Whether the saint of Majorca was proficient in the Hermetic art or not, it is quite certain that he did not visit the British Isles. It is also certain that in the _Ars Magna Sciendi_, part 9, chapter on Elements, he states that one species of metal cannot be changed into another, and that the gold of alchemy has only the semblance of that metal; that is, it is simply a sophistication. As all the treatises ascribed to Raymond Lully cannot possibly be his, and as his errant and turbulent life could have afforded him few opportunities for the long course of experiments which are generally involved in the search for the _magnum opus_, it is reasonable to suppose that his alchemical writings are spurious, or that two authors, bearing the same name, have been ignorantly confused. With regard to “the Jewish neophyte,” referred to by the _Biographie Universelle_, no particulars of his life are forthcoming. The whole question is necessarily involved in uncertainty, but it is a point of no small importance to have established for the first time the fabulous nature of the Cremer Testament. This production was first published by Michael Maier, in his _Tripus Aureus_, about the year 1614. The two treatises which accompany it appear to be genuine relics of Hermetic antiquity. * * * * * The “Clavicula, or Little Key” of Raymond Lully is generally considered to contain the arch secrets of alchemical adeptship; it elucidates the other treatises of its author, and undertakes to declare the whole art without any fiction. The transmutation of metals depends upon their previous reduction into volatile sophic argent vive, and the only metals worth reducing, for the attainment of this _prima materia_, are silver and gold. This argent vive is said to be dryer, hotter, and more digested than the common substance, but its extraction is enveloped in mystery and symbolism, and the recipes are impossible to follow for want of the materials so evasively and deceptively described. At the same time, it is clear that the operations are physical, and that the materials and objects are also physical, which points are sufficient for our purpose, and may be easily verified by research. Moreover, the alchemist who calls himself Raymond Lully was acquainted with nitric acid and with its uses as a dissolvent of metals. He could form _aqua regia_ by adding sal ammoniac, or common salt, to nitric acid, and he was aware of its property of dissolving gold. Spirit of wine was well known to him, says Gruelin; he strengthened it with dry carbonate of potash, and prepared vegetable tinctures by its means. He mentions alum from Rocca, marcasite, white and red mercurial precipitate. He knew the volatile alkali and its coagulations by means of alcohol. He was acquainted with cupellated silver, and first obtained rosemary oil by distilling the plant with water.[P] FOOTNOTES: