ALCHEMY (ante). Basil Valentine and Paracelsus, recognizing the importance of the strange substances which escaped from the retorts of the masters of A. in the transmutation of bodies, gave them the name of mercury; the elders called them souls or spirits; Van Helmont studied them more closely, and gave them the name of gas. He was acquainted with carbonic acid under the name of woody gas; but his ignorance of the action of the oxygen of the atmosphere prevented him from making the fundamental distinction between experiments performed in a closed vessel and in one open to the air. Priestley, Lavoisier, and Scheele, by the use of the test tube and the balance, weighed and tested the results of ancient A., and thence modern chemistry was born; but the work had already been begun by men of genius, such as Bernard Palissy, Boyle, Homberg, the Geoffreys, Margraff, Bergman, and Route, the master of Lavoisier, who may be called the Diderot of chemistry. It is also true that the most important discoveries in chemistry have been made by men who combined with chemical experi ments a marked taste for alchemic theories; for instance, Glauber, ablest of mystics; Kunkel, who thought he had found in the " shining pills" of his phosphorus mirabilis as efficacious a remedy as the potable gold in which he also believed; Glaser, the alchemist, master of Lemery, who has been called the father of chemisty; Robert Fludd, and others. Soon after chemistry was settled as a science there was a crusade in search of the philosopher's stone. Among French seekers was De Lisle, who died in the Bastile
of wounds inflicted by his keepers in trying to extort his secret; among Englishmen. Dr. Price, who committed suicide to avoid a public trial of his pretended discoveries. Doubt less the main idea of A. is yet alive. One of the greatest of French chemists, Dumas, thought as to the theoretical possibility of making gold, that a solution might be found iu the doctine of isomerism; and the more famous English savant, Sir Humphrey Davy, refused to decide that the alchemists must be wrong. In 1796 two German physicians founded a society for the investigation of the transmutation of metals, and this society and its branches existed as late as 1820. A text-hook of chemistry by Baudrimont (1844) says "a certain Mr. Javary has obtained very surprising results by following the pre scriptions of the ancient alchemists, so that there is hope of at last seeing the great work succeed." Another work by Fiffereau (1856) affirms that the metals are compound bodies, and that silver can be changed into gold. The literature of A. is enormous, including such names as Roger Bacon, Lord Bacon, Becher, Fludd, Hermis, Tris megisti, Glauber, Kunkel, Paracelsus, Qucrceteau, Basil Valentine, Peter Gregory, etc., not to mention Greek, Roman, and Arabic writers.