In the course of a research expedition to Sicily in 1638, the alchemist Athanasius Kircher had himself lowered into the crater of Vesuvius. There, perched on a rock in the midst of a torrid lake of magma, he was able to see for himself the workings of the Earth's creative fire.  As the light of the secret sun radiating at the Earth's centre spilled forth, Kircher was accorded an excellent view of "a fiery subterranean workshop," a spectacle that reinforced his alchemical conviction that the Earth was a physical creature with a drive for technological creation.  For Kircher and other alchemists, volcanoes represented safety valves whereby a living earth let-off steam via a subterranean network of lava canals.  Seas, in turn, were seen to represent a vast cooling system that clamed the heat radiating from the Earth's inner furnace, enabling life to flouring in the moist heat of the atmosphere. Another student of alchemy, Goethe, described the Earth as a "great living creature, constantly breathing in and out," like a self-generative forge that created and coalesced an array of organic and inorganic life forms both within its bowels and on its surface.