The Do's and Don'ts of Writing a Story

HOW TO: Alchemical Substances

Chrome orange - mixture of chrome yellow and chrome red.

Green vitriol - ferrous sulphate.

Rouge, Crocus, Colcathar - red varieties of ferric oxide are formed by burning green vitriol in air

Marcasite - mineral form of iron disulphide. Oxidises in moist air to green vitriol.

Pyrites - mineral form of iron disulphide. Stable in air. 

Cobalt - named by the copper miners of the Hartz mountains after the evil spirits the 'kobolds', which gave a false copper ore

Zaffre - impure cobalt arsenate, left after roasting cobalt ore

Nickel - named by the copper miners of Westphalia the 'kupfer-nickel' or false copper. 

Copper glance - cuprous sulphide ore

Aes cyprium - cyprian brass copper

Cuprite - red cuprous oxide ore

Blue vitriol or bluestone - cupric sulphate. 

Verdigris - the green substance formed by the atmospheric weathering of copper. This is a complex basic carbonate of copper. In more recent times the term 'verdigris' is more correctly applied to copper acetate, made by the action of vinegar on copper.

Resin of copper - cuprous chloride. Made by Robert Boyle in 1664 by heating copper with corrosive sublimate. 

Lunar caustic, lapis infernalis - silver nitrate. 

Fulminating silver - silver nitride, very explosive when dry. Made by dissolving silver oxide in ammonia.

Horn silver or argentum cornu - a glass like ore of silver chloride.

Luna cornea - the soft colourless tough mass of silver chloride, made by heating horn silver till it forms a dark yellow liquid and then cooling. Described by Oswald Croll in 1608.

Purple of Cassius - made by Andreas Cassius in 1685 by precipitating a mixture of gold, stannous and stannic chlorides, with alkali. Used for colouring glass. 

Fulminating gold - made by adding ammonia to auric hydroxide, formed by precipitation by potash from metallic gold dissolved in aqua reis. Highly explosive when dry. 

Quicklime - calcium oxide. 

Slaked lime - calcium hydroxide

Chalk - calcium carbonate

Gypsum - calcium sulphate

Natron - native sodium carbonate 

Soda ash - sodium carbonate formed by burning plants growing on the sea shore

Caustic marine alkali - caustic soda. Sodium hydroxide. Made by adding lime to natron.

Common salt - sodium chloride

Glauber's salt - sodium sulphate

Wood ash or potash - potassium carbonate made from the ashes of burnt wood.

Caustic wood alkali - caustic potash. Potassium hydroxide. Made by adding lime to potash.

Liver of sulphur - complex of polysulphides of potassium, made by fusing potash and sulphur.

Sal ammoniac - ammonium chloride. Described by Geber

Sa volatile or spirit of hartshorn - volatile alkali. ammonium carbonate made from distilling bones, horns etc. 

Caustic volatile alkali - ammonium hydroxide.

Nitrum flammans - ammonium nitrate made by Glauber

Brimstone - from German Brennstein 'burning stone'. Sulphur

Flowers of sulphur - light yellow crystalline powder, made by distilling sulphur. 

Thion hudor - Zosimus refers to this as the 'divine water' or the 'bile of the serpent'. A deep reddish yellow liquid made by boiling flowers of sulphur with slaked slime

Milk of sulphur or lac sulphuris - white colloidal sulphur. Geber made this by adding an acid to thion hudor.

Oil of vitriol - sulphuric acid made by distilling green vitriol

Realgar - red ore of arsenic. Arsenic disulphide. 

Orpiment or auri pigmentum - yellow ore of arsenic. Arsenic trisulphide. 

White arsenic - arsenious oxide. Made from arsenical soot from the roasting ovens, purified by sublimation. 

Aqua tofani - arsenious oxide. Extremely poisonous. Used by Paracelsus. 

King's yellow - a mixture of orpiment with white arsenic.