Collected papers on alchemy, assembled by "T.I.N."

The last leaf of the text contains a very rough pencil-drawing symbolizing an alchemical process. The paper has a water-mark dated 1831, the latest date in the MS. is 22/9/1847 on the verso of the fifth leaf from the end of the text. This MS. is the note-book of a practising alchemist; it includes notes of the writer's own experiments, as well as translated extracts from alchemical authors. The first seven leaves contain transcripts of two writings by Sigismund Bacstrom: (a) His Declaration, dated `Isle of Mauritius, District of Pampelmous[s]e 12th Sept. 1794', made on the occasion of his initiation into the `Brethren of the Rosy Cross'. (b) His account of `Mr. Yardley's Process' c. 1790] (II ll.). The remainder of the MS. consists of notes by T.I.N. and short extracts from alchemical authors dated between 1835 and 1847.

1832-1847

1 volume 4 bl. ll. + 87 ll. + 39 bl. ll. 4to. 20x16 cm. Original buckram binding, with label inscribed as above on the upper cover.

Purchased 1929.

John Yardley is here stated to have been a glover of Worcester who discovered a 'Process for making the "Stone"', which he communicated to a London silversmith of the name of Garden in 1716. Bacstrom was himself told of the secret by Garden's son. The latter was the founder of the Goldsmith's Almshouses at Hackney, who had ruined himself on the same quest for the 'Stone', and who eventually died as the first inmate of the charitable institution he had founded himself. In Bacstrom's words: 'I visited him (Garden Junior) in the years 1787, '88, '89 when he communicated Mr. Yardley's Process to me out of good will, and told me that his father had received it from Mr. Yardley himself'.

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).