Chapter 20

CHAPTER XIII

✦

THE ALCHEMIST’S LABORATORY AND

HIS APPARATUS

THE laboratory or workshop of the alchemist has been
made familiar to us by the Dutch and other painters of the
seventeenth century. David Teniers, Witt, Van der Veldt, Jan
Steen, and other masters found in these picturesque and dark
interiors, with their varied array of curiously shaped apparatus,
subjects of never-failing interest.

They delighted to portray the bearded and venerable al¬
chemist, in cap and gown, intent on some operation in his quest
for the Stone, or seated in a chair peering at some manuscript or
ancient tome that might perhaps give him the key to the mystery.
From the black and smoke-begrimed beams and rafters of the
roof hangs the crocodile, alligator, or strange-shaped fishes, and
from a corner glares a great owl, symbolic of wisdom. On the
shelves that line the walls stand quaint jars, curiously shaped
flasks and bottles, or the skulls and bones of beasts, birds, and
fishes. On one side of the adept stands the great still, and on
the other his aludel or sublimatory, while on a bench or table
close by are his globe and hour-glass. The floor is littered with
jars, pots, dishes, crucibles, mortars and pestles, funnels, tongs,
and other implements of his art. Away in the background the
assistant is often seen working the great bellows, feeding a
furnace, or luting some apparatus and making ready for the next
operation. The twisted condenser, like a monstrous snake, and
the big globular recipients or long-necked matrasses are tinged
with gleams of light from a burning brazier, while alembics glow
like fireflies in a dim corner.

The adept sometimes began his operations with prayer, as we
108

THE ALCHEMIST’S LABORATORY

learn from the Mappce Clavicula , in which the recipe for “ Mak¬
ing of Gold ” begins, “Prayer you are to recite during the opera¬
tion or the fusion that follows, in order that the gold may be
formed.” The idea of prayer doubtless arose from the in¬
vocations to deities that came down from the times of the
Egyptians, which in the
Middle Ages came to be
merged into Christian prac¬
tices.

But the alchemist’s sur¬
roundings could not have
been always the picturesque
interiors which artists loved
to represent, for, according
to descriptions of labora¬
tories that have been left by
writers of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, they
were usually arranged with
workmanlike precision.

The various types of ap¬
paratus that have come down
to us from the days of the alchemists form an interesting study.
Some of them led to important discoveries in times gone by
and are now almost forgotten, while others still survive in our
laboratories and have changed but little in shape throughout
the centuries.

The earliest known representation of a piece of apparatus
used in alchemy appears in the Greek manuscript of a treatise
attributed to Synesius and said to have been written in the
fourth century. It is the drawing of a crude still, the body of
which is formed by a large cucurbit, a bulbous-shaped vessel
round at the bottom with a short, wide neck, surmounted by a
caput, or head, from which a tube runs into a receiver.

Several of the early manuscripts on alchemy contain drawings

109

PLAN AND ELEVATION OF A LABORATORY
Libavius, 1606

LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

of the apparatus described in the texts, and many of these types
were probably designed about the end of the tenth or the begin-

TRIBICUS, STILL, AND OTHER APPARATUS DESCRIBED BY SYNESIUS

IN THE FOURTH CENTURY

From a drawing in a Greek manuscript

ning of the eleventh century. Others may date from an earlier
period, as they correspond to descriptions of apparatus recorded

by Zosimus and Olympiodorus, and among them we have stills,
flasks for digestion, and a Balneum Marias, which was a vessel
for holding hot water in which a flask or retort containing the

i io

THE ALCHEMIST
Thomas Wyck
Photo Bruckmann, Munich

THE ALCHEMIST’S LABORATORY

substance to be digested was kept at a gentle heat for the neces¬
sary period.

The still appears to have been originally built up from a cucur¬
bit; from this evolved the alembic, the name of which was
given by the Arabs to the complete still from the Greek ambix ,

STILL- HEADS AND ALEMBICS

Libavius, 1606

a cup. At first built up from two pieces with a removable
head, at a later period the alembic, when it was of glass, was
sometimes made in one. Alembics were also made of clay and
earthenware to withstand greater heat. The recipient or re¬
ceiver, which was fitted over the open end of the tube of the
alembic in order to receive the distillate, was a globular vessel
which varied in size and was usually of glass.

Another early piece of apparatus was the retort, which appears
to have been originally adapted from the matrass with the tube
curved downward. It had various forms according to the angle

LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

at which the tube was bent, either high or low. Retorts were
made of clay, earthenware, or glass. The matrass was a flask
with a long neck that was employed for many purposes.

The pelican, another piece of apparatus frequently used, was
a vessel with a tubular neck and provided with two beaks, one

RETORTS AND MATRASSES PELICANS, CUCURBITS, AND TWINS

Libavius, 1606 Libavius, 1606

opposite to the other, in order to conduct the vapour to the
lower part of the vessel, so that distillation could be carried on
constantly.

The aludel, or sublimatory, dates from about the thirteenth
century and, as its secondary name implies, was used for sub¬
limation. It consisted of a gourd-shaped pot of earthenware
or clay, so fashioned that a series could be built one upon the
other to a height of five or six feet. The bottom pot was set
on a stove, which supplied the heat, and as the vapour arose it
condensed on the inside of the upper pots, from which it was
afterward removed by scraping.

112

THE ALCHEMIST’S LABORATORY

Another important piece of apparatus was the athanor, which
usually formed a prominent feature of the laboratory. It was a
type of furnace made of clay, and stood about five feet high. It
was constructed so that it could be divided into several parts,
the bottom one consisting of a small fireplace which supplied the

APPARATUS FOR
DIGESTION OR
SUBLIMATION

trom a Syriac manu¬
script of the thir¬
teenth century in
the British Museum

ATHANORS

“ The athanor was the reverberatory oven of the philosophers.
The fire did not touch the base, and the required heat was suitably
and uniformly imparted.” — Ruland.

Libavius, 1606

necessary heat. It was employed chiefly for the purpose of
digestion, but was also used for evaporating certain liquids.

The serpent, used in distillation, was usually made of metal,
and consisted of a spiral or zigzag tube which acted as a con¬
denser and connected the cucurbit with the caput. The balloon
was a spherical-shaped vessel, usually made of glass, with two or
three short spouts or beaks, and was employed to collect the dis¬
tillate, the third spout being set in a recipient to receive it. The
cloche, the forerunner of the bell-jar, was used for subliming,
while the crucifix, which was built up of three cucurbits round
a central glass vessel, was employed for the same purpose. The
H 113

LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

philosopher’s egg was the name usually given to a flask with
a round bulb and a short neck by which it could be attached
to another flask. The evaporating dish was a circular-shaped

APPARATUS FOR
DIGESTION

From a Syriac manuscript
of the thirteenth century
in the British Museum

SERPENT CONDENSER
Eighteenth century

shallow vessel which was placed over the Balneum Marias or a
sand-bath and in which liquids were placed for evaporation.

The earliest form of condenser appears to have been the
serpent or zigzag, which was cooled by air. The water-cooled
coil that passed into a vat does not appear to have been used
until the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The type of condenser
associated with the name of Liebig was known at a much earlier
114

THE ALCHEMIST’S LABORATORY

period, and, judging from an ivory carving owned by the
writer, must have been used at least two centuries ago. This
object is a beautiful ivory mortar of the seventeenth century;
it was formerly in the Goldsmid Collection, and the carving
in high relief represents the interior of a laboratory in which

FURNACES OF VARIOUS TYPES

Libavius, 1606

several boys are manipulating various pieces of apparatus. One
boy holds a staff entwined with a serpent, emblematic of
medicine, two are using a pestle and mortar, two more are
attending to a pump, while another holds a spouted flask. A
furnace and a still are shown, and to a large retort is attached
a condenser, cylindrical in shape, with a funnelled tube near
the centre into which water can be poured ; a bent tube on the
other side is probably intended for an outlet. At the end of the

1I5

LURE & ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

condenser is a vertical tube through which the distillate passes
into the receiver.

There were various types of furnaces, such as the reverbera¬
tory used for the distillation of mineral substances, the distillation
furnace for distilling per descensum , and the furnace for fusing

APPARATUS FOR DISTILLATION
Libavius, 1606

metals. Such operations as the evaporation of extracts and saline
solutions were generally conducted on the alchemist’s hearth.
Baths, both wet and dry, were employed for the digestion of sub¬
stances at various degrees of heat. For very slow evaporation
sand was used instead of water, while cinders or iron filings on
a slow furnace were sometimes employed for the same purpose.

Caput mortuum was the term given to the residue that was
left in the bulb of a retort after an operation, and the word
116

THE ALCHEMIST’S LABORATORY

‘cohobation,’ often met with in works on alchemy, was applied
to the repetition of distillation, as when the distillate was poured
on the material from which it had already been distilled and
then redistilled.

Important to the alchemist when erecting his apparatus were
the substances, or mixture of substances, called lutes, by means

A RETORT AND RECIPIENT STILL FOR MAKING SPIRIT OF WINE
From The Art of Distillation (1667)

of which he put together, fixed, and sealed the various parts.
Soft clay seems to have been the basis of many of them, but
the formulae for lutes in treatises on alchemy are very numerous.
“To have good lutes in a laboratory,” says a writer of the
sixteenth century,

is a thing very necessary for all, for which I furnish you herewith
the following lessons about it, what lutes and clays receive ye
fires and what do not. First, a luting for still or receiver, loam
serves well enough but not for ye fires, for in a strong fire it melts
and is not fit therefore for use. Loam mixed to a compost with
horse-dung till soft enough can be used for glass and other retorts

I]t7

LURE <S? ROMANCE OF ALCHEMY

and crucibles, but Stourbridge clay, mixed with powdered glass and
water to the consistency of a soft paste, makes the finest lute of all.

Glass-house sand and loam mixed together are said to make
another good lute, while clay tobacco-pipes reduced to powder,
calcined, and then mixed with clay, form a lute which does not

DISTILLING APPARATUS

Woodcut
From Ryff, 1567

(1667)

spoil in the fire and is therefore very suitable for all glass. A
common lute for glass vessels was composed of flour and whit¬
ing, mixed into a paste with water. This was applied very
thinly to the joints in the apparatus.

In the following interesting account, which was found at¬
tached to a manuscript written in 1 560, the prices of apparatus
supplied to an alchemist at that period are shown.

2 bottel bodies

pro 3

solidis

6 denarius

3 Alembici

» 4

6 quart Retort

» 4

1 bottel Retort

„ 1

6 pint Retort

1 bottel headt

>> 3

1 quart head /

>> 2

5 parting glasses

„ 2

1 recepter

,, 8

3 Phialae

„ 1

THE ALCHEMIST’S LABORATORY

2 Cucurbitae cum 2 Alembicis caecis pro 3 solidis
2 Receptacula pro retort ,,3 ,,

2 alia vitae „ 9 denarius

apparatus employed in a laboratory in the late seventeenth

CENTURY

1, Pelican ; 2, vessel for mixing ; 3, hell ; 4, flat-bottomed matrass ; 5, twins ; 6,
matrass ; 7, alembic in one piece ; 8, philosopher’s egg ; 9, egg within an egg ;

10, small matrass ; 11, separation glass ; 12, blind alembic without a beak ;

13, recipient ; 14, glass funnel ; 15, retort ; 16, cucurbit; 17, disc or straw mat
upon which vessels were placed.

It will be observed from the above illustration, which is
taken from a French work printed at the end of the seventeenth
century, that the shapes of some pieces of apparatus underwent
changes in the course of time.

Although some types have since become obsolete, the
matrass, now generally called a flask, the retort, the recipient or
receiver, and the funnel are still employed by chemists in their
laboratories to-day.