The Chemistry of Alchemy Page 26

  And this one really did.

  Later it would be established that the spring was rich in sodium sulfate decahydrate, Na2SO4·10H2O, the laxative powers of which are now well known. Sodium sulfate and other sulfates, such as magnesium sulfate (known as Epsom salts for the spring in which it was first found), act as osmotic laxatives in that they draw water into the intestines.2 Yet Glauber's discovery of what the locals already knew would not have been much of a watershed had it not been for the young man's nascent alchemical genius. When he inquired into the origins of the wonderful powers of the stream, he was told it was rich in saltpeter, but he had his doubts. Familiar with saltpeter from his work as an artisan, he knew saltpeter wasn't a laxative.

  Surprisingly incredulous in this credulous age, Glauber decided to test the assumption. He evaporated a sample of the water and collected the salt it contained. He knew saltpeter sparked when thrown into fire (as in demonstration 16), so he threw his salt into fire and found it didn't spark. Now he knew his salt did something saltpeter did not (act as a laxative), and saltpeter did something his salt did not (spark in a flame). He concluded he had isolated a new material, and he was right.

  To be perfectly correct, the material was not new to the world, but it was new to Glauber and certainly better known after he was done. He called it sal mirabile, or miracle salt, but had he stopped there, Glauber wouldn't have been much more than a footnote. But he'd been given the gift of inquisitiveness, and now the gift of discovery, so sal mirabile would not be Glauber's only claim to fame.

  Glauber eventually married and worked for a space in alchemical trades, such as metalworking and wine making, and by selling sal mirabile and other alchemical supplies made on a small scale in his home. Then, at the age of thirty-five, at the height of the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War, Glauber fled Germany with his wife and family and enough money to set up more-elaborate production facilities in Amsterdam. In these workrooms he produced supplies such as lye, salts, and acids and soon showed another side of his genius: he invented a new type of furnace.

  Before Glauber, the chimneys on alchemical furnaces just carried off fumes, but apparently not very well. According to the version of the story Glauber told, he was about to quit the alchemical trade because his furnaces were so smelly and hard to use. But when cleaning out his workroom and selling his equipment, he discovered a bit of silver and gold in a crucible and wasn't able to melt it because he had already sold his bellows. Glauber rearranged the chimney on his furnace so the updraft was better and found he had not only a hotter furnace but also a more efficient one, and one with better temperature control.

  Glauber immediately parlayed this discovery into a new entrepreneurial outlet, the writing and selling of books. His first book, New Philosophical Furnaces, published in German and Latin, sold so well he is estimated to have written at least thirty-six more and may have written as many as forty.3

  How did he fill so many books? He had lots to tell. Glauber subjected an amazing number of materials to his new furnaces and their higher heats. He digested and distilled body parts and excretions. He extracted and isolated oils from plants. He brewed stronger vinegar and was probably the first in Western tradition to distill coal to isolate benzene and phenol, staples of modern organic chemistry.4

  He devised new methods for making the mineral acids HCl, HNO3, and H2SO4 (see demonstration 7) and isolated chloride salts of gold, iron, mercury, antimony, lead, arsenic, copper, and tin. In the process, he observed and described how some materials had a special affinity for others in precipitate-forming reactions5 and metal-to-metal oxidation-reduction reactions (see demonstration 8). These same types of observations would lead, in the nineteenth century, to the organization of the periodic table.

  Glauber found the reaction of sulfuric acid with common salt (sodium chloride) was a new, more efficient synthesis for hydrochloric acid and the by-product he correctly identified as sal mirabile. Again, in true chymist style, he realized he had a synthetic method for sal mirabile manufacture and would no longer have to wait for nature. He wrote in his books of the importance of alchemy to industry and how industry could lead his homeland out of the ruin of the Thirty Years’ War.

  Glauber was aware of the current excitement surrounding saltpeter and was onboard.6 Like Sendivogius and others, he knew the nutrient value of saltpeter and, with the lovable hyperbole of alchemy, declared it should be called miraculum mundi, the miracle of the world, and materia universalis, universal matter, because it could be found in everything. With the conviction of Zosimos, Glauber declared that saltpeter originated as aerial niter in the stars and then mingled with the air to saturate the rain, snow, and dew. The aerial niter was spiritus universalis, without which no fire could burn. But caught in the mindset that a primary material would be a material found in everything to some degree, Glauber, like his cohorts, missed seeing the oxygen of saltpeter as an element on its own.

  So close.

  Glauber used saltpeter as a fertilizer and experimented with mixtures of mineral fertilizers, something similar to the potassium/nitrate/phosphate mixtures that are now sold in nurseries by the bag, and he might have caused a green revolution if he had pursued this notion—but he had other thoughts on his mind.

  It turns out that Glauber, for all his pragmatism, believed the promises of alchemy: he believed somewhere was a method to turn base metal into gold and there existed the universal elixir, if the right recipe could be found.

  Therefore, Glauber was a proponent of the alchemical medicines, and he proposed numerous recipes for “potable gold,”7 a popular Paracelsian potion. Potable means drinkable and this, in fact, is what many alchemists proposed. The activity of the medicine, however, was not the harsh purge of other preparations but rather a throwback to the original Paracelsian ideals. Potable gold was thought to be a suspension of very fine metallic gold particles,8 and as such would not be digested. Gold is difficult to dissolve outside the stomach, as we have seen, and probably survived the lower temperatures and the less acidic environment of the gut quite well. Van Helmont saw the reappearance of undigested gold as proof the medicine was useless, but Glauber saw it as proof of its efficacy. Its lack of reactivity, its nobility, agreed with the Paracelsian notion of similars—the purity and nobility of gold was similar to the state of health the patient wished to achieve. In addition, ultra-purified, diluted metallic gold, delivered in drops, could not cause much distress, and the psychological effect, the placebo effect, was probably quite strong.

  If things did not go well, Glauber had at the ready his own opt-out clause, that the medicine would heal all curable diseases (and, one assumes, not work well for the incurable).9

  And why not? Glauber knew of Paracelsus's cure of syphilis sores with the mineral medicine mercury, so why shouldn't his medicines of potable gold be just as efficacious? He knew lemons cured scurvy, so why not his sour acids? Strengthened by his distillate of wine, his medicines made all imbibers feel better, so wasn't he close to a universal cure? He himself had performed transmutation—he discovered a way to make his sal mirabile from seemingly disparate materials—so why not gold from lead? He knew of reactions that displayed the glorious color changes other alchemists’ books said would portend the philosophers’ stone, so wasn't he nearly there? As we will demonstrate, Glauber even grew a “Tree of Gold” that seemed so close to gold that surely he needed only a slight improvement, a minute adjustment, or one more ingredient, to succeed.

  So Glauber tried—for the rest of his life.

  People with the creative bent necessary for discovery can live life on the edge, and sometimes this works out—but sometimes not. Sadly, Glauber, in the end, frustrated by his attempts to relive his previous triumphs, is said to have gone over to the morass of esoteric alchemy and died in poverty regretting his time spent in the lab. In truth, he earned as much gold with his alchemical processes and furnaces as created by any alchemist; yet, he died believing he had failed.

  Perhaps he wo
uld have found consolation in the fact that sodium sulfate decahydrate, sal mirabile, has been known ever after as Glauber's salts.

  So, to the investigations and industry of Glauber!

  DEMONSTRATION 18. GLAUBER'S GHOSTLY GOLDEN GARDEN

  By the time of Glauber, his golden garden was standard alchemical fare and old hat by the time of our next heroes. But luckily we're not standard alchemists, so we found the Golden Garden very pleasing, and we think you will, too.

  DISPOSAL

  All liquids from this demonstration except the water glass, sodium silicate, can be rinsed down the sink followed by copious amounts of cool water, as usual. Fortunately the water glass is going to be in your ghostly golden garden, so you'll want to keep this forever on the mantel. Otherwise it can go in the trash. Any leftover iron salts can likewise go into the trash.

  GLAUBER'S GHOSTLY GOLDEN GARDEN

  In this demonstration we will grow the tree of Glauber's description.

  The Tree of Gold

  A blood red mass…being put upon the oil of sand, or flints, makes a tree to grow in the space of one or two hours, having root, trunk, and boughs. This being taken out and dried, the test yields good gold, which that tree extracts from the stones or sand. Thou mayest, if thou pleases, more accurately examine this matter.10

  We are actually going to make two masses, a bloodred mass and a green mass. A photo of our golden gardens and trees, complete with roots, trunks, boughs, and golden foliage, is shown on plate 7 in the photo insert.

  To make your two masses you are going to need two 125-milliliter Erlenmeyer flasks, your cast-iron frying pan, steel wool, saltpeter (sodium nitrate), table salt, aquarium-pH-lowering solution, a screwdriver, two sample bottles with screw-on lids, and your sodium silicate solution (see “Stores and Ores”).

  Safety glasses, please. To make your iron masses, take two pinches of steel wool (use work gloves to harvest your pinch) and place one in each of the flasks. Cover each with one-fourth cup (50 milliliters) of aquarium-pH-lowering solution. To one of the flasks, add about a quarter teaspoon (about 3 milliliters) of table salt. To the other, add a quarter teaspoon saltpeter (sodium nitrate).

  Label the flasks or set them on a labeled paper towel so you know which one is which.

  Starting with the flask with table salt, heat the flask in the cast-iron skillet, occasionally stirring with your glass stirring rod or screwdriver (burner on 50 percent power and exhaust on full power). After about thirty minutes the table salt flask should have developed a gray-green color. If not all the steel wool is dissolved, add a little more pH-lowering solution and keep cooking. When all your steel wool has dissolved and you have a nice gray-green solution, turn the burner down to 40 percent power and wait until the solution evaporates to dryness and turns into a powdery, dry, green mass. Set the flask aside to cool.

  While the green mass is cooling you can make your bloodred mass. Take the flask with saltpeter and put it in the cast-iron frying pan, as before, at 50 percent power. In about twenty minutes the solution should have developed a dark-brown color. Watch, and when it gets to a certain point, the solution will suddenly fizz up and immediately turn bloodred. The alchemists must have loved this reaction.

  At this point, turn the heat down to 40 percent power. Wait patiently while the solution evaporates until it is a bubbling, gooey mass on the bottom of the flask. When it has the consistency of molasses (a very thick syrup), remove it from the heat and set it aside to cool. When it is cool, it may lose its reddish color, but don't worry, you will see it again.

  While the solids are cooling, set up your sample bottles.

  The “oil of sand” we will be using is water glass, a commercially available aqueous solution of sodium or potassium silicate suggested for purchase in “Stores and Ores.” The commercial water glass is in fact the same material Glauber used, but he made his by heating powdered sand with sodium carbonate and then dissolving the fused, glassy mass in water—a bit too arduous for us. The commercial material is just as good and readily available. It is used routinely in crystal-garden kits sold as educational toys.

  You will also need two small, clear, glass or plastic containers to grow your golden trees, which are easily found at hobby stores or online. As you can see in plate 7 in the photo insert, the ones we used were cylindrical glass bottles that held about 2 tablespoons (about 30 milliliters) of water glass. You might want to use a little bit of clean sand as “ground” for your tree, but it isn't necessary. It does, however, contribute to the ghostly effect.

  Put a thin layer of sand in the bottom of your container if you are using sand and then pour in water glass. Wearing surgical gloves, sprinkle small chunks of your iron masses on the surface of the water glass. Don't cover the surface completely. We did a different mass for each bottle, but you can feel free to experiment with different arrangements.

  Shake the bottles gently side to side (not up and down) until the particles start to settle to the bottom, and then set them aside. We found the trees grew best in a warm environment, so if you can, put them on a window sill, but they still grow in a cooler place, just more slowly.

  If all is well, in a couple of hours you will have a foggy Harry Potter garden of golden and black-and-brown twisted tree trunks, green ghostly branches, and lovely golden foliage on top.

  The actual chemistry and physics of the interesting color changes and formations is quite complicated (crystal gardens were even grown in the space station to try to sort out the effects), so we won't claim to offer a complete explanation here. Yet we know that part of the process is iron salts dissolving very slowly in the water glass and then re-crystallizing one crystal atop another. The “gold” that grows on the top is oxidized iron salts, otherwise known as rust, and it does have a gold-like appearance in this environment.

  We do not, however, claim our golden foliage will test as “good gold.”

  Demonstrations such as these help us understand why Glauber and many other intelligent, reflective thinkers of the time believed so strongly in the possibility of “growing” gold and the animation of other inert materials. Their experiences reinforced the idea of transmutation and kept alchemy alive and well in western Europe and England in the 1600s.

  Well enough, in fact, to cross the ocean to New England, as we will see with our next champion: John Winthrop—Puritan, colonist, and alchemist.

  All is not gold that glisters like it.

  Edward Howes, alchemist,

  to John Winthrop the Younger, alchemist, ca. 1650*

  In this chapter, we tell a tale of alchemists at Harvard and begin our saga of the Honorable Robert Boyle. We say “begin” because Robert Boyle is a bigger-than-one-chapter alchemist. Robert Boyle's game-changing alchemical career commenced as the world opened in two theatres: the Old World and the New. Politics, economies, lifestyles, medicine, and alchemy were bathed in the influence of the New World, so before we call on Boyle in old England, we visit New England first.

  We start with John Winthrop the Younger, governor of Connecticut for nearly twenty years, champion of Connecticut's Royal Charter, son of the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—and an alchemist.1

  Born to a well-off Puritan family in London, John Winthrop (1606–1676) attended Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied law and learned alchemy.2 His interest in alchemy may have been stimulated by Edward Howes, a fellow student and the author of our opening quote, but it was a lifelong fascination.

  On his young man's journey, Winthrop sailed to relieve French Protestants under siege and then traveled to Venice and Constantinople to retrace the footsteps of Christian Rosencreutz. Finding no footsteps to retrace, he returned, married, and moved to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, bringing with him chemicals, equipment, and alchemical books.

  While it might seem curious that an alchemist would move to a Puritan New World colony, his fellow Puritans in fact welcomed him and his alchemy. Not only had his father, the elder John Winthrop, been the leader of Purit
an settlers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but alchemy in the colonies was seen as a worthwhile pursuit. Alchemy produced medicines, dyes, explosives, fertilizers, and pesticides, and it promised more. Their faith in Winthrop the Younger did not go unrewarded. He proved an energetic entrepreneur, promoting community projects such as ironworks, salt works, mining, metallurgy, and agriculture.

  On a return to London, Winthrop connected to an informal association of like-minded intellectuals, led by a successful businessman, Samuel Hartlib, whose members identified themselves as the “Hartlib circle.” Robert Boyle, one of the principals, called the association the “Invisible College.” These friends shared the common goal of improving the lot of humankind through educational, social, medical, and spiritual reform—and they discussed these issues at length in their casual caucuses. This group joined with others, and the conglomeration eventually formalized their meetings and in 1660 received royal blessing. They became the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, otherwise known as the Royal Society. In 1662 Winthrop became a member of the Royal Society, the first member from the colonies.

  Through his association with prominent men in the Royal Society, and their influence in government, Winthrop was able to secure a charter for Connecticut in 1662. The help, however, was not entirely altruistic. The Royal Society knew the king needed to know more about these far-flung colonies in order to effectively exert an influence. They asked Winthrop, in his turn, to supply them with information on the colonies on a regular basis. Winthrop's loyalties, however, lay with the colonists, so he neatly sidestepped efforts to make him a spy.