phosphorus may by the application of heat be converted into a hard amorphous substance which is its allotrophic form. An excellent paper on “Allotrophy or Transmutation” was read before the British Association at Sheffield, England, a few years ago by Dr. Henry M. Howe. In it Dr. Howe dealt at greater length with what has been previously advanced on the subject. Since the discovery of Radium and the extensive experiments of the late Sir William Ramsay, Mr. Cameron and others in the department of transmutation and disintegration, modern science has projected itself into the Halls of Alchemy and has joined hands with its parent science to search for that which the world of a few years back regarded with ignorant ridicule. In the space at disposal it is impossible to enter into details of the numerous accounts of successful alchemy recorded. A number of these will be found in Dr. Franz Hartmann’s works and in the excellent works on the subject by H. Stanley Redgrove and others. Perhaps the case noticed by Dr. Franz Hartmann is one of the most romantic. It came before the court at Leipsig on August 9th, 1715 and is reported in the acts of the judicial faculty of that town. A gentleman came late one night to the Castle of Tankerstein where the Countess of Erbach resided. He said that having accidentally killed a deer which belonged to the Palatine of Palatia he was being pursued, and therefore he asked protection. The Countess hesitated, but being impressed with the stranger’s appearance she ordered that a room be given him. He remained in the castle several days, and then being granted an interview with the Countess, he thanked her for her protection in return for which he offered to transmute all her silver into gold. The lady was incredulous but, her curiosity overcoming her, she gave the stranger a silver tankard which he melted and with a stone transmuted into gold. The Countess sent the gold to a goldsmith in the town, who having tested it pronounced it to be the purest gold. After this she asked the adept to transmute all her silver into gold. This he did and receiving the lady’s thanks as he tendered his own, departed. The Countess’s husband, a great spendthrift, serving as an officer abroad, hearing that his wife by some means had suddenly become wealthy returned home quickly. He demanded the gold for himself but the Countess would not surrender it. Thereupon the Count brought his wife before the Court, claiming that as Lord of the territory (Dominus Territorii) on which the Castle belonging to his wife was built, all treasure found upon the land was his. He asked that the Court should order the gold to be sold and that after new silver had been purchased for his wife the balance of the money be paid to him. The defence urged that as the gold had been artificially produced it could not come under a law relating to buried treasure; again that the silver had been transmuted into gold for the sole benefit of the Countess.