Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/109

Rh that it was impossible to account for the colour of most chemical compounds. He now combined the five ingredients of the mineral in their proper proportions, and saw, to his great delight, that the compound assumed the matchless hue of ultramarine. The artificial ultramarine is even more beautiful than the natural, while for the price of a single ounce of the latter we may obtain many pounds of the former.

Surely our modern alchemists have discovered the true philosopher's stone, for with the comparatively valueless substances, flint, clay, soda, sulphur, and iron, they form a mineral which was formerly much dearer than gold!

We cannot tell what wonders may yet be performed by the modern alchemists; one of their number has said, that to-morrow or next day some one may discover a method of producing, from a piece of charcoal, a splendid diamond; from a bit of alum, sapphires or rubies, or from coal-tar the beautiful colouring principle of madder, or the valuable remedies known as quinine and morphine; all these things being either as precious or more useful than gold.

The extraction of aluminium from clay, and the manufacture of ultramarine, are examples of chemical analysis and synthesis, but not of transmutation. Let us now examine the opinions entertained by the alchemists of to-day on the subject of the transmutation of elementary bodies.