside, and the vessel heated in ashes in an athanor, a uniform temperature being maintained. The pelican, illustrated in plate 6, [fig. B], was used for a similar purpose, the two arms being added in the idea that the vapours would be circulated thereby.
[40] As writes Espagnet in his Hermetic Arcanum, canons 64 and 65: “The Means or demonstrative signs are Colours, successively and orderly affecting the matter and its affections and demonstrative passions, whereof there are also three special ones (as critical) to be noted; to these some add a Fourth. The first is black, which is called the Crow’s head, because of its extreme blackness, whose crepusculum sheweth the beginning of the action of the fire of nature and solution, and the blackest midnight sheweth the perfection of liquefaction, and confusion of the elements. Then the grain putrefies and is corrupted, that it may be the more apt for generation. The white colour succeedeth the black, wherein is given the perfection of the first degree, and of the White Sulphur. This is called the blessed stone; this Earth is white and foliated, wherein Philosophers do sow their gold. The third is Orange colour, which is produced in the passage of the white to the red, as the middle, and being mixed of both is as the dawn with his saffron hair, a forerunner of the Sun. The fourth colour is Ruddy and Sanguine, which is extracted from the white fire only. Now because whiteness is easily altered by any other colour before day it quickly faileth of its candour. But the deep redness of the Sun perfecteth the work of Sulphur, which is called the Sperm of the male, the fire of the Stone, the King’s Crown, and the Son of Sol, wherein the first labour of the workman resteth.
“Besides these decretory signs which firmly inhere in the matter, and shew its essential mutations, almost infinite colours appear, and shew themselves in vapours, as the Rainbow in the clouds, which quickly pass away and are expelled by those that succeed, more affecting the air than the earth: the operator must have a gentle care of them, because they are not permanent, and proceed not from the intrinsic disposition of the matter, but from the fire painting and fashioning everything after its pleasure, or casually by heat in slight moisture” (see Collectanea Hermetica, edited by W. Wynn Westcott, vol. i., 1893, pp. 28 and 29). Very probably this is not without a mystical meaning as well as a supposed application in the preparation of the physical Stone.
PLATE 6.
ALCHEMISTIC APPARATUS. A.—An Athanor. B.—A Pelican.
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