Samuel Smiles：Self-Help, Excerpt 87

The life of John Frederick Böttgher, the inventor of hard porcelain, presents a remarkable contrast to that of Palissy; though it also contains many points of singular and almost romantic interest. Böttgher was born at Schleiz, in the Voightland, in 1685, and at twelve years of age was placed apprentice with an apothecary at Berlin. He seems to have been early fascinated by chemistry, and occupied most of his leisure in making experiments. These for the most part tended in one direction—the art of converting common on metals into gold. At the end of several years, Böttgher pretended to have discovered the universal solvent of the alchemists, and professed that he had made gold by its means. He exhibited its powers before his master, the apothecary Zörn, and by some trick or other succeeded in making him and several other witnesses believe that he had actually converted copper into gold.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/935
Locator：Excerpt 87 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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