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The Shadow of a Noble Experiment

This chapter deals with Newton's experimental notebooks, containing dated chymical laboratory records from 1678 to 1696. Beyond the glassware and ceramic implements described in these experimental notebooks, the most obvious feature of his laboratory would have been the charcoal-burning furnace or furnaces located there. Like many contemporary chymists, Newton regularly performed his experiments at the high temperatures required for metallurgical operations. It is by means of these “Vulcanian implements” along with the apparatus referred to piecemeal in his experimental notebooks, that Newton managed to produce such exotic desiderata as “liquor of antimony,” “the net,” and “sophic sal ammoniac”. The chapter also considers Newton's instructions for making these and other material precursors to the philosophers' stone.