The way to wealth

[wolfinthewood]

To make Gold out of Lead

Take purged lead one pound, salt armoniac* in powder one ounce, salt elebrot** powdered two drams, saltpetre in powder half an ounce. Put them all into a crucible in a vehement fire two days, then take it away, and you will find perfect gold.

*sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride)

**apparently the same as ‘sal alkali’, potassium carbonate


from Secrets of Art and Nature (1660), p. 211


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Comments

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

I onced worked at a lead smelter (really--it was hell, but that's another story), but I don't remember anyone trying this.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

I bet it was hell.

One of the things that intrigues me about this is that it is much clearer and simpler than most alchemical recipes. Given a pound of refined lead and a furnace - neither of which would be particularly hard to obtain - you could get the other ingredients fairly easily, I believe, try it out - and find that it didn't work.