That is so.

But it happened that in trying, by way of amusement, certain precipitations, I obtained not that which I sought--nor had I expected," he continued, smiling, "to obtain that, for it was the Elixir of Life, which, as I have told you, does not exist--but a substance new in my experience, and which seemed to me to possess some peculiar properties.

I tested it in all the ways known to me, but without benefit or enlightenment; and in the end I was about to cast it aside, when I chanced on a passage in the manuscript of Ibn Jasher--the same, in fact, that I showed you a few minutes ago." "And you found ?" The Syndic's attitude as he leaned forward, with parted lips and a hand on each knee, betrayed an interest so abnormal that it was odd that Basterga did not notice it.
Instead, "I found that he had made," the scholar replied quietly, "as far back as the tenth century the same experiment which I had just completed.

And with the same result." "He obtained the substance ?" Basterga nodded.
"And discovered?
What ?" Blondel asked eagerly.

"Its use ?" "A certain use," the other replied cautiously.