Physica Subterranea

In other words, mining did not necessarily in itself yield a great profit, but employment increased the wealth of nations. We see a similar idea in J. J. Becher s justification of alchemy in the Physica subterranea. In the hands of an honest prince, alchemy (like mining) is virtuous exploitation of one s own national natural resources. Becher asks Why go abroad when you have what you need at home If Solomon could have made gold at home in Jerusalem he would not have had to cross the sea (Becher 697). 

In 1667 Becher published another book, Physica Subterranea, in which he expounded a theory that was to profoundly affect chemistry for more than a century. In the book Becher accepted only two of the traditional four elements, earth and water. He then divided earth into three types, so that in effect there were still four elements. He named the three kinds of earth terra lapida, terra pinguis, and terra mercurialis. The second of these, which he described as an oily earth, was supposed to be present in all combustible substances and was released when those substances burned. 

Johann Joachim Becher, 1635-1682. German chemist and physician. Founder of the phlogiston theory. His experiments on minerals are described in his Physica Subterranea. Stahl summarized his views on combustion in a book entitled "Specimen Becherianum, ... 

All movement is made by rarefaction and condensation, Beecher, Physica Subterranea). Heat, the effect of sensible or insensible light, is the cause of rarefaction, and cold produces contraction or condensation. All generations, vegetations and accretions are made only by these two means because these are the first two dispositions by which bodies were affected. Light is diffused only by rarefaction and condensation, which produces the density of bodies, has alone arrested the progress of light, and preserved the shadows. 

In 1667, Johann Becher (1635-1681), a chemist interested in the origins of metals, published Physicae subterraneae. He argued that there were three earths terra fluida (mercurious earth), terra lapidea (vitreous earth), and terra pinguis (fatty earth). It was terra pinguis that produced combustible... 

This plate is the frontispiece from the book Physica Subterranea published by the German chemist and physician Georg Ernst Stahl in 1738. It is the last edition of the famous book published by Johann Joachim Becher in 1669. Becher evolved chemistry s first unifying theory, the Phlogiston Theory, from alchemical concepts and it was subsequently made useful by Stahl. So in this plate are themes of alchemical transmutation, spiritual beliefs, and early chemical science that will begin our tour of alchemy and chemistry over two thousand years. 

Crude grey sea-salt he found contained metallic mercury. Becher said he would show in the second book of his Physica Subterranea (which was never published) that common salt contains something mercurial. The presence of mercury in sea-water was disproved by Marcet. ... 

Kopp, (i), iv, 179, says Becher sagt in seiner Physica subterranea, er habe Quecksilber aus Kochsalz und Thon erhalten ebenso erwShnt Senac in seinem Nouveau Cours de Chymie (1723) des Quecksilber im Kochsalz I have not found either statement see Proust, jf. de PAys., 1799, xlix, 153. 

Father Joseph Fran9ois Marie Malherbe (Rennes, 31 October 1733-Paris, 17 February 1827), teacher of philosophy in Saint-Germain-des-Pr, Paris, who left a French translation of Becher s Physica Subterranea in manuscript, in 1777 obtained a prize for a process in which a mixture of sodium sulphate, carbon, and iron was heated and the product exposed to the atmosphere, and in 1792-3 he took part in improving the manufacture of soap in Paris. Emil Kopp (Wasselonne, nr. Strasbourg, 3 March 1817-Ziirich, 27 November 1875), assistant to Persoz, professor in the ficole superieure de... 

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