Lead the top of it rises in form of a point the bottom is broad and proportioned to the body In its lower part it hath a brim inwards on which the Vapours that rise in it fall and gently distil to the Nose of the Pipe which is of half a foot long and conveys the liquors into the Receiver These two Vessels fitted one to another serve to distil and rectifie in a sand-fire per assensum the waters of Plants Aqua vitae Spirit of Wine the phlegm Oyl and Spirit of Vegetables and Animals and to rectifie the Phlegm and Spirit of Minerals Before you put your Cucurbit into the sand you must lute two or three slices of white Paper upon the neck of your body that so you may even it and make it fit for the head which must fit close upon these slices of Paper round about the Glass-body tye a pack-thread with a loose knot then with more Paper lute together the head and its body over this pack-thread the use of which will be to undo easily these Vessels one from another by drawing the pack-thread and so breaking the Papers when the Operation shall be ended If you expect not a considerable quantity of liquor from your matter then make use of a small Receiver which you may hang to the Nose of the Limbick by a pack-thread fastned to the little button that is on the top of its head but if it be big and you hope for much liquor then place it carefully upon a little Stool or upon Bricks laid one upon another Blind Limbicks are made of a Cucurbit and its head sealed hermetically to it of the bigness of ones fist in the top of the head there is a little hole fit to receive the small end of a Tunnel by which the Liquors are poured into this Vessel and in the lower part of the head there is a nose by which the Liquors distil It s use is to rectifie the acid Spirits of Minerals Vegetables and Animals so that nothing be lost nor exhale from them and therefore you must carefully stop the hole by which you put in your matter with a Glass or Cork-stopple Twins or Pelicans are two blind Limbicks whose noses are reciprocally inserted into the Bodies of one another they must both have a hole in the top for the use mentioned in the other they serve to fix and circulate the Oyls and Spirits with their Salts of Animals Vegetables and Minerals The Retort is a glass made up of a great belly or ball and a long bending neck which near the belly is six or eight inches wide but diminishing still grows less till its end be but wide enough to put your finger in it serves to distil by the side of the Furnace and ordinarily in a naked circulatory fire the black Oyls and Spirits of Minerals and Metals and the stinking Oyls of Vegetables and Animals The Iron or Earthen Retort is like the Glass-one only the neck is three inches diameter near the belly and two inches in its extremity to the end that gross and heavy ingredients may the easilier be put in it serves to distil the Spirit and stinking Oyls of Woods Barks Roots and Berries The Matrass or Bolt-head is always of Glass and may be of different sizes it consists of a round bowl convex in its bottom with a neck half a foot long or thereabouts according to the bigness of the body the neck is every where an inch wide it serves to sublime Mercury and divers Salts The Recipient is a Matrass of any bigness whose neck must be broken off four fingers breadth near the belly to the end that the extremity of the neck of the Retort may enter into the middle of the body of the Receiver it serves to receive Waters Essences Oyls and Spirits of Animals Vegetables Minerals and Metals The way to make a Recipient of a Matrass is this Heat the neck in that part where you intend to cut it off and when it is very hot wet it and so knock it with a hammer and it will break there where it has been wet if it be not very even you may with a key even it by little and little The Stone or Earthen Receiver is of the same figure with the Glass one only it has a wider neck to receive the Nose of the Earthen Retort you may use an Earthen Pitcher if you cannot get a fit Receiver so the neck of the Pitcher be straight and the belly big and wide taking care to lute it close with the Retort but these Earthen Receivers are seldom used except it be to receive the Spirits and stinking Oyls of Wood Rinds Roots Barks and Berries The double Vessel in form of a Matrass is a Matrass with a long neck into which is inserted the neck of another Matrass of the same bulk in the ball though its neck be a little less and may if you will also be shorter and go but half way into the first Matrass you must lute with three or four slices of Paper the Junction of these two Vessels that nothing may exhale it serves to extract by Infusion in a Sand-heat all sorts of Tinctures The double Vessel in form of a Cucurbit or Body is a Cucurbite of Glass or Earth upon whose mouth you place a Cup like your Cupping-Glasses with the mouth downwards it having a little brim by which it is suspended upon the top of the Cucurbite these two Vessels must be close luted together The best Lute will be of Flower or Starch in form of a hasty Pudding This Vessel serves to extract by infusion the tincture of Aromatick Flowers that so nothing may be lost of their Spirit and is fitter than the Pitcher ordinarily used to this purpose The Bell is a great Glass-Vessel like the Bell Gardiners use to cover Melons withal The use of this is to draw the Spirit and Oyl of Sulphur of Salt Armoniack of Antimony and Mars or Iron by covering with it an Earthen Pan and if you turn it with the mouth upwards it serves for precipitations and washings or lotions The Glass-Tunnel though it be open at both ends yet we reckon it among the Vessels as well because sometimes by stopping the little end it is really one and contains Liquors as because there is something worth observation in its Fabrick or making it must have a straight long neck because being used in the blind Alimbeck it must reach as far as within the Body and not spill upon the inward brim of it it must not have so large a belly as the Tin-Tunnels lest when you separate your distilled Oyl from their Phlegm and Spirit much of the Oyls be lost by sticking to the large sides of your Tunnel It serves to separate the Oyl from the acid Phlegm distilled with it which is done by letting these two Liquors settle in the Tunnel and then taking away your finger which stopped it and giving leave to that Liquor which is lowermost to run
very porous and spongious therefore always put it in Glass White-ware or glaz'd Vessels or Stone because that these are very dry and thick and there is no danger in glaz'd Pots because your VVater has no Acrimony wherewith to corrode the glazing all the danger is that the Frost should break them for preventing of which inconvenience you must keep your Vessels in a warm deep Cellar or in a Box full of Hay Obs 2. That the refin'd crystalliz'd Niter which you put in your Water serves to preserve it for many years and that Niter is fitter for this purpose than the fix'd Salt of the Plant which would be very tedious to extract by drying and burning of the Faeces then infusing the Ashes then filtrating this Lixivium then evaporating it to the consistence of a Salt Obs 3. That you must presently stop your stone Pitchers with a Cork stopple and it is not necessary to expose them to the Sun-beams Obs 4. That to make Rose-water it is better to put pale Roses well picked into a great earthen glazed Pan and add to them water and common Salt for example upon six pounds of Roses as many quarts of water and one pound of common Salt and so let them macerate and ferment two or three days then put them into the Vesica and distil them observe that during the distillation and after it is done the Rose water does smell but very little of the Roses but if you will quicken the smell it is but setting your Pitchers some days in the Sun covered only with a white Paper then take them and stop them close with a cork stopple and set them up Its Vse and Vertue It is the same with the vertue of the Plant it is distilled from The soft Conserve of Leaves and Flowers TAke a deep large Pan set it in such a Furnace as the great Reverberatory Furnace throw a handful or two of sand into your Pan then place in it a stone Pitcher of a quart five quarters full of water fill up your pan with sand so as to bury the belly of the pitcher in sand Then put into the mouth of the Pitcher a Glass or Tin Pipe as big as your little finger and a foot long being bended in its middle angular-wise one end of it must be so streight that a drop of water may not go through in substance the other end must be pretty wide put the wide end lapt about with a little Linnen into your pitcher and then make a fire in your Furnace and cause your water to boyl as soon as it boyls there will come out with violence at the little end of the Pipe a moist burning vapour which will stream above half a foot beyond the Pitcher and yet not a drop of water with it set under this vapour a pan full of Leaves or Flowers newly gathered and fresh having before hand sprinkled upon them two or three spoonfuls of Spirit or Flegm or Vitriol or Sulphur these Leaves or Flowers will fade by little and little as they receive this penetrating vapour In the mean time you must turn them continually till they become like a thick hasty pudding which will be in half a quarter of an hour then take out these Flowers thus prepared put in more continuing so till you have prepared all your Leaves and Flowers then put them all together into an Earthen Pan and add to them double their weight of fine Sugar well powdered and searced incorporate them well together with your Spatula and thus you will have a very pleasant good conserve which will keep as long as that which is made by beating the herbs in a Mortar keep it in white ware pots Obs 1. That we have filled our Pitcher but three quarters full to the end that the water in boyling should not come out through the little end of the Pipe in its own substance but in Vapour Obs 2. That the Spirit of Vitriol or Sulphur with which we sprinkle the said Leaves or Flowers serves for two ends First it revives and quickens their natural colour preserves it nay and re-cals it if it were a decaying Secondly it is as a Salt to these Leaves or Flowers to preserve them from corruption Obs 3. That in all seasons even in winter you may by this method make a soft or Liquid Conserve of Roses with dry Roses whose dying yellowish colour you may this way revive and make them of a lovely red But the Operation will be somewhat tedious for it will last an hour but also the Conserve will last and keep longer than if it had been made of fresh Roses Obs 4. That if you take a straight Pipe half a foot long and put the wide end of it into the nose of the cover of the Brass Vesica which must be half full of water then the Sulphur that shall come out of the streight end of the said Pipe will do the same effect as the Engine described already Obs 5. That if you sprinkle the Conserve of Flowers of wild Popies with Oyl of Tartar made per deliquium or by dissolution of its Salt and then stir the said conserve it will become of the colour of Violets like Syrup of Violets and if you sprinkle the conserve of Roses with the said Oyl of Tartar and then stir it it will become as green as growing grass The Lime Water and Phagedenick Water TAke four or five pound of quick-Lime in stones and not in powder and choose such stones as are very well calcin'd put them into a barrel knocked out at one end or into a great stone Pot throw upon it at once two pale fulls of water and then stir it with a stick reiterating the agitation from time to time there will be a very great ebullition smoak in which the volatil Salt of the Quick-lime will evaporate in two hours or thereabouts the boyling will cease and the Quick-lime will fall to the bottom upon the surface of the Water there will remain a thin transparent white Ice which is the essential Crystallized Salt of the Quick-lime let this water stand for some days stirring it from time to time that it may be well impregnated with the Salt of the Lime or else at first you may separate it by inclination from the Lime that is in the bottom and then filtrate it through a brown Coffin of Paper and so keep it in great Glass or white Ware Bottels or Stone ones if you will provided they be all well stopped with Cork stopples Obs 1. That here we quench or slack the Quick-lime on a sudden all at once and so by a great ebullition and evaporation the volatil Salt of the Lime is dissipated for in this remedy we do not need the volatil Salt as we do in our Cauteries it is enough here that the Water be impregnated with the fixt Salt of the Quick-lime to be fit to cleanse and dry Ulcers It s Vse and Vertues It consumes the superfluous
Instruments with which a Laboratory ought to be furnished are of two sorts for some are Principal the others less-Principal The Principal Instruments without which no Operation can be done are the Lute the Furnaces the Vessels and the Fire The less-Principal are those that serve sometimes for one Process sometimes for another towards the facilitating of them and are in great number But I propose only Thirty of the most useful viz. an Iron Ladle a little Iron Bar an Iron Spatula a great Stick a Brass Mortar and Pestle a Marble Mortar with a Woodden-pestle a Plate-dish of White-ware with a Glass-pestle two pair of Scales and Weights a Marble or Porphyry-stone to grind upon some Pack-thread white and brown Paper Starch or Glue a fine Sieve some old Linen-rags cut out into long slices some Ashes some Sand some Tiles some water a Tin-Mould in form of a Pipe an Iron-Mould for Pistol-Bullets a Copper-Mould for a Goblet a little Trevet a Woodden Spoon a Tin-Tunnel Rolls stuft with Straw or Chaff or made of Paste-board a Mould for Bricks a Fire-Shovel a pair of Tongs and a pair of Bellows Of these we shall not treat here particularly but as occasion shall serve in the Operations where they shall be imployed Of the Chymical Lute TO make a good Lute for all the purposes of Chymistry take of Potters-Earth of white or yellow Sand and of Horse-dung an equal quantity not an equal weight mingle them and moisten them by little and little with water first working them together with your feet upon the ground then piece by piece kneading of them exactly with your hands upon a Table till you have so incorporated your Ingredients that they are not distinguishable from one another then make them up in form of Bricks that so you may use them more neatly keeping them from Fire and Sun lest they should be over-dry and hard The Potters Earth is made use of because of its unctuosity which makes the Lute less brittle the Sand is employed to bind the Potters Earth from cracking and flying and burning to dust And some do use powder'd Glass for the same end The Horse-dung is added because being full of little Straws well grownd by the Horses Teeth they do serve for the firmer knitting of the matter together And so some use Calves Hair for that purpose Finally the Water incorporates these three things together In the place of which some use the Whites of Eggs which by their sliminess make a stronger conglutination of all the Ingredients This Lute serves for six uses 1. To make Bricks 2. To lute and cement the Bricks of your Furnaces 3. To fill up the cracks and slits of your Furnaces 4. To frame little Rounds like Salt-sellers to set the Retorts on 5. To lute all Vessels both of Earth and Glass 6. To repair the cracks of your Vessels Now because there is a peculiar industry in well forming the Bricks and Salt-sellers or Rounds and in luting the Vessels I shall here set it down at length Our Bricks are all of a bigness and proportion that so our Furnaces may be the more even and firm and the easilier built even without cement Moreover they are almost in the shape of a half Moon that they may make the Furnace round that figure being the fittest to gather and concentrate the heat Therefore we form our Bricks in a Woodden-mould either of Box or Guaiac or some such hard wood The piece of wood is a foot long half a foot broad and three inches thick In its middle there must be a hollow or overture drawn from a Round made with a Compass which Overture ought to be eight inches outwards six inches inwards three inches large and three inches thick Now to make your Bricks fill your mould with lute and with a woodden knife even the superficies and so knock out your Brick and when your mould grows dirty rub the sides of it with sand dry your Bricks in the shade so they will last longer for being thus half-dried they will bake leasurely in the using of them and not be apt to crumble and break neither will they be so soon calcin'd as if you had dried them by the fire or Sun or in a Potters Oven Our Rounds or Salt-sellers derive their name from their figure because they are somewhat like the old-fashioned Salt-sellers To form them take of our Lute a quantity as big as your fist and rowling it between both hands reduce it to the form of a Cylinder two inches high flat the lower end of it upon a Table and then with your fingers sink in the upper part till it be somewhat like a Salt-seller that is hollow and of the breadth of an inch in diameter For the luting of your Vessels the Lute that is employed ought to be softer than either for Bricks or Rounds and therefore you 'll do well to wet it with some Water It must not be laid on thicker than the thickness of a Half-Crown-piece for if it be the fire will scarce be able to heat the Water contained in your Vessels Observe that sometimes the Matrasses are luted up to the neck sometimes half way Retorts are luted in the same way too only there ought to be a little space left near the neck that one may see thorow it into the Vessel in the time of the Operation Your Vessel being luted must be dried at leisure in the Sun or shade or near a gentle fire taking care to turn them equally so that they be not dried more in one place than in another Of the Chymical Furnaces OUr Furnaces are round and little They are round that they may unite and concentrate the heat of the fire they are little that our Laboratory may not be incumber'd to no purpose and also that we may give our Vessels a quicker and more equal fire and that with less toil and less expence We have two sorts of Furnaces the first are fixt which are made of different lays of crooked Bricks cemented strongly together with our Lute the others are moveable and consist of crooked Bricks laid one upon another without any lute or cement and in which you lay the fire not under your Vessels as in the first sort of Furnaces but circularly round about them The fixt and cemented Furnaces are five in number to wit the Furnace with a heat of Bulneum maris or of the vaporous Bath the Furnace with the heat of ashes or sand the Furnace with a naked fire and circular heat the Furnace with a naked fire and small Reverberation and the Furnace with the fire of great Reverberation The moveable and not cemented Furnaces are likewise five in number viz. the Furnace with a small circulatory fire the Furnace with a great circulatory fire the Furnace with a fire of circulation and suppression without a gape the Furnace with a fire of circulation and suppression with a gape and the Furnace with a moulting fire or the wind furnace
two Bricks and upon them your Crucible or Pot then raise divers Rounds of our Bricks without Lute till they come two or three fingers above your Pot leaving in the first rank an interval of a fingers breadth betwixt the Bricks but in the last row they must be joined very close together leave also betwixt your Crucible and the Furnace-sides a space of two inches broad which must be filled with Coals up to the top of the Furnace and from thence this fire is called a fire of Suppression because the Coals are not only under but circularly above and on the sides of the Vessel and besides very often we cover the whole Pot with Coals The Furnace with a fire of Suppression with a chink is for the distillation of Oyls and Spirits and Phlegms of all sorts of resinous Gums and Wax in a Glass Retort well luted it is made as the precedent only there ought to be in the two last Rounds of Bricks a chink gap or overture for the neck of your Retort to pass through which must be set and compassed with Coals as has been said Observe That in placing your Retort either in this Furnace or any of the small or great Reverberatories there are three things to be taken notice of 1. That the body of the Retort touch the Bricks of the side that the Chink is in such a manner as the whole neck may hang out at the Chink lest otherwise the fire should break it 2. That the neck of your Retort hang downwards that the liquor may the easilier run into the Recipient 3. That the end of the neck of your Retort enter into the middle of your Recipient for fear the vapours received should find some passage even through their luted conjunction The Furnace with a melting-fire or the Wind-Furnace to melt the hardest bodies as Gold Glass Stones in a Crucible or unglazed Earthen pot and it is thus made Take two Loggs of Wood or two great Stones half a foot high a Barrel knock'd out at the lower end and having in the other a hole as big as a mans head then set this Barrel upon the Stones or Loggs and having laid a Grate upon the uppermost hole cover all this top with our Lute and Plaster together and upon this erect a moveable Furnace with the fire of suppression with our Bricks as it has been said before The air coming in with violence under the Barrel does so blow and light the Coals that it produces a heat incomparably greater than any other Of the Chymical Vessels THe Kettle or Cauldron serving for the Balneum Maris or Vaporous Bath This Kettle is of the same matter and form as ordinary Kettles are that is Brass it must have no Bail but round about it a brim of an inch broad by which it is to be suspended upon the brim of the Furnace this Kettles cover must exactly fit it and have five round holes whereof the middlemost must be the biggest and capable of the bottom of a Glass-Cucurbit or Body with its head the four other are less and for little dishes of Earth or Glass in which Extracts and Salts are to be dried The Vesica or Copper-body cover'd with its Moors-head and bordered with its Refrigeratory serving to distil Aqua vitae Aromatick and Balsamick Essences Waters and Spirits of Plants This Vesica ought to be of Copper not tinn'd within and somewhat round bottom'd it ought not to be thicker than a shilling of one foot and a half high and one foot broad in diameter in its top it must be a little Convex not in form of a Pear as they ordinarily make them and this that it may repercute the phlegm of Aqua vitae and the Essences From the middle of this top rises a neck four inches high and three in diameter below but four inches above whose use is to make the Cover of the Vesica enter easily and stick faster and so you see that this Vessel is not unlike a Hogs-bladder on one side of the top rises a little pipe two inches high and half a finger wide by which with a Tin-tunnel you put in again the first Spirits of Wine that come a little muddy because they have carried along with them the smoot adhering to the conducts of the Alembick its Cover is of Brass and consists of a neck half a foot deep three inches large at the top and bottom but four inches in the middle because within it must be five or six Spunges so fastned with cross-sticks under and over them as to be kept from falling down into the Vesica and from rising up into the head their use is to draw to themselves the aetherial Spirit of the Aqua vitae or Brandy and to hinder the phlegm which in the middle of the Operation rises with the Spirits from passing any farther for the Spirit being thin and aery easily makes way where the gross phlegm cannot which therefore falls down again into the Vesica This neck is terminated in a round Ball not unlike a humane skull and is therefore called the Moors-head from whose middle is derived a Pipe a foot long and in diameter an inch wide which goes through a Cauldron or Kettle sawder'd round about the Moors-head and which must be of such a proportion as to contain a pale of water which is poured in the Operation cold to the end that the Vapours that are in the Moors-head may be soon condensed and dissolved into liquor This Cauldron is therefore called a Refrigeratory on one side of the brim there is a little cock wherewith to empty the water if it grow too hot and when the Operation is ended The little moveable neck by which the Pipe coming from the Moors-head must be join'd with the long Pipe that goeth through the Hogs-heads ought to be half a foot long the long Pipe which passes through the Hogs-heads must be of Brass and six foot long one inch wide in diameter by little and little diminishing as it comes nearer the end This Pipe goes through two Hogs-heads situated close by one another by four holes so made that the Pipe entring almost at the top of the nearest runneth down a-slope to come out at the last hoop of the furthermost afterwards the circumference of these holes must be strongly luted then fill with water your Hogs-heads which will be another strong Refrigeratory and by condensing the Spirits and Vapours in their way make a copious distillation in a small time The open Limbick is made of two different pieces viz. of a Body or Cucurbit and its Head The Body may be of Glass Stone or Earthen glaz'd ware or of Brass it is always higher than it is broad broader in its middle than in its bottom and broader at the bottom than at the top and round in all its breadth by which description you see that it is not unlike a Gourd The head may be of the same matter as the body and sometimes of