CHAPTER XXIV

THE LAST OF THE ALCHEMISTS

THE story of James Price, who was among the last to be¬
lieve in the alchemical doctrine of transmutation, is one
of romantic and tragic interest. He was born in London in
1752, and his real name was James Higginbotham, but, to com¬
ply with the wish of a relative who left him a legacy, he became
known as Price. He had a brilliant career at Oxford, and at the
age of twenty-five took his degree as Master of Arts and was a
gentleman commoner of Magdalen Hall. In 1778 the university,
in recognition of his discoveries in natural science, especially in
chemistry, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Medi¬
cine, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society at the
early age of twenty-nine.

Possessed of ample means, he took a country-house at Stoke,
near Guildford, where he equipped a fine laboratory in which to
continue his work in chemistry and with the aim of discovering
a medium by means of which he could change certain metals
into gold. After some years of labour he became convinced that
at last he had found the long-sought-for secret, and invited a
number of distinguished scientific men, including Lord Onslow
and Lord Palmerston, the father of the famous statesman, to his
house to witness his experiments in transmuting mercury into
silver and gold. This, he said, he was able to carry out by means
of a white powder which, he declared, was capable of converting
fifty times its own weight of mercury into silver, and a red
powder by means of which he was able to change sixty times
its own weight of mercury into gold. The composition of these
powders he kept secret, but he claimed that in seven successive
trials he had mixed them in a crucible with mercury; at first
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four crucibles with weighed quantities of the white powder, and
then three other crucibles with weighed quantities of the red
powder, with the result that silver and gold appeared in the
crucibles after they had been heated in the furnace. He had
submitted the precious metals produced to assayers, who had
pronounced them genuine.

Specimens of the gold were shown to George III, and Price
published a pamphlet entitled An Account of Some Experiments ,
in which, although he repudiated the doctrine of the Philo¬
sopher’s Stone, he claimed that he had “by laborious experi¬
ments discovered how to prepare these composite powders,
which were the practical realizations of that long-sought marvel.”

The pamphlet was translated into several languages, and it
created considerable excitement in the scientific world. Some
of the older Fellows of the Royal Society urged Price to reveal
the secret of the preparation of the powders and pointed out the
propriety of proving his discovery before the society of which he
was a Fellow. Price, however, refused to comply with the re¬
quest, and in a letter to a friend gives for his reason that he might
have been deceived by the dealers who had sold the mercury to
him, and that it might have contained gold. He was, however,
further pressed by two leading Fellows of the Royal Society to
repeat his experiments in their presence, but in reply to this he
made the excuses that the powders were exhausted and that the
expense of making more was too great for him to bear, while the
labour involved had already affected his health.

The Royal Society now interfered officially, and the President,
Sir Joseph Banks, and some of the Council insisted that, for the
honour of the society, he must repeat his demonstration before
its delegates and prove that his “statements were truthful and
his experiments without fraud.”

Under this pressure Price had no alternative but to accept the
challenge, and at length consented to prepare within six weeks
ten powders similar to those which he had used in a previous
demonstration. Meanwhile, driven into a corner and knowing

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full well he would have great difficulty in deceiving the expert
delegates of the society, he was racked with anxiety and at last
became desperate. It is said that he made a rapid survey of the
works of the German alchemists as a forlorn hope, trusting that
he might chance on some successful method of transmutation
in their writings, but without avail.

The day appointed in August 1783 arrived, and the three
experts delegated by the Royal Society journeyed down to
Price’s house. Knowing his demonstration to be foredoomed
to failure and that his career would thus be blasted, Price had
prepared, a day or two previously, some concentrated cherry-
laurel water, which he knew to be a powerful poison, and kept
it in his pocket. He appears to have received his visitors
calmly, and, after he had introduced them into his laboratory, in
the course of making preparations for the demonstration and
unseen by them, he quickly poured the cherry-laurel water into
a glass and swallowed it. In a few moments, to the astonish¬
ment of the delegates, he collapsed and died in their presence.
So ended the brilliant James Price at the age of thirty-one.
Whether he was really an impostor with an overweening desire
for notoriety or whether his brain had become deranged in the
course of his studies will never be known.

The mystery of another alchemist, who lived in the village
of Lilley, between Luton and Hitchin, in the early part of the
nineteenth century, has never been solved. He was known as
John Kellerman, and was said to have been the son of a certain
John Kellerman of Prussian birth, a man of gigantic stature who,
in order to avoid being pressed into the regiment of giants
formed by Frederick the Great, fled to the West Indies and there
married a creole.

Sir Richard Phillips, in his Personal Tour through the United
Kingdom (1828), puts on record all that is known of this mys¬
terious individual, who is said to have practised alchemy amid
his rural surroundings in Hertfordshire. To quote Sir Richard’s
narrative :

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I learnt that he had been a man of fashion, and at one time
largely concerned in adventures on the turf, but that for many
years he had devoted himself to his present pursuits.

For some time past he had been inaccessible and invisible to the
world ; his house being shut and barricaded and the walls of his
grounds protected with hurdles and with spring guns, so planted
as to resist intrusion in every direction.

The house was in a horrid state of dilapidation.

A young man took charge of my card and went to the back part
of the house to deliver it. He returned saying his master would
be happy to see me.

Sir Richard describes the alchemist as being

a

a man of about six feet in height. On his head was a white night¬
cap, and his dress consisted of a long great-coat that had once been
green, and a kind of jockey’s waistcoat with three tiers of pockets.

His physiognomy was extraordinary. His complexion a deep
sallow and his eyes large, black and rolling. His manner was
polite.

The alchemist conducted his visitor into a very large parlour,
and, having locked the door, put the key in his pocket. Sir
Richard continues:

The room was a realization of a picture by Teniers. The floor
was covered with retorts, crucibles, alembics, jars and bottles of
various shapes, intermingled with old books piled upon each other,
with a sufficient quantity of dust and cobwebs. Different shelves
were filled in the same manner and on one side stood his bed.

In a corner, somewhat shaded from the light, were two heads
with white and dark wigs on them. . . .

Having told him of the reports I had heard of his wonderful dis¬
coveries, he gave me a history of his studies, mentioning some men
whom I happened to know in London who, he alleged, had as¬
sured him that they had made gold.

Having studied and examined the works of the ancient al¬
chemists from the multitude, he had pursued their system under
the influence of new lights and after suffering numerous disap¬
pointments he at length had made gold. He could make as much
as he pleased even to the extent of paying off the National Debt. . . .

Expressing my satisfaction at his success, I asked him to show

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me some of the precious metal he had made. “Not so,” he re¬
plied ; “ I will show it to no one. I made Lord Liverpool the offer,
that if he would introduce me to the King I would show it to his
Majesty, but Lord Liverpool insolently declined ; I am therefore
determined that the secret shall die with me.

“ It is true I made a communication to the French Ambassador,
Prince Polignac, and offered to go to France and transfer to the
French Government the entire advantages of the discovery, but
after deluding me I found it necessary to treat him with the same
contempt as the others.

“Every Court in Europe well knows that I have made the dis¬
covery and they are all in a confederacy against me lest by giving
it to one I should make that country master of the rest.

“The world, sir, is in my hands!” he exclaimed with great
emotion.

I inquired why he shut himself up in so unusual a manner,
and he said it was to protect himself against the Governments
of Europe, who were determined to get possession of his secret by
force.

“I have been fired at twice in one day, through that window,”
he exclaimed, “and three times attempted to be poisoned.

“ They believed I had written a book containing my secrets, and
to get possession of this book has been their object. To baffle
them I burnt all that I had ever written, and I have so guarded the
windows with spring-guns and have such a collection of combus¬
tibles in the range of bottles which stand at your elbow, that I could
destroy a whole regiment of soldiers if sent against me.” . . .

He lived entirely in that room, and locked up the other rooms
every night with patent padlocks and sealed the keyholes.

On leaving the abode of the alchemist, I learned from a man
who had lived with Kellerman for seven years that he was one of
eight assistants that he kept for superintending his crucibles. The
man protested that no gold had ever been made in the place, and
on telling him that I had been with Kellerman in his laboratory,
he was astounded and assured me that he carried a loaded pistol
in every one of his six waistcoat pockets.

Kellerman had the reputation in the neighbourhood of being
a magician, and at night few of the country-folk would go past
his house, from the chimneys of which heavy clouds of smoke
constantly belched as his furnaces were kept going.

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One day, however — when it is not stated — Kellerman
suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. No smoke was to be
seen issuing from the chimneys, and the house appeared to be
deserted. Nothing more seems to be known of his departure,
but it was rumoured that he had gone to Paris, where he was
maintained by a nephew, one Captain William Roebuck, and
presumably he there ended his days.

Another believer in alchemical doctrines was the eccentric
Peter Woulfe who had chambers in Barnard’s Inn when in
London, but usually resided in Paris during the summer. It
is said that he spent many years in searching for the Philo¬
sopher’s Stone and the Elixir of Life without success.

Breakfasting usually at four o’clock in the morning, he would
sometimes invite a few friends to the meal. Entrance to the
chambers themselves could only be gained by means of a secret
signal.

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and contributed
several papers of value to Philosophical Transactions , including
one entitled Experiments on some Mineral Substances. He is
said to have been the inventor of Woulfe’s apparatus, which
still bears his name. He died in Barnard’s Inn in 1803.

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