Illustrations from Becher's Tripus hermeticus fatidicus - Alchemy Symbolism and Imagery - Alchemical Symbolism and Imagery


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Paul Ferguson
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Interesting furnace pictures.

https://www.facebook.com/aya.huasca.1/media_set?set=a.654049881359365.1073741868.100002630766665&type=1

Complete text at:
http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/fs1/object/display/bsb10071951_00317.html

Alexander Guthrie Stewart
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Odd furnace. Is it supposed to be made of cast metal or something? If so, it would be a tremeandous waste of energy. Or is the shape indicative of some hidden meaning? If anything, I would have the narrow part at the top and the wider bit at the bottom.

Also that's the earliest picture of double action bellows that I have seen so far, I suspect they are a late 16th/ early 17th century invention at the moment, never seen any real research about them.

Last edited on Tue Oct 28th, 2014 11:32 pm by Alexander Guthrie Stewart

Paul Ferguson
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Alexander Guthrie Stewart wrote:
Odd furnace. Is it supposed to be made of cast metal or something? If so, it would be a tremeandous waste of energy. Or is the shape indicative of some hidden meaning? If anything, I would have the narrow part at the top and the wider bit at the bottom.

Also that's the earliest picture of double action bellows that I have seen so far, I suspect they are a late 16th/ early 17th century invention at the moment, never seen any real research about them.

There's some discussion of the furnace here (bottom of page 37), with a hint that the shape may have had alchemical rather than chemical significance:

http://tinyurl.com/qyq9cqm

It was clever in that it could be put together in eight different ways and was completely portable, which may have had some bearing on the shape.

Alexander Guthrie Stewart
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Paul Ferguson wrote: Alexander Guthrie Stewart wrote:
Odd furnace. Is it supposed to be made of cast metal or something? If so, it would be a tremeandous waste of energy. Or is the shape indicative of some hidden meaning? If anything, I would have the narrow part at the top and the wider bit at the bottom.

Also that's the earliest picture of double action bellows that I have seen so far, I suspect they are a late 16th/ early 17th century invention at the moment, never seen any real research about them.

There's some discussion of the furnace here (bottom of page 37), with a hint that the shape may have had alchemical rather than chemical significance:

http://tinyurl.com/qyq9cqm

It was clever in that it could be put together in eight different ways and was completely portable, which may have had some bearing on the shape.
Ah yes, I recall reading that portable furnaces had a tremeandous vogue, even into the 19th century. In fact that link is to one of the books I have seen mentioned. I notice on the next page a furnace invented by Joseph Black which works by taking in or out various stoppers, which is the principle mentioned by Thomas Norton several hundred years earlier.