The private diary of Dr. John Dee ... and the catalogue of his library of manuscripts, from the original manuscripts in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and Trinity College Library, Cambridge / Edited by James Orchard Halliwell.

Dee, John, 1527-1608.

Date:: 1842

Credit: The private diary of Dr. John Dee ... and the catalogue of his library of manuscripts, from the original manuscripts in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and Trinity College Library, Cambridge / Edited by James Orchard Halliwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$ee ee “Boeing N. hh ‘ at rN x ABST. 2 ” ei eo 11.—Boyhood friends} in Northern’ New York will erect @ } -|}memorial tablet to Willoughby Bur-| ') napp, the last of the alchemists, who sought the ‘“philosopher’s stone,” which would transform bage metals |to gold, on the site of the old farm- | akan in St. Lawrence County, aa Silica to-day. i : ‘his tribute is in lieu of one nis| had a before they | of Ninety ina Chicaze almshouse. | ; imnapp mopped out of sight some! thirty years ago. Recently attention | 4 freak called to his experiments by Gen- eva, Switzerland, dispatches saying |that a method of producing synthetic [that @ mn apparently had been dis- covered there, ; The Geneva Tribune, speaking of the reported discovery, said: | APPARENTLY MAKE DIAMONDS, “Research work is being carried yout at the Geneva Lakoratory of Inorganic Chemistry on the sep- aration of carbonic anhydrides in | the form of snow bj chlorophylus | | pyridine in solution and _ other nitrous organic liquids. In the re- sidue, besides free carbons of vary- | ing weight, have been found very hard and very heavy white tetrahe- dral and octohedral crystals which | burned without, leaving ashes and | “were insoluble jn aqua regia, pos- | | sessing, as far as the analysis made up. to the present show, all the properties of the diamond.” Friends of Burnapp’s early days in ithe north country recalled ‘that he}| ’)made similar experiments, with sim- wet itilar results. Believing that the dia-, : monds—if so they proved ‘to be—I. ' —— | would be of great commercial value, } > “> | they began a quiet search for him, in- -|tending to provide him with funds to ‘| pursue his experiments. I Their hopes were shattered, how- ever, with news from Chicago of j his death in a poorhouse there. |. Burnapp’s life story is one of the 'most romantic in the history of Amer- \ican science. His nights during bee early life were spent with crucible = \’and alembic, calcining, subliming and nu- | distilling in a vain endeavor to dis- shts | cover the “aleahest” that had evaded such past masters of alehemy as Al- yro- tant pertus, Magnus and. Paracelsus. hey | Through a trick played upon him by his wife, forthe kindly purpose savi reason, Burnapp died nl he belief/that he had dis- j. le vened the leng-sought philosopher's’; : e, only to_lese again beyond Bib impas ‘efforts av TEediscoy a the. fetal 5 yanelved, see eth os ‘oF RICH FARMER, ae pense ad lage ; Burnapp came ofa rag ej | eae ‘porn a aiged in the : ‘om | Hopkinton, St. Lawrence County, ORR the village of Shanley's Mills. & to} From boyhood he was a bookworm, | | ing and being an only child. was allowed ; ‘ide. by his wealthy father to pore’ ‘all day | |i -}long over the historical and scientific | hy) ple works in the old school district li- low | prary, instead of toiling in the pei a zan| like his young playmates, : : his The boy was such a brilliant scholar | _ |that at. the age of twelve he had ian |mastered the textbooks used by the | - \advanced classes in the district / the | schools. He was sent by his father ; (ito Franklin Academy, at Malone, | Mlwhere he was looked upon as a! be youthful prodigy. ite After two years there, he attracted; the attention of a traveling phreno- aS jopist, a Dr. Fowler, who claimed a | ed! be a nephew of the famous author bd ot. works on that subject. For sah i c@/ years Burnapp traveled with the lec- turer and assisted in his demonstra- mm tions. ‘ poll | LBARNSOCCULT ARTS. if in}. Dr. Fowler posed as a member of! 1- | the secret Rosicrucian order, that pre-|}} Tt tended to have in their possession the! }} lore of the old adepts in the black’ arts. Through him, Burnapp secured many books on occult themes as well as scientific works, especially chem-. istry. He fitted up the big garret of the;| old farmhouse with retorts and cruci- bles, alembics and aludels, vessels for, jinfusion, for decoction, fixation, lixi-| yviation and filtration, and all night long: thé dormer windows would glow) ‘|| With the light from his furnace, as he : experimented, or as he delved into the | great volumés that arrived almost! @ every week by stage coach, © \ Egom being considered in the neigh- rhood as merely a peculiar gentus,/ : he beg#n to be looked upon as the | : ; aera of’ unhallowed arts, and by! Has 1eTS AS a crack=brained rank, The) i | i bor ‘rented to neighbors and mortgaged to purchase books and chemicals, for ‘Burnapp believed he was on the verge of discovering the ‘fifth element.” Finally, when all but the house and a few acres had been sold, the scien- tist’s faithful wife, fearing that hisj reason would forsake him, hit upon a plan for ending his fruitless re- ®oarches, SLIPS GOLD INTO CRUCIBLE. She managed to save $10, which she exchanged with ‘Squire Chitten- den, of Hopkinton, for a gold eagle, and, securing the key %of the labor-| atory from her husband's pockets | while he slept, she slipped the gold piece into the crucible. That night when the alchemist found a lump of gold in his crucible | eee Ap os Ps alae I www 9s aS and ran downstairs shouting that he, Willoughby Burnapp, at last had dis covered the secret sought in vain by Roger Bacon, Glauber and Lemry,. the faithful wife pretended to share in his elation. But Mrs. Burnapp soon found to her dismay, that she had but added fuel to the flame of her husband’s absorbing passion, for now he kept the furnace roaring all night long, ! melting over and over again the same gold nugget, which he each cadre gave to her to store away and which she repeatedly slipped into the retort while he was snatching a few hours’ sleep during the day. Then, just as he seemed about to 3} discover the fraud, his overtaxed brain gave way, and for a year he t} was an inmate of an asylum. He a|came forth again with the idea firmly | fixed in his mind that he had dis- t. | covered the secret, but had forgotten i-| the mystic formula, r While he was confined in the sana- 4 tarium, his wife had died and the old rita gee had been sold, 2 ota aA Te$

The private diary of Dr. John Dee ... and the catalogue of his library of manuscripts, from the original manuscripts in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and Trinity College Library, Cambridge / Edited by James Orchard Halliwell.

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