مسالك الابصار في ممالك الامصار 2.144

2.144

Our master, the unique one of the age, Shams al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, told me: Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, God have mercy on him, used to affirm the validity of alchemy. He said: I disputed with him about the falsity of alchemy, and he said to me: You know how much [gold] is lost in buildings and utensils, and the gold mines do not yield the equivalent of what is lost and used up. As for India, I have established that for three thousand years no gold has gone out of it to [other] lands, nor has gold entered it and then left it; and merchants from every horizon head for India with gold coin, taking in exchange for it aromatic woods, herbs and gums, nothing else. Were it not that gold is made [by alchemy], it would have disappeared altogether.