Was alchemy an early form of a get rich quick scheme? With so much focus on changing base metals into gold, it certainly appears as though many people tried out alchemy simply to get money (gold) for little to no work.
The article below, originally published in 1902, gives a brief history of alchemy and how man have attempted to turn lead into precious metals.
Artificial Metals
For Over 1000 Years Men Tried to Produce Gold and Silver
For over 1000 years mankind declared and believed that gold and silver could be artificially produced, and innumerable searchers have labored on this problem. These workers have not been wholly within the class of metallurgists, or what we might call scientists, but all ranks and callings have contributed contingents. The general impulse which we designate as alchemy remained influential until the beginning of the eighteenth century, and was so widespread that it deserves consideration by a student of social science. While it is probable that in the more ignorant ages a larger number of people believed in incantations and ghosts than practiced true alchemy, yet the public profession of the latter was much more frequent than the public profession of supernatural powers.
The history of alchemy has indeed less significance for chemistry than for the history of culture.
The belief in transmutation was promoted by the observation of cases in which the appearance of gold and silver could be imparted to baser metals. For example, copper alloyed with zinc assumes the ordinary color of gold. Treated with certain arsenical substances it assumes a silver-like appearance. Moreover, the doctrine of Aristotle that substances differ, not because of different composition, but by reason of difference of properties, necessarily encouraged the transmutationists. It was in this spirit that one operator distilled mercury 1,700 successive times in hopes of driving out from it the liquefying principle and thus obtaining the solid silver.
This ignorance as to the details of chemical composition also led to another misunderstanding. Mine waters containing copper compounds (the existence of copper as such in the water was not recognized) would, by the action of iron, deposit the copper and the iron would dissolve. We have no difficulty today in comprehending the nature of the action, but there was a time when it was believed to be a transmutation, and in alchemical language was expressed as being due to Mars (iron) having laid off his armor and decorated himself with the garments of Venus (copper).
It is interesting to note also that according to the Greek alchemists lead was the generator of other metals. It was especially the generator of silver. We have no difficulty in understanding how this last error arose. Lead ores usually contain some silver, often very considerable amounts, and the operation of cupellation easily burns off the lead and leaves the button of silver, in which small amounts of gold are often found.
Source: The Sumpter miner. (Sumpter, Or.), 09 July 1902.
