A STILL FOR DYSTILLING THE WATER OF LYFE.
1576.
The majority had two fixed objects in view as the goals of their ambition, one being the discovery of some body that would be capable of transmuting the baser metals into gold and silver; and the other, the discovery of an elixir which would prolong the span of human life to an indefinite period. Both these objects seem to have been sought for by man from prehistoric times, and their origin is lost in antiquity. Berthelot remarks that the term “Philosopher’s Stone” does not occur in writings earlier than the seventh century, although the central idea is much more ancient.
The philosopher’s stone was sought for by the Chinese philosophers at a very remote period, afterwards by the Greeks, Arabs, and others down to the seventeenth century.
Men of undoubted ability and genius wasted both their lives and their fortunes over the search for this illusive chimera, and others condescended to fraud and trickery of the meanest description in its pursuit. Apparently no alchemist of any repute thought it right to die until he had at least claimed to have solved one of these great problems. Thus claimants to the discovery were numerous. The descriptions given of the various processes in ancient manuscripts and works for producing the philosopher’s stone are usually of a very elaborate description, and couched in the most fantastic language.
Failure to produce the desired result was invariably accounted for by the omission to carry out some minute detail. Some who professed to have discovered the secret demanded large sums of money to reveal it, and several visited the various courts of Europe to demonstrate it by means of trickery and conjuring.
The notorious Dr. Dee, who flourished in the time of Queen Elizabeth, was one of the last claimants to the discovery, and is said to have received immense sums of money from dupes for imparting the coveted secret, which he demonstrated by means of an ingenious trick.
Realgar, mercury, sulphur, and many other substances were credited with the magical property of transmutation.
In the illustration (p. [65]), which is taken from an authentic engraving of the sixteenth century, we have a figure of the apparatus used for distilling the “Water of Life,” the process for which is described by Gesnerus in the Newe Jewell of Health, printed in 1576. The alchemist, arrayed in his imposing robes, is depicted giving instructions to his assistant as to certain precautions to be taken in conducting the process.
Bacon states that sulphur and mercury are the mineral roots and natural principles upon which Nature herself acts and works in the mines and caverns of the earth; the latter metal he believed to be the true elixir of the philosopher’s stone; others, including Rhazes and Merlin, believed it to be an amalgam of gold and mercury, fantastically called the Red man and his White wife.