Book Description

Excerpt from A d104book of Inorganic Chemistry for Colleges But advance was slow as long as observation and chance alone led the way. Directed experimentation was necessary; and for this a motive had to be present. It was with the rise of alchemy that such a motive appeared. The alchemists sought the things which were supposed to lead to happiness - health and riches. They endeavored to change the common metals into gold, hoping to do this with the help of a mysterious substance, called the philosopher's stone. But gold without health is of little value, so a search was made for the elixir of life, which could bring back glorious youth to the aged. Men worked at these problems all over Europe. They studied everything available, mixed things together, and heated and distilled them when possible. As sub stances appeared to affect one another more readily when they were dissolved in some liquid, a third substance, a universal solvent, was sought as an aid toward accomplishing the end in View. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.