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"This is the story of saltpeter, the vital but mysterious substance craved by governments from the Tudors to the Victorians as an 'inestimable treasure.' National security depended on control of this organic material - that had both mystical and mineral properties. Derived from soil enriched with dung and urine, it provided the heart or 'mother' of gunpowder, without which no musket or cannon could be fired. Its acquisition involved alchemical knowledge, exotic technology, intrusions into people's lives, and eventual dominance of the world's oceans. The quest for saltpeter caused widespread 'vexation' in Tudor and Stuart England, as crown agents dug in homes and barns and even churches. Governments hungry for it purchased supplies from overseas merchants, transferred skills from foreign experts, and extended patronage to ingenious schemers, while the hated 'saltpetermen' intruded on private ground. Eventually, huge saltpeter imports from India relieved this social pressure, and by the eighteenth century positioned Britain as a global imperial power; the governments of revolutionary America and ancien regime France, on the other hand, were forced to find alternative sources of this treasured substance. In the end, it was only with the development of chemical explosives in the late Victorian period that dependency on saltpeter finally declined."--Publisher's description.

Saltpeter --- Gunpowder --- Gunpowder industry --- Salpêtre --- Poudre à canon --- History. --- Industrie --- Histoire --- Explosives industry --- Niter --- Nitrate of potash --- Nitre --- Potassium nitrate --- Nitrate minerals --- Nitrates --- Potassium salts --- History

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"When Isaac Newton’s alchemical papers surfaced at a Sotheby’s auction in 1936, the quantity and seeming incoherence of the manuscripts were shocking. No longer the exemplar of Enlightenment rationality, the legendary physicist suddenly became “the last of the magicians.” Newton the Alchemist unlocks the secrets of Newton’s alchemical quest, providing a radically new understanding of the uncommon genius who probed nature at its deepest levels in pursuit of empirical knowledge. In this evocative and superbly written book, William Newman blends in-depth analysis of newly available texts with laboratory replications of Newton’s actual experiments in alchemy. He does not justify Newton’s alchemical research as part of a religious search for God in the physical world, nor does he argue that Newton studied alchemy to learn about gravitational attraction. Newman traces the evolution of Newton’s alchemical ideas and practices over a span of more than three decades, showing how they proved fruitful in diverse scientific fields. A precise experimenter in the realm of “chymistry,” Newton put the riddles of alchemy to the test in his lab. He also used ideas drawn from the alchemical texts to great effect in his optical experimentation. In his hands, alchemy was a tool for attaining the material benefits associated with the philosopher’s stone and an instrument for acquiring scientific knowledge of the most sophisticated kind. Newton the Alchemist provides rare insights into a man who was neither Enlightenment rationalist nor irrational magus, but rather an alchemist who sought through experiment and empiricism to alter nature at its very heart." -- Publisher's description.

Alchemy --- Metals, Transmutation of --- Philosophers' egg --- Philosophers' stone --- Stone, Philosophers' --- Transmutation of metals --- Chemistry --- Occultism --- History --- Newton, Isaac, --- Newton, Izaak, --- Niu-tun, --- Nʹi︠u︡ton, Isaak, --- Niutun, Yisake, --- Niyu̇ton, Isak, --- Nyuṭon, Ayzaḳ, --- Nyuṭon, Ayziḳ, --- ניוטאן, אייזאק, --- ניוטון, אייזק --- ניוטון, אייזיק --- 牛頓, --- 牛頓, 伊萨克, --- Knowledge --- Alchemy. --- Benedictine Basilius Valentinus. --- CU Add. 3973. --- Captain Hylliard. --- Eirenaeus Philalethes. --- Enlightenment. --- Epistola ad Theodorum Mundanum. --- Free Grammar School. --- Humores minerales. --- Hypothesis of Light. --- Isaac Newton. --- Johann de Monte-Snyders. --- Johann de Monte–Snyders. --- Keynes 35. --- Keynes 58. --- Keynes MS 58. --- Michael Sendivogius. --- Nicolas Fatio de Duillier. --- Nicolas Flamel. --- Of Natures obvious laws & processes in vegetation. --- Opera. --- Opticks. --- Philalethes. --- Praxis. --- Ramon Lull. --- Robert Boyle. --- Sendivogius. --- Three Mysterious Fires. --- Treatise of Chymistry. --- Trinity College. --- William Yworth. --- adept. --- alchemical text. --- alchemist. --- alchemists. --- alchemy. --- ancient mythology. --- antimonial sublimate. --- antimony. --- aurific art. --- biblical prophecy. --- caduceus of Mercury. --- chrysopoeia. --- chymical laboratory. --- chymical research. --- chymical studies. --- chymist. --- chymistry of light. --- chymistry. --- color theory. --- color. --- copper vitriol. --- education. --- empiricism. --- exegesis. --- experimental notebooks. --- experimental philosophy. --- florilegium style. --- florilegium. --- gold. --- laboratory notebooks. --- lead. --- lorilegia. --- metals. --- mining. --- natural world. --- nature. --- niter. --- optical experimentation. --- optical research. --- optics. --- our Venus. --- philosophers' stone. --- phlogiston theory. --- reason. --- refraction theory. --- refractive power. --- sal ammoniac. --- scientific collaboration. --- scientific knowledge. --- scythe of Saturn. --- sea salt. --- secret fire. --- sophic mercury. --- sophic sal ammoniac. --- sulfur. --- treatise. --- vegetability.