Nobody need manufacture artificially a metal whose origins are so unaccountable that a deposit is likely to be found anywhere.

For instance, in a law suit which took place at Paris in the month of November, 1886, between M.Popp, constructor of pneumatic city clocks, and financiers who had been backing him, certain engineers and chemists of the School of Mines declared that gold could be extracted from common silex, so that the very walls sheltering us might be placers, and the mansards might be loaded with nuggets! "At any rate," he continued, smiling, "these sciences are not propitious." He was thinking of an old man who had installed an alchemic laboratory on the fifth floor of a house in the rue Saint Jacques.

This man, named Auguste Redoutez, went every afternoon to the Bibliotheque Nationale and pored over the works of Nicolas Flamel.

Morning and evening he pursued the quest of the "great work" in front of his furnace.
The 16th of March the year before, he came out of the Bibliotheque with a man who had been sitting at the same table with him, and as they walked along together Redoutez declared that he was finally in possession of the famous secret.

Arriving in his laboratory, he threw pieces of iron into a retort, made a projection, and obtained crystals the colour of blood.