"Then," I proceeded, "have you effected the other great desideratum, the fixing of mercury?" "Than that process," said he, "there is nothing more easy; at the same time it is proper I should inform you, that there are a class of impostors, who mistaking the ancient writers, pretend it can be done by heat; but I can assure you, it can only be effected by water." I then besought him to do me the favour, to show me some of his fixed mercury, having once seen some which had been fixed by cold. This proposition, however, he declined, because he said he had refused others. "That you may, however, be satisfied that I have made great discoveries, here is a bottle of oil, which I have purified, and rendered as transparent as spring water. I was offered £10,000. for this discovery; but I am so neglected, and so conspired against, that I am determined it and all my other discoveries shall die with me." I now inquired, whether he had been alarmed by the ignorance of the people in the country, so as to shut himself up in so unusual a manner. "No," he replied, "not on their account wholly. They are ignorant and insolent enough; but it was to protect myself against the governments of Europe, who are determined to get possession of my secret by force. I have been," he exclaimed, "twice fired at in one day through that window, and three times attempted to be poisoned. They believed I had written a book containing my secrets, and to get possession of this book has been their object. To baffle them, I burnt all that I had ever written, and I have so guarded the windows with spring-guns, and have such a collection of combustibles in the range of bottles which stand at your elbow, that I could destroy a whole regiment of soldiers if sent against me." He then related, that as a further protection he lived entirely in that room, and permitted no one to come into the house; while he had locked up every room except that with patent padlocks, and sealed the key-holes. It would be tedious and impossible to follow Mr. Kellerman through a conversation of two or three hours, in which he enlarged upon the merits of the ancient alchemists, and on the blunders and impertinent assumptions of the modern chemists, with whose writings and names it is fair to acknowledge he seemed well acquainted. He quoted the authorities of Roger and Lord Bacon, Paracelsus, Boyle, Boerhaave, Woolfe, and others, to justify his pursuits. As to the term philosopher's stone, he alleged that it was a mere figure, to deceive the vulgar. He appeared also to give full credit to the silly story about Dee's assistant, Kelly, finding some of the powder of projection in the tomb of Roger Bacon at Glastonbury, by means of which, as was said, Kelly for a length of time supported himself in princely splendour. I inquired whether he had discovered the blacker than black of Apollonius Tyaneus; and this, he assured me, he had effected; it was itself the powder of projection for producing gold.