He now began to dissolve, congeal, and sublime common salt, sal-ammonia, the alums, and copperas; and in distillation, circulation, and sublimation, he spent twelve busy years, at a cost of about 6000 crowns. Trevisan almost lost faith in human science, and set himself earnestly to pray for illumination. In this he was assisted by a magistrate of his own country; but while invoking divine aid, they were all the while working away with marine salt. This substance they continued to rectify for eight months without finding any change in its nature. It will be seen, that the object of all these experiments was to find a solvent powerful enough to separate the essence of gold from its material, the spirit from the body; but it now struck him like a flash of lightning, that aqua fortis must be the thing; and throwing himself upon this substance in its state of greatest intensity, he tried it first upon silver, then upon common mercury--but all in vain. However, our Bernard was still in the flower of his age--he was only forty-six: nothing for a philosopher. He began to travel, with the view of collecting wisdom in his way; and at length fell in with Maitre Geoffrey Leuvrier, a Cistercian monk, a man after his own heart. These congenial companions set to work at first upon hens' eggs, calcining even the shells; till at the end of eight laborious years, devoted to these and other substances, they had acquired the skill of at least preparing in an artistic manner the furnaces used in their operations. After this, he attached himself to another theological friend, who was prothonotary of Berghes, in Flanders; and with him he worked during fourteen months in distilling copperas with vinegar. But the result of the experiments was nothing better than a quartan-ague.