![]() ![]() It’s a recipe for distilling a volatile spirit out of lead ore … which corresponds nicely with Newton’s interpretation with various alchemical authors.’ Alchemical anonymity ‘In this case there is a note of an experiment that he did. ‘It’s often the case with Newton’s manuscripts that if they lie around long enough he turns them over and writes something else on the back,’ says Voelkel. But Voelkel says it ‘would not have been out of character’ for him to attempt it.Īs well as the copied text, the manuscript includes a description of one of Newton’s own experiments. There is no mention of the process in his laboratory notebook, which is currently kept at the University of Cambridge in the UK. It is likely Newton used the text as a reference when conducting his own alchemical experiments, although it is unclear whether he ever tried to make sophick mercury. ‘The idea is if you break the metals down you can then reassemble them and make different metals.’ The process was part of the effort to make the philosopher’s stone, he adds, a mythical substance that alchemists believed could turn lead into gold. ‘Philosophic mercury was a substance that could be used to break down metals into their constituent parts,’ explains James Voelkel, the CHF’s curator of rare books. It describes a process for making ‘sophick’ – short for ‘philosophic’ – mercury. ![]() Its title translates as ‘Preparation of the Mercury for the Stone by the Antimonial Stellate Regulus of Mars and Luna from the Manuscripts of the American Philosopher’. The document is a copy of a known text authored by another alchemist, written in Latin, as was common practice at the time. The document contains text copied fom another alchemist's writings as well as descriptions of Newton’s own experiments Courtesy of the Chemical Heritage Foundation ![]()
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