One of the many trades that drew on alchemy was metalworking. The scene at left shows what a two-man copper "factory" looked like in 16th Century Europe. Closely resembling an alchemy laboratory, it actually used equipment and techniques perfected by alchemists. A is a small smelting oven where copper ore was tested. B is the furnace door. C is the crushed ore. D is another testing oven. E is a bellows. F is a spherical water tank. G is a pot for melting copper with other metals to make alloys, and H is a testing crucible.

This engraving, as are the others on this page, are from Lazarus Ercker's book on metallurgy published in Prague in 1574, a definitive work in its field for 200 years.

The alchemical equipment at right was used by early metallurgists to find the gold content of silver: A is an assay oven, B an iron tray, C a facial protector for looking into the oven, D a flask, and E shows the metallurgist assaying silver.

Metallurgy bequeathed to alchemy a variety of black quartz (left) popularly called a "touchstone." Rubbing the quartz with a sample of gold produces a yellow streak whose color and consistency reveal the impurities in the gold.

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Ralph E. Lapp. Life Science Library: Matter. New York:Time Incorporated, 1965.

This page was last updated on 07/27/2010.