The methods of research adopted by the alchemists could give but little success, for they did not set themselves clear and simple questions whose answers would aid them to make further progress.
Thus though they did not arrive at any exact law, they left nevertheless numerous and useful experimental data as an inheritance to chemistry; they investigated, in particular, the transformations proper to metals, and for this reason chemistry was for long afterwards entirely confined to the study of metallic substances.
In their researches, the alchemists frequently made use of two chemical processes which are now termed ‘reduction’ and ‘oxidation.’
The rusting of metals, and in general their conversion from a metallic into an earthy form, is called ‘oxidation,’ whilst the extraction of a metal from an earthy substance is called ‘reduction.’
- Many metals—for instance, iron, lead, and tin—are oxidised by heating in air alone, and may be again reduced by heating with carbon.
- Such oxidised metals are found in the earth, and form the majority of metallic ores.
- The metals, such as tin, iron, and copper, may be extracted from these ores by heating them together with carbon.
All these processes were well studied by the alchemists. It was afterwards shown that all earths and minerals are formed of similar metallic rusts or oxides, or of their combinations.
Thus the alchemists knew of two forms of chemical changes: the oxidation of metals and the reduction of the oxides so formed into metals.
The explanation of the nature of these two classes of chemical phenomena was the means for the discovery of the most important chemical laws.
The first hypothesis on their nature is due to Becker, and more particularly to Stahl, a surgeon to the King of Prussia. Stahl writes in his ‘Fundamenta Chymiæ,’ 1723, that all substances consist of an imponderable fiery substance called ‘phlogiston’ (materia aut principium ignis non ipse ignis), and of another element having particular properties for each substance.
The greater the capacity of a body for oxidation, or the more combustible it is, the richer it is in phlogiston. Carbon contains it in great abundance. In oxidation or combustion phlogiston is emitted, and in reduction it is consumed or enters into combination. Carbon reduces earthy substances because it is rich in phlogiston, and gives up a portion of its phlogiston to the substance reduced.
Thus Stahl supposed metals to be compound substances consisting of phlogiston and an earthy substance or oxide. This hypothesis is distinguished for its very great simplicity, and for this and other reasons it acquired many supporters.25