His recovery of silver from solution in aqua fortis showed the persistence of unchanged silver and supported its microparticulate structure.

Her pedigree was pure Australian for the first three generations, her male line great-grandsire Aqua Fortis having won the Victorian Waterloo Cup in 1899.

The manuscript is full of references to the aquila or eagle (the volatile principle or sal ammoniac), aqua fortis or "strong water" (mainly nitric acid), aqua vitae (concentrated alcohol, often distilled wine), "dragons," (symbolizing "the volatile and fixed principles [mercury and sulphur]," 253), sophic mercury (describing the universal agent of transmutation) and the urine of Saturn (an ammonium salt), just to name a few.