The claim to have devised a secret process in virtue of which sugar or charcoal placed in an iron crucible and heated to a tremendous temperature is found on subsequent cooling to contain large marketable diamonds has a close similarity to the pretensions of the alchemists. It differs in the fact that very minute diamonds have actually been formed by a scientific chemist (M. Moissan) in such a way, whilst the alchemists’ search was for a substance—the “philosopher’s stone,” as it was called, which was never discovered, but was supposed to have the property, if mixed and heated in a crucible with a base metal, of converting the latter into gold. From time to time those engaged in this search honestly thought that they had succeeded; others were impostors, and others laboured year after year, led on by elusive results and dazzling possibilities.

In England, after the true scientific spirit had been brought to bear on such inquiries by Robert Boyle and the founders of the Royal Society in the later years of the seventeenth century, little was heard of “alchemy,” and the word “chemistry” took its place, signifying a new method of study in which the actual properties of bodies, their combinations and decompositions, were carefully ascertained and recorded without any prepossessions as to either the mythical philosopher’s stone or the elixir of life. But as late as 1783—only a hundred and twenty-five years ago—we come across a strange and tragic history in the records of the Royal Society associated with the name of James Price, who was a gentleman commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford. After graduating as M.A., in 1777 he was, at the age of twenty-nine, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. In the following year the University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of M.D. in recognition of his discoveries in natural science, and especially for his chemical labours. Price was born in London in 1752, and his name was originally Higginbotham, but he changed it on receiving a fortune from a relative.

This fortunate young man, whose abilities and character impressed and interested the learned men of the day, provided himself with a laboratory at his country house at Stoke, near Guildford. Here he carried on his researches, and the year after that in which honours were conferred on him by his university and the great scientific society in London, he invited a number of noblemen and gentlemen to his laboratory to witness the performance of seven experiments, similar to those of the alchemists—namely, the transmutation of baser metals into silver and into gold. The Lords Onslow, Palmerston, and King of that date were amongst the company. Price produced a white powder, which he declared to be capable of converting fifty times its own weight of mercury into silver, and a red powder, which, he said, was capable of converting sixty times its own weight of mercury into gold. The preparation of these powders was a secret, and it was the discovery of them for which Price claimed attention. The experiments were made. In seven successive trials the powders were mixed in a crucible with mercury, first four crucibles, with weighed quantities of the white powder, and then three other crucibles with weighed quantities of the red powder. Silver and gold appeared in the crucibles after heating in a furnace, as predicted by Price. The precious metal produced was examined by assayers and pronounced genuine. Specimens of the gold were exhibited to his Majesty King George III., and Price published a pamphlet entitled “An Account of Some Experiments, &c.,” in which he repudiated the doctrine of the philosopher’s stone, but claimed that he had, by laborious experiment, discovered how to prepare these composite powders, which were the practical realisation of that long-sought marvel. He did not, however, reveal the secret of their preparation. The greatest excitement was caused by this publication appearing under the name of James Price, M.D. (Oxon.), F.R.S. It was translated into foreign languages, and caused a tremendous commotion in the scientific world.

Some of the older Fellows of the Royal Society, friends of Price, now urged him privately to make known his mode of preparing the powders, and pointed out the propriety of his bringing his discovery before the society. But this Price refused to do. To one of his friends he wrote that he feared he might have been deceived by the dealers who had sold mercury to him, and that apparently it already contained gold. He was urged by two leading Fellows of the society to repeat his experiments in their presence, and he thereupon wrote that the powders were exhausted, and that the expense of making more was too great for him to bear, whilst the labour involved had already affected his health, and he feared to submit it to a further strain. The Royal Society now interfered, and the president (Sir Joseph Banks) and officers insisted that, “for the honour of the society,” he must repeat the experiments before delegates of the society, and show that his statements were truthful and his experiments without fraud.

Under this pressure the unhappy Dr. Price consented to repeat the experiments. He undertook to prepare in six weeks ten powders similar to those which he had used in his public demonstration. He appears to have been in a desperate state of mind, knowing that he could not expect to deceive the experts of the society. He hastily studied the works of some of the German alchemists as a forlorn hope, trusting that he might chance upon a successful method in their writings. He also prepared a bottle of laurel water, a deadly poison. Three Fellows of the Royal Society came on the appointed day, in August, 1783, to the laboratory, near Guildford. It is related (I hope it is not true) that one of them visited the laboratory the day before the trial, and, having obtained entrance by bribing the housekeeper in Price’s absence, discovered that his crucibles had false bottoms and recesses in which gold or silver could be hidden before the quicksilver and powder were introduced. Dr. Price appears to have received his visitors, but whether he commenced the test experiments in their presence or not does not appear. When they were solemnly assembled in the laboratory he quietly drank a tumblerful of the laurel water (hydrocyanic acid), which he had prepared, and fell dead before them. He left a fortune of £12,000 in the Funds. It has been discussed whether Dr. Price was a madman or an impostor. Probably vanity led him on to the course of deception which ended in this tragic way. He could not bring himself to confess failure or deception, nor to abscond. He ended his trouble by suicide. He was only thirty-one years of age! Not inappropriately he has been called the “Last of the Alchemists,” though a long interval of time separates him from the last but one and the days when the old traditions of the Arabians’ al-chemy were really treasured and the mystic art still practised.