The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-13
The ALCHEMISTS.
FROM tho cornhiH MaCasine.
PART II.

.uba~o fbe search after the philosophers stone
lad NV side-doors to real and valuable discove-
ries Botticher was an apothecary appren-
tice M Berlin in the time ot FREDERICK - Ming
of Prussia Q7O1-iIi3(' lie poaSDeu VI
bayine received a bit of the genuine stone
fro,n n Greek named Lascaris, and of
having done marvellous things with 1t
=; t6e uav of transmutation. The
Kir,, ovnressed his desire to judge personally
e bio nretensions Botticher was by no
Taoans inclined to stand the trial, and crossed
the borders to Wittenberg. HIS sovereign
lord demanded his extradition by the Saxon
Government. 1t was refused, and the garri-
son of Wittenberg was strengthened for fear
of a surprises while, for greater security, the
valuable emiprant was transferred to Dresden.
Here he somehow satisfied the Prince Won
Furstenberg who was governing III the
Saxon kings absence, that he really could
make cold. The King, Augustus ii, wrote to
him i'm the most deferential terms, made him
n nobleman, and, with all marks OF re-
spect, slowed him away in his strong tower
of Konigstein, where he was asslduously
watched, in the hope of winning hls secret
from him in some unguarded moment. How
ever not to anger him. and thus defeat the
royai hopes, he was allowed to return to
Dresden. in a sort of honorable captivity,
while freedom and additional rewards were
promised him should he give up the required
recipe He actually signed contract to
that effect. and was accordingly guarded, if
possible. more carefully, and treated more
sumptuously, than ever. He was looked upon
as a precious jewel of the crown; and when
o hostile invasion soon threatened, he was
transferred with the other treasures of
ROYALTY once more to the Konigstein. Mean
while, three years passed, and his contract
was not fulfilled. The King waxed inpatient.
Botticher had gone on experimenting, in the
desperate hope of being able to make good
his pretensions; but gold would not come at
his bidding He might, perchance, have been
hung with imominy, like so many of his pre-
decessors; but, luckily for him, really i'm
portant discovery had emerged out of some of
his manipulatiOns.
He now ventured to confess to the King
that he never had made gold nor knew how
to do so, but offered his Majesty the results
of his porcelain invention instead. Augustus
swallowed his notification and forgave him,
placing him at the head of the Dresden porce-
lain works, so famous in after years; but to
the day of his death, which occurred in 1919,
the recalcitrant alchemist was carefully watched
lest perchance some more valuable secret
might escape him. The casual discoveries
made by alchemists would fill many volumes
of science and industrial history. Thus Roger
Bacon stumbled by chance on the compost
of acids; Van Helmont, on the nature of gas,
''geist, or ''spirit," so named by him; and
DIR. Glauber, of Amsterdam, in the seven
teenth century, eliminated in this haphazard
way the uses of the ''salts' which bear his
name.
Paracelsus and Van Helmont are the
greatest names connected with alchemy in the
sixteenth century. The pompous charlatanry
of Paracelsus gave impulse to its subsequent
11pHa1, tho fnrync of RpGiorupio1.
ism, whose secret societies sandfreemasonry oc'
cupied the fancy of mankind so much in the
seventeenth century. In Germany, the
natural tendency of men to mysticism
was greastly assisted by the barbarizinG
effects of the Thirty Years War. AS il
literature, SO in science culture was
absolutely repressed, and made retrogradC
by the singular desoations of the gloomy
period from 1913 to 1913. This was conspi
cuously shown in the department of juris
prudence. DIR. Erdmann has collected some
curious cases of law decisions resting on the
theories of alchemy as evidence. 1t seems
not to have been late in the seventeenth cen.
tury, however, that the Austrian jurist, Won
Rain, went so far as to assert that disbelief in
the existence of the stone actually brought q
man within the penalties of lese-majeste, on
the ground that SO many emperors had un-
doubtedly performed transmutations by its
agency.
AS early as $780, the Leipsic tribunals pro-
nounced Judgment against an unhappy wretch
called Beuther, body-alchemist of that Angus
tus, Elector of SaXony, of whom we have
already had occasion to speak. Beuther was
reputed to possess certain valuable MSS. treat
ingof Especial transmutations, " j. e., the trans
mutation of some one particular metal, which,
having promised on oath to impart to certain
other persons, he had afterwards declined to
gent III his official capacity. He was adjudged
to be undoubtedly in possession of THE Sc
cRET, and sentenced accordingly to be tor
tured for its extraction; then, for his official
negligence, to be scourged with rods for his
perjury to his comrades, to lose three of his
fingers; finally, for the good of the land, to
be shut up securely in prison, lest he might
be tempted to tell his secret to foreign poten-
tates.
AS late as the year 1925 there was n curiou,
case of litigation before the same court al
Leipsic. A certain Countess Won Erbach hat
given shelter in her castle to a reputed rob
ber, who was flying from justice. This rob
ber turned out to be an adept in alchemy
and a robber only out Of, as it would seem
most superfluous amateurship. In the exces
of his gratitude to his benefactress, he turne
all her silver plate into gold. But here tn
Countess husband stepped in and claimet
half of the treasure, on the plea that the in
- crease of value had been effected on his te +
ritory, and under the matrimonial condition
as to property. The Leipsic lawyers decided
against him, saying that, as the plate ha
been recognized as belonging solely to tn
Countess prior to the transmutation, so
must be her exclusive property afterwards
under whatever changes it might have passed
1t was a not uncommon point of la'
whether alchemical gold, which was not capa
HE Of heinn distin p1ished from oripinal oold