d one above the other and each supplied with big
round handles to hold them by when you take the monument to pieces.
A dome, with an iron chimney, tops the whole edifice, which must
be capable of producing a very hell fire to roast a stone of no
significance. Another, a squat one, stretches out like a curved spine.
It has a round hole at either end; and a thick porcelain tube sticks
out from each. It is impossible to conceive the purpose which such
instruments as these can serve. The seekers of the philosopher's stone
must have had many like them. They are torturers' engines, tearing the
metals' secrets from them.

The glass things are arranged on shelves. I see retorts of different
sizes, all with necks bent at a sudden angle. In addition to their long
beak, some of them have a narrow little tube coming out of their bulb.
Look, youngster, and do not try to guess the object of these curious
vessels. I see glasses with feet to them, funnel-shaped and deep; I
stand amazed at strange looking bottles with two or three mouths to
each, at phials swelling into a balloon with a long, narrow tube. What
an odd array of implements! And here are glass cupboards with a host
of bottles and jars, filled with all manner of chemicals. The labels
apprise me of their contents: molybdenite of ammonia, chloride of
antimony, permanganate of potash and ever so many other strange terms.
Never, in all my reading, have I met with such repellent language.

Suddenly, bang! And there is running and stamping and shouting and cries
of pain! What has happened? I rush up from the back of the room. The
retort has burst, squirting its boiling vitriol in every direction. The
wall opposite is all stained with it. Most of my fellow pupils have been
more or less struck. One poor youth has had the splashes full in his
face, right into his eyes. He is yelling like a madman. With the help of
a friend who has come off better than the others, I drag him outside by
main force, take him to the sink, which fortunately is close at hand,
and hold his face under the tap. This swift ablution serves its purpose.
The horrible pain begins to be allayed, so much so that the sufferer
recovers his senses and is able to continue the washing process for
himself.

My prompt aid certainly saved his sight. A week later, with the help of
the doctor's lotions, all danger was over. How lucky it was that I took
it into my head to keep some way off! My isolation, as I stood looking