1810: (more…)

“Berlin in 1701 was visited by a man called Lascaris who performed many transmutations in public, in front of witnesses whose testimony would not be questioned. He gave a small sample of the heavy, dark reddish, crystalline grains to a student named Johan Friedrich Böttger who proceeded to perform openly, claiming that he was the adept who had produced the Stone. For this lack of caution he was imprisoned in Dresden by the Elector...