The United States Chemical Heritage Foundation acquired a manuscript alchemical manuscript written by Isaac Newton. Prior to that, the book had been in a private collection for several decades. The acquisition is reported by Chemistry World.
In 1936, the manuscript, along with other papers from Newton's archives, were sold by his descendants at Sotheby's in London. At that time, many documents were bought by private collectors, but over time, most of the papers were either donated to government agencies or bought by them. Currently, most of Newton's known alchemical documents are kept at the University of Cambridge, where he conducted his research.
The manuscript is a copy of a text written in Latin by the American physician and alchemist George Starkey, who wrote under the pseudonym Eirenaeus Philalethes. The document describes the process of obtaining philosophical mercury (a constituent element of the philosopher's stone). In addition to the copied someone else's text, the manuscript contains a description of Newton's own experiments. "This often happened with Newton's manuscripts, if they lay nearby for long enough, the scientist turned them over and wrote something on the back," says the curator of rare books of the Foundation, James Volkel, "In this case, this is a recipe for distilling volatile alcohol from lead ore." …
Perhaps Newton used the manuscript as a reference when conducting his own alchemical experiments. It is not known whether he tried to obtain philosophical mercury, at least there are no records of this experiment in the scientist's laboratory journal.
Although researchers cannot say exactly when the original was written, they assume Newton made a copy of it before the document was first published in 1678. “The manuscript copied by the scientist contained at least one mistake. The author wrote the Latin ex, which means out, instead of et, which means and. Newton saw the error and corrected it. In the printed version, the error has also been corrected,”explains James Volkel.
Godfrey Kneller. Portrait of Isaac Newton. Arthur Shuster & Arthur E. Shipley: Britain's Heritage of Science. London, 1917 / Wikimedia Commons.
The Philosopher's Stone - in the descriptions of alchemists, a substance necessary for the transformation of "base" metals: iron, lead, tin into "noble" gold. The philosopher's stone was attributed to miraculous medicinal properties, its solution, the so-called golden drink, healed all diseases, rejuvenated and prolonged life.
Ekaterina Rusakova
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