The Silver Tree of the Philosophers

This experiment is more scientific than alchemical, but it was discovered by

alchemists (John French I think, as it is described in his book). It is merely a
chemical reaction between silver nitrate and mercury, but it's very neat to watch.
I myself haven't succeeded in this yet, but Adam McLean did and is on his
website:
http://www.alchemywebsite.com/tree_of_silver.html

I tried this once following John French's instructions from his book "The Art of
Distillation," but following his instructions to the letter proved to be a trap. The
difference between French's instructions and the way Adam did it (which worked
for him) was that Adam didn't dissolve his mercury in nitric acid, which is what
French instructs to do.
I plan on doing this myself late summer this year.
The instructions are as follows: You'll need to acquire a small quantity of silver
nitrate, in powder form. It would be really expensive to buy this, so if you don't
want to go that route you could make it yourself. You'll need nitric acid and pure
silver. The silver is a lot cheaper than the acid. Dissolve the silver in the nitric
acid, heating it up (do this outside, the fumes are dangerous) until all the silver
dissolves. Then evapourate off all the nitric acid. You'll be left with a white
powder. Take 10g of this and dissolve it in 100ml of distilled water, then put it in a
flask. Add 20g of liquid mercury. After a few hours your tree will grow. It is very
delicate, so be careful with it.
James Collins