Alchemical Papers of Dr. Robert Plot

Abstract

DR. ROBERT PLOT (1640-1697) is a fairly important figure in the chemical history of the late seventeenth century. Accounts of his chemical work 1 at Oxford and of his life and scientific work 2 generally have been given by R. T. Gunther. We may recall here Plot's animadversions on chemical matters, contained in his Natural History of Oxfordshire (1677) and his Natural Hist01'Y of Staffordshire (1686), and the fact that he became in 1683 the first Professor of Chemistry in the University of Oxford, where he read the first chemical lectures and was responsible for the fitting out of the elaboratory in the vaults of the Ashmolean Museum. Among the manuscripts left by him, but now lost sight of, was a copy of his lectures, which bore the title Praelectiones Chymicae in Schola Naturalis Historiae Oxon. habitae: Gunther's statement S that samples of these are preserved in MS Rawlinson D 888, at the Bodleian, is incorrect, for this MS contains only the title in a list of Plot's MSS. We have therefore no direct evidence as to how far alchemy entered into Plot's lectures, but from his statement (p. 71) that he had kept his connection with the subject secret, we may infer that it did not. In fact Plot's connection with alchemy long remained unknown to his biographers, for the notice of the manuscript which affords the evidence thereof (Sloane 3646 in the British Museum) appeared in Ayscough's Catalogue of the Manuscripts preserved in the British Museum (London, 1782, p. 491) as I ROB. PLOTT [Professor of Chymist~y, Oxon.] Collection of papers, chiefly chymical', without any reference to alchemy. Gunther consulted this MS, gave some account of it, and quoted two passages (op. elit. note 2, pp. 355-6, 411-3), but failed to point out the alchemical character of its contents or to mention the very interesting papers transcribed on pp. 70-74 below. It may be noted that Gunther commonly omitted to make any mention of the alchemical studies of his subjects, and his work therefore gives a somewhat misleading picture of such men as Fludd, Ashmole and Plot. For this reason it has been thought advisable to give some account of the above MS and to transcribe certain passages.