- Title Pages
- Maps
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Symbols and Conventions
- Abbreviations for Works Cited
- One The Enigma of Newton’s Alchemy
- Two Problems of Authority and Language in Newton’s Chymistry
- Three Religion, Ancient Wisdom, and Newton’s Alchemy
- Four Early Modern Alchemical Theory
- Five The Young Thaumaturge
- Six Optics and Matter: Newton, Boyle, and Scholastic Mixture Theory
- Seven Newton’s Early Alchemical Theoricae
- Eight Toward a General Theory of Vegetability and Mechanism
- Nine The Doves of Diana
- Ten Flowers of Lead
- Eleven Johann de Monte-Snyders in Newton’s Alchemy
- Twelve Attempts at a Unified Practice
- Thirteen The Fortunes of Raymundus
- Fourteen The Shadow of a Noble Experiment
- Fifteen The Quest for Sophic Sal Ammoniac
- Sixteen Extracting Our Venus
- Seventeen Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, Alchemical Collaborator
- Eighteen Praxis
- Nineteen The Warden of the Mint and His Alchemical Associates
- Twenty Public and Private
- Twenty-One The Ghost of Sendivogius
- Twenty-Two A Final Interlude
- Epilogue
- Appendix One The Origin of Newton’s Chymical Dictionaries
- Appendix Two Newton’s “Key to Snyders”
- Appendix Three “Three Mysterious Fires”
- Appendix Four Newton’s Interview with William Yworth
- Index
The Quest for Sophic Sal Ammoniac
The Quest for Sophic Sal Ammoniac
- Chapter:
- (p.319) Fifteen The Quest for Sophic Sal Ammoniac
- Source:
- Newton the Alchemist
- Author(s):
William R. Newman
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
This chapter begins with a survey of the very early material in Newton's “master notebook,” CU Add. 3975 along with Boston Medical Library B MS c41 c. It then performs a systematic examination of CU Add. 3973, Newton's set of chronologically ordered notes for the period from 1678 to at least 1696. These records detail three experimental programs. The first, called “the quest for sophic sal ammoniac,” runs from the beginning of December 1678 until midsummer 1680, when Newton actually discovers the material that he terms “Philosophicum”—philosophical or sophic sal ammoniac. The second begins in August 1682 and consists mostly of a series of tests to determine whether stibnite refined by fusion or the ore as it comes directly out of the mine should be used in preparing Newton's antimonial sublimates. The third program is described in detail in Chapter 16.
Keywords: Isaac Newton, alchemy, experimental notebooks, CU Add. 3973, sophic sal ammoniac
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- Title Pages
- Maps
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Symbols and Conventions
- Abbreviations for Works Cited
- One The Enigma of Newton’s Alchemy
- Two Problems of Authority and Language in Newton’s Chymistry
- Three Religion, Ancient Wisdom, and Newton’s Alchemy
- Four Early Modern Alchemical Theory
- Five The Young Thaumaturge
- Six Optics and Matter: Newton, Boyle, and Scholastic Mixture Theory
- Seven Newton’s Early Alchemical Theoricae
- Eight Toward a General Theory of Vegetability and Mechanism
- Nine The Doves of Diana
- Ten Flowers of Lead
- Eleven Johann de Monte-Snyders in Newton’s Alchemy
- Twelve Attempts at a Unified Practice
- Thirteen The Fortunes of Raymundus
- Fourteen The Shadow of a Noble Experiment
- Fifteen The Quest for Sophic Sal Ammoniac
- Sixteen Extracting Our Venus
- Seventeen Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, Alchemical Collaborator
- Eighteen Praxis
- Nineteen The Warden of the Mint and His Alchemical Associates
- Twenty Public and Private
- Twenty-One The Ghost of Sendivogius
- Twenty-Two A Final Interlude
- Epilogue
- Appendix One The Origin of Newton’s Chymical Dictionaries
- Appendix Two Newton’s “Key to Snyders”
- Appendix Three “Three Mysterious Fires”
- Appendix Four Newton’s Interview with William Yworth
- Index
