Alchemy - The Beginner's Guide

Charles monroe cane talks with sarah durn, author of the beginner's guide to alchemy. Science history students at columbia university don't have to imagine what it was like to be an alchemist. They can spend a semester reading mediaeval alchemical manuscripts and translating recipes for making emeralds or turning silkworms into gold. So how do you make an emerald? Well, you take ground crystal, so ground rock crystal, which is mainly silica, and red lead,. You heat it all together. It really does take skill, it does.