Extract from Guldenfalk

Short extract from Guldenfalk
Siegmund Heinrich Guldenfalk, Sammlung von mehr als hundert wahrhaften Transmutations-geschichten, oder ganz ausserordentlich merkwürdige Beyspiele von Verwandlung der Metallen in Gold oder Silber nebst der Art und Weise wie damit verfahren worden. [Collection of more than a hundred true transmutation stories, or quite extraordinary strange examples of transformation of metals into gold or silver together with the manner and way they were done.] Frankfurt, 1784.

1.
History of Projections from a foreign Earl
that had been reported by Mr. Burghardt.

For a quite long time I have become acquainted by a foreign Earl who was in service as Minister at a Royal Court and was a great lover of Chymistry and moreover, owned a immense asset, and neither had wife nor children; that's why he could spend his spare time for reading good books and for all kinds of chymical, physical and mathematical experiments.
At one time this gentleman showed me a very big piece of a fire-resistant Mercury, as he prefered to call it, which resembled more a Spiessglass-Cinnabar rather than a Minera Antimonii when it is not grinded, because it was a little bit reddish besides its grey colour. Bye the way the matter was extraordinarily heavy. From it he broke a little piece such a like a barleycorn but which after all weighed half a Scrupel [1.2 grams], and directed me to put it into an iron dipper (how it is used in a kitchen for watering the roast) which, in the meantime, was made glowing in a brazier by me, with the admonition to diligently take care whether this fixed Mercury would smoke. I did it and bravely blew the coals so that they glowed almost white; since the grain of Mercurii fixi melt together after a very short annealing and after a few moments, without any smoke, disappeared. Afterwards I had to extinguish the dipper in cold water. It looked black like each annealed iron. Then I bent it together because I felt it extraordinarily soft, took it with me and carried it, accompanied by the Eearl, to a known goldsmith , there I performed the test with lead and obtained a grain of the finest silver of about one and a half ounces.
This silver, which came through the test, was of a such whiteness that it blinded the eyes and very soft and ductile. But the dipper itself did not transmute into silver as only so far it was annealed: yet a part of the handle which laid outside the coals was and remained iron.
I have to admit, that a Stone of the Philosopher might exist; I held it in my hands for red and white. The red looked like burnt blood and the lucidity of the white one resembled first snowfall, which in comparison to this one seem to appear dark.
At that time, when I was busy for the military service, I have seen, that my prince inherited the blade from a dying soldier, because the dying man also seeked for it. The prince as a clever gentleman, imagined rather easily, that there must be hidden something special, investigated the blade behind and ahead, above and below, and at all its sides, even cut up the scabbard, however nothing was to discover; above all he viewed the knob which was a little bit bigger as usual and it was screwed on.
Four weeks later the prince had let advance all officers and offered them a big festival because of the battle of Lissa. During the table the Prince let bring two boxes which he opened and spoke:"You certainly have not overseen that recently a soldier had bequeathed to me his blade before his death. According to the latter you should know that in the knob of the blade were hidden two little envelopes; in the one was a red and in the other was a white powder of an hugely heaviness, thereby was a little slip of paper therein was written how one should proceed with it.
"With that I have tinged a certain metal with such an amount that I obtained 30.000 ducats of gold and 50.000 Reichsthaler of silver.
Of that yield he has handed out lordly gifts within the officers and the vulgar.

2.
Tincture of the Emperor Rudolph the second.

The gentleman from Brandau [possibly Matthias von Brandau] reports to us that the Emperor Rudolph the second didn't love the Hermetic Art in vain, but finally gained a tincture by himself which was estimated on 40.000 ducats. Her majesty, he speaks, used to carry it occasionally in a broad silver looking can coated with red velvet. It was stolen by the chamberlain Nutzken, who hanged himself, after the death of the emperor, and later found in the house of Nutzken and given over her majesty, emperor Matthias, as the legitimate heir.
The one who saw this tincture, reports to us, that it has been grey, coulored like ash und very heavy. By weight increase with mercury (of ingress ?), such is usual in the Art.

3.
News from Count Cagliostro and his tincture.
Taken from the imperial Reichspostamtzeitung, 28 April 1781, Num. 68. Straßbourg, 17 April.

In their newspapers they have mentioned obviously only the least part of the extraordinary merits of our marvellous Count Cagliostro; thus I have the honor to communicate here to you some anecdotes which he himself had told to the most credible persons here daily and hourly. Once upon a time he was consulted by a courtly Polish lady who had been wed to a Prince. He entrusted her a locket with the promise that she, as long as she would carry it with her, would keep healthy and would be lucky in all her attempts. And it happened according to his promise. But, one evening she had forgotten the locket on her bedside table, and Sir Count Cagliostro, at least 200 hours far from her, found it at the very same evening in his pocket and soon became to know that the Lady would be always sickly, that she had overturned with her carriage, badly treated by her husband and had become unhappily in all other kinds.
Another anecdote told by Sir Count Calignostro, is that, when he had a layover in Constantinople, the Grand Sultan became very seriously sick. The Count was consulted and shortly her imperial Turkish Majesty has recovered and offered the Count that he could ask for a favour, regardless of what it might consist. The Count didn't ask for nothing except for the freedom of 200 Christian slaves and which he obtained and presented to everyone with 100 Lois d'or.
The third anecdote, of which I will have the honour to tell you of this miraculous Count, is, that he spent some time in Vienna during the lifetime of the deceased empress; he was consulted to a person which the doctors declared for dead. He has asked them for the written certificate for confirming of that person's death; .then he began the cure for this person and caused him completely to recover within one day thanks to the power of elixir of life. That cure became known to the deceased empress, which let him ask for the recipe of his elixir; however he didn't want to disclose it, and when he got to know, that the empress, a secret, which would so advantageous for mankind, intended to obtain by force; thus he took his wife with his hands, left Vienna in a hurry and left there behind stocks for more than 70000 thousands Livres because he is a dedicated enemy of all kinds of force.
Actually it is an inexplicable man who just needs to want in order to do it. Letting ghosts to appear, making gold, melting precious stones, changing wise people into fools, is pastime for him only; he only failed to receive not yet trust and favour from professors and physicians; but, in order to tell the truth, he did not seek for such up to now.

Frankfurt Staats-Ristretto [State affairs] 12 April 1783.
Miscellaneous news.

A public gazette writes the following concerning Sir Count of Calignostro: It is said that physicians seem to reconcile with him and they partly admit that his recipes show profound knowledge in pharmacology but especially in chymistry. The most strange with this man is still his severe disinterestedness; he doesn't take from sick persons who frequently betake themselves to him and whom he visits by himself, even not the most considerable retribution; nonetheless he lives in great style and spends at least 20000 Livres anually, without knowing the origin of his resources. Some time ago he had cured the wife of a citizen from Basel in Switzerland from convulsive attacks; hereupon the husband of that woman invited him to his home in Basel whereto the Count in fact appeared lately. He stayed there for some days in which time he prescribed medincines for all sick persons who came to him through the feather of the woman: because he never writes suchlike by himself.
Switzerland, and especially the region around Basel, had been enjoyed by him so that he should have decided to rent a house in the village Richen near Basel and to spend there a part of the year, and alternately the other part, as in in the past, in Strassbourg.

4.
Report of an Englishman who died in Brussels
acknowledged as an undoubted adept with the name Rollesson.
Taken from the Frankfourt Reichspostzeitung, 10 March 1783.

In Brussels has recently died a travelling Englishman with the name Rollesson, who, perhaps, more than someone else, could be deserved by the name of a gold-maker, if the following circumstances, reported from London on his account, are corresponding with the truth.
The profession of this man was chymist, operated a chymical and material store in Thames street in London for many years and lived a simple and mediocre life.
When he was 49 or 50 years old he suddenly gave up his entire shop, rented a big house in Grosvenor Square, purchased goods in Northhampton, Kent, Essex, Southfolk, Norfolk and in some other shires; he purchased a plantation in Jamaica and invested so much capital in public funds that he could attain two till three thousand pounds sterling accumulated interest from the bank anually.
As far as his friends can remember he never received any heritages; also he did not deal in lottery and furthermore his worth was too respectable as he could have attained it from profits of lottery.
After the closure of his shop he nonetheless still operated a big and valuable laboratory wherein he had worked alone in a special little room.
His annual expenses amounted to 12 till 15000 pounds sterling and he has been very generous in distributing gifts.
Almost everyone had believed from him that he owns a secret of the transmutation of metals, but which probably has not been without big costs and thus has not been of considerable productiveness, because he had affections and talents to a much bigger expense as it was his own.
He was on the verge to go to Italy because of his healthiness, when death put an end to his journey, his life and his secret buried by him.

Doctor Cluver is telling in Nova crisi Tom. II [Dethlevi Cluveri Nova crisis temporum oder Curioser philosophischer Welt-Mercurius, welcher die merkwurdigste und schwereste Sachen der Welt Hamburg, 1703] that an Italian in Poland had softened gold like wax alone by the sole addition of a liquid matter and without coal fire, so that it has had cast into a number of moulds. He calls his entire philosophy Ignem, because the heavenly fire is acting everywhere and penetrates.

A Turkish priest once went to a location where copper was cast into caldrons and entered this house. In the furnace was filled more than 300 pound of floating copper. In such he threw a small parcel and left, by that all has become gold.

In London and Venice, as reported by Schwedenborg in his terrestrial and heavenly Philosophy, p. 121, has been proved by experimentation, that by blending of two liquid matters the hardest body like crystal was generated within several minutes.

There was found 1 ½ pound tinged gold in the legacy of the General Field-train-master prince of Stollberg.

In the year 1702 has been transmuted for three different times one quint lead by 4 drops tincture into gold, which could be still seen there, in Frankfourt am Mayn, on the Römerberg, at the pharmacist Mr. Salzwedel carried out by a foreign druggist journeyman.

10.

The grocer Koch, resided at the so called Schnabelbrunnen in Frankfourt am Mayn, has made in his room by one gran tincture, given to him by a foreign Count, one ounce quicksilver into good gold within one hour without laying on the hands by the stranger. One half of the gold, which was of 7 quint, therefore has been one quint loss of quicksilver, has been proved by Mr. Koch through several tests and afterwards has let make a shirt button thereof; the other half, how it came from the crucible, together with the button, can be still observed by him by everyone, and with it, it is weird that the Mercury itself has not been entirely ripened but still granulous, but nonetheless had been entirely coagulated.

11.

A chymist from Prague, as such could be read in Chymischen Schatzkammer, p. 196, [possibly Kellner, David: Wohlangerichtetes Aerarium Chymicum, Antiqvo-Novum, oder Alt-erneuert und reichlichst vermehrte Chymische Schatzkammer … Leipzig 1702] has tinged at once 40000 ducats at the güldenen Horn.