Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A60264
|
A discourse of the sulphur-bath at Knarsbrough in York-shire By Will. Simpson, M.D.
|
Simpson, William, M.D.
|
1675
(1675)
|
Wing S3830; ESTC R221487
|
12,431
|
33
|
other actions reputed amongst most Authors Heteroclites and was the same in the latter as the former and from hence I saw that reputed causticks I mean fixt lixivial Alcalies were no other then Acids viz. of the Fire fixt upon bodies so that I found nature symbolical in all her actions and always consonant to her own principles And that I might improve this notion the better not taken notice of by any other Author I know I began to make a strict scrutiny into the nature of fixt Alcalies I considered First That the more Fire they endured and the higher they were calcin'd and the sooner us'd after calcination the stronger and more fiery Causticks they were 2. That they would never calcine to a strong Salt unless perform'd in open Vessels or Crucibles where the Fire might more immediately touch upon them and concentre its own acidum 3. That if after they were cold and kept from the Air and then Spirit of Wine or Water was put thereto thence a heat was presently produc'd which as I conceive was from no other cause then this viz. That either of those Liquors sets the acidum contracted from the Fire and the Sulphur or volatile Alcaly in the Salt into a sudden Fermentation dissolving and so putting them into an intestine collision 4. And fourthly I considered That the longer these Salts were expos'd to the Air even to a solution per deliquium the more mild and soft in operation they become loosing thereby gradually their Acids imbibed from the Fire insomuch as by often solution per deliquium the compage of that Salt from the vinculum of the fiery Acid is taken off as that the whole may thence be reduc'd into an insipid Water and Earth and no Arcauum neither Lastly That although these fixt lixivial Salts do make strong Ebullitions with Acids put to them yet that happens either betwixt the additional acid and the Sulphur in the Salt or betwixt it and the volatile alcaly bound up in the artificial concretion That there are Sulphurs in those Salts or new textures of Plants appears from their lixivial or saponary property and that there are also volatile alcalies is evident from their precipitating faculty and from their intestine strugling with acids To which may be added this observation that after fixt alcalies have lost the acidum contracted from Fire which they do by keeping and sometimes exposing to the air together with the addition of somewhat which dints the foresaid Acidum may then by Art be made to split into Oyle and urinous Spirit or volatile Salt As to that great objection against the acidity of fixt lixivial Alcalies viz. the precipitation of such solutions made with Alcalies by Acids inasmuch as it is generally observ'd that what solutions Alcalies make are most promptly precipitated by Acids I answer First That although what more simple I mean volatile Alcalies do dissolve are precipitated very readily by Acids vice versa yet where Alcalies are more complicated and interwoven with other essential parts there the precipitation by Acids of what those already have dissolv'd are in no wise wholly ascribable to them as alcalies but equally compitible to other parts in the concretion And in the next place I answer that even some acids are capable of precipitating what others have dissolv'd to prove and illustrate which I try'd this following instance viz. I took a clear solution of saccharum Saturni which I had prepared with distilled Vinegar which no man will deny to be an Acid upon which I poured a pretty smart Spirit of Vitriol whereupon it presently became Milkie and caus'd a precipitation of a pure white calx of Saturn which precipitation may also be done with Spirit of Salt The same likewise will Spirit of Salt do poured upon a solution of refin'd Silver made in double its weight of Aqua fortis in preparing that admirable anomolous neutral concretion call'd Luna Cornea mentioned by the honorable Boyle in his origin of forms and not onely Spirit of Salt but also Oyle of Vitriol will cause the like precipitation Whence its obvious to any eye that what some Acids dissolve others may precipitate from the congenealness of the solvend to one solvend more then another For both those wherein the solutions of the metals were made viz. Spirit of Vinegar and Aqua-fortis are as undoubtedly acids as those which cause the precipitations viz. Spirit of Vitriol and Spirit of Salt So that the precipitation of bodies depend not upon acid or alcalizate Liquors as such but upon the consanguinity if I may so say of bodies or solvends to liquors or solvents viz. whilst an acid having dissolv'd one body meeting with another akin thereto le ts the former fall and from an abstruce affinity of parts dissolves the latter From whence it need not seem heterodox although to the most it may as yet a paradox to say that fixt Alcalies open the bodies of mineral Sulphurs as they are acido-Sulphurous Salts and that chiefly as they partake of the acidum of Fire assum'd by calcination and that precipitations of the same solutions may be perform'd and that too without the least absurdity in Philosophy by other supervening Acids as we have even now demonstrated As I observ'd all fixt Alcalies made out of Vegetables to work upon Mineral Sulphurs on the account of their being Acido-Sulphurous-Salts so I could not otherwise whilst I look'd upon the matter with a very intent eye judge of calx vive whose manner of operation in opening the bodies of Brimstone and other Mineral Sulphurs I could not charge to any other then its Acid which it had contracted from the Fire in the very calcination of that sort of Stone call'd Lapis calcarius viz. Free-stone or Lime-stone which that it chiefly partakes of the Acidum of Fire and thereby performs not only that but various other effects we have already in short demonstrated and shall further in Lithologia Physica From the premisses it will easily appear in confirmation of our former Doctrine that all solutions of Mineral Sulphurs in the bowels of the Earth are made by their peculiar Acids and that other solutions made by Art are but from the same principles under other disguises Therefore that which opens the body of Sulphur in these Mineral Marcasites through which this water we treat of runs must of necessity be an Acidum which afterwards is precipitated by another Acid of the Alom-bed through which at last it passeth As to that experiment we gave to illustrate the cause and manner of making that water by opening those vitriolin Marcasites with quick-lime in our Hydrological Essays although we there imputed it to the alcali yet now from second and more mature thoughts grounded upon experiment as aforesaid find it otherwise where we profess such an avowed proselyteship to truth sufficiently amiable and worthy in it self as upon nearer apprehensions thereof grounded upon better weighed principles to decline what we have formerly at greater distance in