Mario Carcamo

English 1102 R21

Prof. Jordan Windholz

March, 10 2011

Metaphors in Alchemy

Introduction

Metaphors are used to compare to things that are similar in some characteristic in order to either emphasize a certain characteristic in what you are comparing, create a better picture in your audience on what the object is like, and to do a job that no amount of adjectives can. In this science article, Natalie Angier uses this metaphor to describe a complicated chemical process. She states, “Put the two together, and you will have a silica garden, in which the ruddy ferric chloride rises and bifurcates, as though it where reaching toward sunlight and bursting into bloom (Angier)”. Using this metaphor is both logical and rhetorical because it effectively does it job of portraying a picture in its readers. With just this metaphor we can picture this chemical process much clearer and is similar to the process of a blooming plant.

Historically, alchemy was begun in Hellenistic times, as evidenced by documents found in Egyptian tombs. Berthelot devoted an essay to study the Leyden Papyrus and other similar documents. Basically there are recipes for the manufacture of products of interest both practical and purely luxury items. Are mentioned and some "stains" special recipes for alloys and coatings that outwardly give the impression that the alchemist is able to manipulate matter. These coatings have been a source of constant problems for the rulers, and from Diocletian in the third century AD until the time of the last Spanish Habsburgs we decrees river chasing the manufacture and sale of "alchemist's gold." But not until the Middle Ages we find suggestions to make a "tincture" permanent would need a secret ingredient, the philosophers' stone.

Discussion

Alchemy is very much like a blossoming flower. Within the article, Natalie Angier compares chemical reactions found in alchemy to a ...