I went to the library today to find the book I once read long ago, about a man who gathered morning dew and made an elixir from it. In my memory I thought he lived to be over 100, but he only lived to be 68, and we all know him well -- Armand Barbault.
Turns out the book I was looking for this whole time was the Time Life book "Secrets of the Alchemists" by the Mysteries of the Unknown book series. The very same book that got David Hudson interested in alchemy. But when I read it 10 years ago, I didn't know anything about alchemy, or Barbault. It's really a wonderful book, with lots of illustrations and detailed explanations of old alchemy works, like the "Wordless Book", and I highly recommend anyone living in America go to your local library and see if they have a copy. I was very surprised to see that Time Life books could make such a perfect alchemy book.
At the end of the book, it shows 7 photos of Barbault and his wife and son making the elixir of gold:
1. He collected his dew by dragging a canvas cloth over 50 yards of grass to obtain 1 quart of dew.
2. Photo two shows Barbault and his son wringing out the dew from the wet canvas. Barbault warns that the dew collected on the cloth must not touch the ground, or "all etheric forces will be lost". Yet he collected the dew from the ground in the first place.
3. Photo three shows father and son collecting strong young plants just before sunrise. Barbault says the plants draw greater force form the ground for the alchemist's use.
4. After the mix of plants, dew, and living earth (soil) has fermented for several months at 40°C (104°F), it is removed from the alembic, or still, for the next treatment -- incineration.
5. Once reduced to ash by incineration at 800°C (1,500°F), the material is sifted. The alchemist wears a mask, because the ash contains volatile, possibly harmful compounds.
6. Barbault slides a test tube full of the ash, dew, and powdered gold into a circular oven. This mixture is boiled for 4 hours and then cooled for 4 hours, in a cycle that is repeated 7 times.
7. Father and son examine "the liquor of Gold" filtered from the mixture that was cooked in the test tubes. When the Elixir is perfect, a symbolic Star is see floating on the surface.
I think Barbault's instincts were right on point, but he didn't know how to make this extracted liquor of gold into the stone like we do. It really seems to make a lot of sense that you would need to add actual dirt/soil to the dew during the first 40 days of fermentation, then incinerate the dirt, and redissolve it back into the dew. But Barbault skipped ahead and dissolved gold before his Alkahest was complete, which is why it took so long to dissolve the gold. He should have put incinerated ashes back in the dew and digested again in the water bath for another philosophical month, then distill the dew to separate it from the ashes, and incinerate them again, repeating this cycle 5 times until the ashes become like a clear crystalline salt, and then it is ready.
This seems to be what is left out of the Cappucine Monk's letter -- the earth/dirt/soil
Subject: Armand Babault''s dew process 
Fri May 22, 2009 12:41 pm
