otten
that the "Keely motor" was a late nineteenth-century illusion.

But long before the belief in the philosopher's stone had died out, the
methods of the legerdemain alchemist had been investigated and reported
upon officially by bodies of men appointed to make such investigations,
although it took several generations completely to overthrow a
superstition that had been handed down through several thousand years.
In April of 1772 Monsieur Geoffroy made a report to the Royal Academy of
Sciences, at Paris, on the alchemic cheats principally of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. In this report he explains many of the
seemingly marvellous feats of the unscrupulous alchemists. A very common
form of deception was the use of a double-bottomed crucible. A copper or
brass crucible was covered on the inside with a layer of wax, cleverly
painted so as to resemble the ordinary metal. Between this layer of wax
and the bottom of the crucible, however, was a layer of gold dust or
silver. When the alchemist wished to demonstrate his power, he had but
to place some mercury or whatever substance he chose in the crucible,
heat it, throw in a grain or two of some mysterious powder, pronounce a
few equally mysterious phrases to impress his audience, and, behold, a
lump of precious metal would be found in the bottom of his pot. This was
the favorite method of mediocre performers, but was, of course, easily
detected.

An equally successful but more difficult way was to insert
surreptitiously a lump of metal into the mixture, using an ordinary
crucible. This required great dexterity, but was facilitated by the
use of many mysterious ceremonies on the part of the operator while
performing, just as the modern vaudeville performer diverts the
attention of the audience to his right hand while his left is engaged
in the trick. Such ceremonies were not questioned, for it was the common
belief that the whole process "lay in the spirit as much as in the
substance," many, as we have seen, regarding the whole process as a
divine manifestation.

Sometimes a hollow rod was used for stirring the mixture in the
crucible, this rod containing gold dust, and having the end plugged
either with wax or soft metal that was easily melted. Again, pieces
of lead were used which had been plugged with lumps of gold carefully
covered over; and a very simple and impressive demonstration was making
use of a nugget of gold that had been coated over with quicksi