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When in this state they found no difficulty in palming it off upon the uninitiated as an inferior metal, and very easily transmuted it into fine sonorous gold again, with the aid of a little aquafortis. Others imposed by means of nails, half iron and half gold or silver. They pretended that they really transmuted the precious half from iron, by dipping it in a strong alcohol.
A good deal of etching might be done on a gun, most of it being metal, while more metal could be easily inlaid for the purpose. Etching, I suppose, is the right word; at all events, designs, records of actual sporting feats, or outlines of favourite sporting places nooks in the woods, falls of the stream, deep combes of the hills could be cut in with aquafortis.
I saw iron ladles, pans full of white sand, files with white metal left glittering in their teeth, molds of plaster of Paris, bags containing the same material in powder, a powerful machine with the name and use of which I was theoretically not unacquainted, white metal in a partially-fused state, bottles of aquafortis, dies scattered over a dresser, crucibles, sandpaper, bars of metal, and edged tools in plenty, of the strangest construction.
By private letters received from "Tribune" readers living in different parts of the country, it appears that many thoughtful people are considering our problem, and devising ways of solving it. One of these letters says, "You sprinkle rose water where you should pour aquafortis. You say husbands 'don't know' that their wives are overworked. The truth is, they don't care."
And Battista Franco, a painter of Venice, has engraved, partly with the burin and partly with aquafortis, many works by the hands of various masters, such as the Nativity of Christ, the Adoration of the Magi, the Preaching of S. Peter, some plates from the Acts of the Apostles, and many stories from the Old Testament.
M. Geoffroy produced several of these nails to the Academy of Sciences, and showed how nicely the two parts were soldered together. The golden or silver half was painted black to resemble iron, and the colour immediately disappeared when the nail was dipped into aquafortis. A nail of this description was, for a long time, in the cabinet of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
He found him in charge of the abandoned factory, and still making a few articles on his own account by a new process. To harden his India-rubber, he put a very small quantity of sulphur into it, or sprinkled sulphur upon the surface and dried it in the sun. Mr. Goodyear was surprised to observe that this process seemed to produce the same effect as the application of aquafortis.
He threw away the piece as useless. Several days after, it occurred to him that he had not sufficiently examined the effect of the aquafortis, and, hurrying to his room, he was fortunate enough to find it again. A remarkable change appeared to have been made in the India-rubber. He does not seem to have been aware that aquafortis is two fifths sulphuric acid.
By subtracting one atom of water from its elements we change this to ether, the new-found lethe of pain. As from the inexhaustible bottle of the magician, the chemist can furnish us from the same two elements air or aquafortis. We may be pardoned these familiar examples to prove that we must not judge of things by their palpable qualities, when concentrated or in the gross.
In the better quality, shell was closely imitated, but some were frankly horn and ornamented by the application of aquafortis in patterns artistic or grotesque according to the taste and ability of the operator. The horns were sawed, split, boiled in oil, pressed flat, and then died out ready to be fashioned into the shape required for the special product.
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