The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-04-13

COsluhG VI hlAby 9Ghlb pAtNiphoigs was Ouuy
and drew upon him the attention which he SO
much disliked. His complexion was fair, his
temperament nervous, and his voice squeaking;
the only portrait that exists OF him was sketched
without his knowledge. DR.. George Wilson, who
has left clever memoir of Cavendish, says, ian
intellectual head, thinking, pair of wonderful
acute eyes, observing, pair OF very skilful
bands. experimenting , or reCord,lng' are all that
II may take some readers by surprise to learn
that there have been true believers In alchemy
in our days. DR.. Price is commonly set down
in popular journals as 1.-THE last OF the alche-
msts;n he died In 1888, in his twenty-6fth
year, by taking a draught of laurelwater
rather than repeat his experiments before a
committee of the Royal Society, on pain of ex-
pulsion.
At the beginning of the present century, some
persons of eminence in science thought favor
ably Of alchemy Professor Robson, writing to
James Watt, February II, 1900, says, "The
sently iead think, TO the doctrine OF a recipro-
cal convertbility of all things into all
and expect to see alchemy revive, and be
as universally studied as ever.n
Sir Walter Scott tells us that 'about 1901, an
adept lived, or rather starved in the metropolis,
in the person of an editor of an evening ne VS.
paper, who expected to compound the aka
hest, If he could only keep his materials di-
gested in his lamp-furnace for the space of seven
years. Scott adds, in pleasant banter, ''the
lamp burnt brightly during six years, eleven
months, and some odd days besides and then
uUluCklly IL WeDJ Oul. why IL WtuJ Oul tue
adept could never guess; but he was certain
that if the flame could only have burnt 10 the
and of the septenary cycle his experiment must
have succeeded"
The last true believer in alchemy was not Dr.
Price, but Peter Woulfe, the eminent chemist,
and a fellow of the Royal Society, and who
made experiments to show the nature OF Mosaic
gold. Little is known of Woulfe's private life.
Sir Humphrey Davy states that Woulte used
TO atfiX written passages and inscriptions of
recommendations OF his processes to
Providence. Woulte lived many years in
chambers in the Oldest portion OF Barnards Inn,
furnaces and apparatus that il was difficult to
reach his freside DIR. Darlington told Mr..
Brande (the venerable chemist, who died last
moDth) that he once put down his hat, and
never could find it again, such was the confusion
OF boxes, packages, and parcels that lay about
the room. Woulfe's breakast.hour was in
the morning: a few of his select friends we're
occasionally invited, and gained entrance by
secret signal, knocking certain number
OF times at the inner door of the chamber.
He had long vainly searched for the Elixir,
and attributed his repeated failures to
the want of due preparation by pions and chari-
table acts. Whenever he wished to break an
acquaintance, OF felt himself offended. he re-
sented the supposed injuries by sending a
present TO the offender, and never seeing HIM
afterwards. These presents sometimes consisted
of an expensive chemical product or prepa-
ration. He had heroic remedy for illness,
which was journey 10 Edinburgh and back by
the mail coach; and q cold taken on one of these
expeditions terminated in Inflammation of the
lungs, of which he died in the year 1906. OF
his last moments we received the following ac-
count from his executor. then treasurer OF Bar
nard's Inn. By Woulfe's DESIRE his laundress
shut up mis- chambers and left him, but returned
at midnight, when Woulte was still alive; next
morning, however, she found him dead! His
countenance was calm and serene, and appa-
Iently he had not moved from the position in
his chair in which she had last left him.
Twenty after WOufne death in 1903
there was living at the village of Lilley, be-
tween Luton and Hitchin, one Kellerman an
'alchemist,n who was believed by some OF his
neighbors to have discovered the philosophers
stone and sse universal solvent. Here he had
lived for twenty-three years, during fourteen of
which he had pursued his alchemical researches
with unremitting ardor, keeping eight assistants
for experimenting his crucibles, two at time
relieving each other every six hours; and he
assured visitor that he had exposed some pre-
parations to intense heat tor many months at
time; but that all except one crucible had burnt,
and that, Kellerman said, contained the true
"blacker than black" or ''the powder of pro-
lection for producing gold" One of his assist
ants, however, protested that no gold had ever
been found, ana that no mercury had ever been
fixed; adding that Kellerman could not have
concealed it from his assistants, who frequently
witnessed his severe disappointment at the re-
suit of his most elaborate experiments.
Kellerman's room was a realization of Te-
nier's alchemst; the floor was strewed with
retorts, cruclbles, alembics, Jars and bottles
of various forms, intermingled with old books.
He had been assured by some persons of KIN
dred pursuits in London that they / ad made
gold. He had studied the works of the ancient
alchemists, and believed that he had discovered
the key which they had kept secret, adding that he
had pursued their system under the influence of
new lights; and after suffering numerous disap-
pointments, owing to the ambiguity with which
they describe their processes, he had atlength hap
PLY succeeded: had made gold, and could make
as much more as he pleased, even to the extent
Al.
realm. KeIlerman grew eloquent upon the
merits of the old alchemists, but ridiculed the
blunders and impertinent assumptions of modern
chemists. He quoted Roger and Francis Bacon;
Paracelsus, Boyle, and B9rhaowe, and Woulfe
(of Barnard's Inn) to rectfy his pursuits. He
alleged the Philopher's Stone to be a mere
phrase to deceive the vulgar; but he fully Gre
dited the silly story Of Dee's finding the Elixir
of Glastonbury, by which means Kelly for long
time lived in princely splendor. Here we must
leave our village aichemist.
OF late years there have been many revivals
of alchemical pursuits. In 1850 there was printed
in London volume of considerable extent,
entitled "a Suggestive Inquiry into the Her.
metic Mysteryn-the work of a lady, by whom
it has been suppressed; we have seen it described
as "a learned and valuable book"
BY this circumstance we are reminded that
some fve-and-thirty years since 1t came to our
knowledge that man of wealth and position
in the city OF London, an adept in alchemy, was
held IN te1T0ren by an unprincipled person,
who eXtoIted from him considerable sums of
money under threats OF exposure, which would
have affected his mercantile interests.
Nevertheless, alchemy has, in the present day,
its prophetic advocates, who predict what may
be considered return to its strangest belief.
A GOttingen professor says, in the A1andies de
Ohinlie, No. 100, that in the nineteenth century
the transmutation of metals will be generally
known and practlsed. Every chemist and every
artist will make gold; kitchen utensils will be
of silver and even gold which will contribute
more than anything else to .prolong life,