How long did Fellows of ºìÌÒÊÓƵ persist in trying to turn lead into gold? Ainsley Vinall investigates.
In the early days of ºìÌÒÊÓƵ, the boundary between the mystical art of alchemy and the more disciplined practice of science was rather blurry. Amidst their more structured experiments with air pumps, diving bells and microscopes, some of the first Fellows were also researching , the process of transmuting metals into gold.
Entry in Robert Boyle’s ‘to-do list’ ()
As the winner of this year’s Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize, The Age of Alchemy by , looks at alchemy’s influence on modern chemistry, I thought it would be interesting to examine just how far into the existence of ºìÌÒÊÓƵ our Fellows were still trying to turn lead into gold.
Most alchemical texts are famously cryptic, but one record in our archives provides a surprisingly candid summary of the first steps towards transmutation. A by , on some papers sent to ºìÌÒÊÓƵ from Riga, includes a transcription from a German treatise regarding the creation of a philosopher’s stone. The paper refers to physical materials in biological and religious terms, separating known metals into male, female, corporeal and spiritual categories. The writer suggests that when gold, which represents ‘the soul of male’, and silver, ‘the body of female’, are ‘married and closely united by the help of spiritual mercury’ they produce ‘a black substance, first liquid but by fire it may be brought to solidity, and then becomes that inestimable thing, which is called the philosopher’s stone.’
Alchemical apparatus, early seventeenth century, MS/11 ()
The paper then explains how this stone is the first step towards transmuting mercury into a much greater quantity of gold:
‘Out of this stone, if duly prepared, you may obtain a white and red Tincture, which by repeated processes may be brought to such as degree of perfection, that one part of the red will convert first 100, then 1000000, then 1209982 parts of mercury into pure Gold; and one part of the white as much mercury into pure Silver.’
An written in 1691 by the bishop and mathematician to Royal Society clerk provides an example of this red powder in use. The body of the letter is a discussion of cartographical charts of Austria, but the postscript gives an account of Joannes Wenceslaus de Reinberg’s supposed 1677 transmutation of a brass plate into gold. Ashe had received the account from , chief physician and alchemical adviser of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, who had witnessed the ‘transformation’ at first hand:
‘He laid the plate upon live coals, till it was red hot, & then spread over the surface of about 2/3 of the plate a fine red powder, which the metal presently imbibed (or to use his own expression, which melted into it like butter) & gave it, as far as it touched, a bright gold colour, the rest remaining perfect brass.’
Remarkably, actually exists and is held in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. It can also be clearly seen that the lower part of the plate is indeed a brighter gold colour than the duller brass visible at the top. The process sounds to me like fire gilding, where a gold amalgam is applied to the surface of a heated material, with the mercury vaporising to leave behind a thin coating of gold. I’m therefore sceptical of the claim inscribed on the back of the plate, which describes it in Latin as a ‘verae ac perfectae metamorphose metallicae specimen’, a true and perfect specimen of metallic metamorphosis.
In the eighteenth century, as more substances were classified and the nature of matter became better understood, interest in alchemy gave way to more rigorous forms of scientific research. I was therefore surprised to see references to alchemical experiments in correspondence between and . In a letter dated 14 July 1782, Banks wrote:
‘We have been entertained here by Mr Price, formerly Higginbottom, fixing mercury into gold or silver at his pleasure. He exhibited several times at Guildford to the neighbourhood & made all the spectators write their names in a book recording the mode of the experiments.’
(1752-1783) had been elected to the Fellowship in 1781 and is described on as ‘well versed in various branches of Natural Philosophy and particularly in Chymistry’. He had been proposed by the chemist , who was awarded the Copley Medal in 1782 for his work on chemical salts.
Price claiming to have transmuted mercury into gold was something of an embarrassment to Kirwan. Banks’s letter explained that ‘Kirwan, who at first thought he was in jest, went in search of him, but found he had left Guildford a few days before’. At first, the Fellows thought that Price was knowingly plating medals with gold and proclaiming it an alchemical transformation to dupe his neighbours. However, after Price published his Account of some Experiments on Mercury, Silver and Gold and claimed to have mastered chrysopoeia, ºìÌÒÊÓƵ was forced to act.
Title page of Price’s ‘Account’, 1782 ()
The full story is recounted in a 1951 , and began with Price presenting his gold to King George III and receiving an honorary degree from the University of Oxford. He was then compelled to repeat the experiment in front of a panel of Royal Society Fellows, and was given six months to prepare. During this time, he instead produced a strong solution of hydrogen cyanide, which he drank in his laboratory before the demonstration, causing his immediate death.
In his account, Price claimed the transformation was catalysed by the addition of a red powder to transmute mercury into gold and a white powder to change it into silver. Where early modern alchemists could have been forgiven for thinking this would trigger transmutation, eighteenth-century chemists knew that altering the surface appearance of a metal would not change its fundamental composition. According to a note by Banks, Price refused to reveal his methods as, although he ‘discovered’ the process for making gold himself, the method for making silver was communicated to him by another unnamed chemist.
The most recent reference to alchemical transmutation I’ve found in our archives is from a conversazione held on 17 June 1891. Amongst other items on display that evening was a collection of medals ‘asserted to be of gold and of silver, transmuted from base metals by the aid of Alchemy.’ One – with examples in the in Vienna and the – is described as having been made in 1675 by Becher, the alchemist advising Leopold I, after he ‘transmuted’ lead into silver.
The medals were exhibited by metallurgist , a serious scientist based at the Royal Mint who presented them as amusing curiosities rather than genuine alchemical specimens. The lasting interest in alchemy demonstrated by Fellows of ºìÌÒÊÓƵ right up until the end of the nineteenth century shows how much of an impact its ideas and theories had on the development of modern chemistry. To discover many more examples of the intersections between alchemy and chemistry, do look out for a copy of our Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize winner, The Age of Alchemy.
