Von Kempelen and his Discovery

My Thoughts

I believe this, at the time, was a modern take on the old myth of transmuting simple materials, especially lead, into gold through the use of alchemy. It was widely believed and thus experimented, that there was a combination of alchemy that could cause a chemical reaction resulting in the transmutation of gold. Today it actually can happen, but not through alchemy. Luckily, chemistry took over and with the help of manipulating a few select charged particles, we can turn lead into gold, but at a cost that proves to be less than optimal.

I didn't enjoy this story very much. It was another hoax article, but it didn't grab my attention in the same manner of other hoax articles such as The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfaall or The Balloon-Hoax. Not Poe's finest work in my opinion.

My Rating

I would give the story a 2 out of 5. It didn't hold my interest very well. I did learn about the Turk though. I never heard of it until reading this story. Its furtive functionality was impressive and the fact that it held its secret for an extremely long time is absolutely astounding.