DREAM OF GOLD

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 611, 16 August 1933, Page 7

DREAM OF GOLD

MAN'S SEARCII FOR SECRET OF ANCIENT ALCHEMISTS's STONE. For 20 years Mr. Arthur Cornelius, a Londoner, has been searching for a secret which would make him the richest man. He says he believes that the dream of the ancient alchemists of a stone which would turn all nietals into gold — the Philosopher's Stone — was a reality. At some pei'iod in the world's history, Mr. Cornelius says, the stone was actually discovered, and for years in his studio in Old Compton Street, ^ London, he has studied the lives and works of the alchemists for information. Mr. Cornelius has travelled thousands of miles in order to conduct a first-hand search for the secret for the secret formula. But his fruitless inquiry left him undaunted; he bases his claim on the fact that even had . the alchemists discovered the secret I it was not to their advantage to announce or prove it to the world. "My search might seem a strange one in the twentieth century," Mr. Cornelius' said recently, "but I have conclusive proof that many of the old alchemists discovered the secret. Nicholas Flamel made gold in Paris as late as 1382. He made enormou's quantities of gold from mercury. Although the records of the life of this man indicate that he discovered the secret, the minutest search of his works has been in vain. Pope John XXII also lcnew how to make gold in his lab oratory at Avignon, and when he died in 1344 left 18 million florins in his coffers. "I am not making my plans public yet," added Mr. Cornelius, "hecause the investigations are entirely in my ■own dnterest." He is now studying metallurgy so that he can experiment with certain methods.