rabian
physician Rhasis, and this led him, after four years' labour, to the
fountain-head of the occult philosophy, Geber. The latter, next to
Hermes himself, is the acknowledged chief of the science, and Trevisan
found himself in good hands; although he wished he had made his
acquaintance earlier, as he had already spent to no purpose about 800
crowns. The reader must not suppose that the wealth of adepts vanished
in the common operations of chemistry; for in point of fact, the
material consumed was the material sought for--gold. Some, indeed,
supposed that by subliming or purifying the imperfect metals to a high
enough degree, they might convert them into the perfect one; but in
general it was acknowledged that there was no way of making gold but
by means of gold itself. The philosopher's stone, as it was called,
was a powder containing the pure essence of gold, and how to obtain
this was the question.

Trevisan was not without friends and advisers in the great search.
Philosophers gathered about him like bees; and by their assistance,
together with the formulae in the works of Geber, he had soon spent
2000 crowns more. But he was not discouraged. He applied to the
treatises of Archelaus, Rufreissa, and Sacro-bosco; associated a monk
with him in his experiments; and in the course of three years had
rectified spirits of wine more than thirty times, till it reached a
point at which no glass was strong enough to hold it. That was very
well; but it cost more than 300 crowns, and he was no nearer his
object than before.

He now began to dissolve, congeal, and sublime common salt,
sal-ammonia, the alums, and copperas; and in distillation,
circulation, and sublimation, he spent twelve busy years, at a cost of
about 6000 crowns. Trevisan almost lost faith in human science, and
set himself earnestly to pray for illumination. In this he was
assisted by a magistrate of his own country; but while invoking divine
aid, they were all the while working away with marine salt. This
substance they continued to rectify for eight months without finding
any change in its nature. It will be seen, that the object of all
these experiments was to find a solvent powerful enough to separate
the essence of gold from its material, the spirit from the body; but
it now struck him like a flash of lightning, that aqua fortis must be
the thing; and throwing himself upon this substance in its state of
greatest intensity, he tried it first upon silver