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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kaparthy, post: 1991555, member: 57463&quot;]GD, you are sending me on a research quest to write an article.&nbsp; The touchstone was (and is) for gold, not silver.&nbsp; A touchstone or Lydian stone, is hard, close-grained slate or chert or similar rock. You rub the test piece on it and then wash the streak with acid to remove everything except the gold. The color of the remaining streak tells you the fineness or purity of the gold.&nbsp; That takes some learning and finesse. This is not like testing the pH of your swimming pool.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the Dark Ages, the use of the stone transmogrified from a TEST to a TRANSMUTATION and the story grew up of a &quot;philosopher&#039;s stone&quot; that could (a) tell true gold, hence all truth, from fool&#039;s gold, hence all falsehoods, but also (b) change base metals to gold.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; The first J. K. Rowling book was titled <i>Harry Potter and the Philosopher&#039;s Stone</i> in the UK; but that was changed to <i>Sorcerer&#039;s Stone</i> for the US market, lest any Americans be intimidated by the threat of philosophy.&nbsp; (Americans have less fear of the Devil who was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_and_Daniel_Webster" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_and_Daniel_Webster" rel="nofollow">defeated by Daniel Webster</a> and then by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgvfRSzmMoU" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgvfRSzmMoU" rel="nofollow">a Georgia boy with a fiddle</a>.)</p><p><br /></p><p>You cannot use a Lydian stone to test silver because acids dissolve silver.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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