Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	abate_v	salt_n	volatile_a	59	3	11.6670	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61885	Legends no histories, or, A specimen of some animadversions upon The history of the Royal Society wherein, besides the several errors against common literature, sundry mistakes about the making of salt-petre and gun-powder are detected and rectified : whereunto are added two discourses, one of Pietro Sardi and another of Nicolas Tartaglia relating to that subject, translated out of Italian : with a brief account of those passages of the authors life ... : together with the Plus ultra of Mr. Joseph Glanvill reduced to a non-plus, &c. / by Henry Stubbe ...	Stubbe, Henry, 1632-1676.; Tartaglia, Niccolò, d. 1557. Quesiti et inventioni diverse. Libro 3. English.; Sardi, Pietro, b. 1559? Artiglieria. English. Selections.; Stubbe, Henry, 1632-1676. Plus ultra reduced to a non plus.; Henshaw, Thomas, 1618-1700.	1670 (1670)	Wing S6053; Wing S6063_PARTIAL; ESTC R21316	289,570	380

the Sun yet here fishes and other Creatures feed and plants grow and consequently that cannot be a chief ingredient in nutrition which may be wanting There is something else in Mr He●shaw that lookes like an Argument by the introduction FOR. For all abound with such a volatile Salt fixed and Oil as Petre doth I cannot tell how to forme this Argument and yet convince the world that I do not injure him this passage is so extreamly ridiculous Yet I will endeavour it if it be but to shew the Logick of Ant ' Aristotelians and how much we owe to that providence which hath educated us better than to argue so The proposition he aimes at and would prove is That the Salt which is in vegetables and Animals is but the Nitre which is universally diffused through the Elements The medium or Argument by which he would prove it is is is harder to be found out than the meaning of Aristotle in his Acromaticks Let us consider it again That which I aim at then is That if the Spirit of the volatile Salt of Soot or of the Urin blood hornes hoofes haire excrements or indeed any part of Animals for all abound with such a volatile Salt fixed and Oile as Petre doth could by the same way viz as the redintegrated Nitre be reduced to Petre or some Nitrous Salt it would Excellently make out a Theory that I am much delighted with till I am convinced in it which is that the Salt which is found in vegetables and Animals is but the Nitre which is so universally diffused through all the El●ments and must therefore make a chief ingredient in their nutrition and by consequence of their generation a little altered from its first complexion Here is the Spirit of the volatile Salt of the parts of vegetables and Animals to be coagulated and transformed into Petre by the Spirit of Nitre Here is a volatile Salt fixed and Oile such as is in Petre mentioned to what purpose Here is a Salt spoken of to be found in Vegetables and Animals yet 't is not expressed whether it be the volatile or fixed Salt yet these two are different and those that abound with volatile Salt are more the Physick than the food of man Well I have spent half an hour to frame a Sorites or any tolerable Argument out of these words but I cannot do it but I will adventure to give our Philosophers this advise that they would take our English word FOR into their serious consideration and abolish the use of it as the French Academy at Paris did Car. Before I have done with this History I shall shew that this Intimation was but necessary for them To proceed How doth it appear that Salt-Petre abounds with a volatile Salt fixed and Oile In the regenerated Nitre which Glauber makes to be the best there is nothing but Alcali and the Spirit of Nitre in the Nitre which is generated by the mixture of the Spirit of Urin and Spirit of Nitre there is no such thing In the distillation of Nitre there is nothing but Spirit inseperate from Phlegme and its Alcali and as there is no Oile there so I hope he would not have us take the Alcali for a volatile Salt fixed In the making of Salt-Petre there is found indeed something that seems Oily and greasy but that is Excrementitious and so farr from being a constitutive part of it that it must be Separated from it as Mr. Henshaw knowes before Salt-Petre can be made and the great contrivance is how to separate it So Glauber in Prosper German part 3. pag. 43. alias enim pinguedinem nimiam contrahit lixivium nec ullum Salgenerabitur From the mention of this Oile I must take an occasion to tell the world how superficially our Virtuoso writes the History of Nitre I could suggest many curiosities from the severall liquors in the making of Salt-Petre But I have not time to discourse of the Mothers of Petre not how that grease being lodged in the ashes those ashes being exposed to the Sun at Warwick did in one or two daies produce visible Nitre on the top of the ashes so that in few daies those ashes become fit to be Elixiviated into raw liquors which were before but to make a Lixivium to purge the liquors that had boiled I shall only touch at an Experiment which may not be unwelcome to the Honourable Mr. Boyle I took of the Mothers that had stood long and were exceeding Oily I powred four spoonfulls of them into a large Venice-glass half full of water This greasy liquor sunke to the bottom instantly without altering the tast or colour of the water at all so that the top was clear water the bottom of a reddish colour as bilious Urin only on the surface of the water and in the middle there did flote several very small bubbles of the colour of water having let this stand a day I took a Solution of the Alcali of Salt-Petre which though of a greenish blew yeilded a lympid liquor upon filtration and poured two or three spoonfulls into the mixture of Mothers and water immediately the whole liquor turn'd Lacteous or White but the colour presently contracted it self into a white en●orema or suspensum such as is to be seen in healthfull Urin and so floted above the surface of the Mothers the next morning I found as it were a powder fallen to the bottom which I stirred up to the top whereupon the whole liquor up to the top of the water was turbid I let it stand all night and this morning the whole liquor from top to bottom is of one colour and that exactly of a Limon-colour or like old Hoccomar-wine on the top there seems to float thin coagulations of fat with some variety of colours such as one may often see on small waters that stand in Moorish grounds the liquor is nothing ●igh so acrimonious and purigent as the Mothers were and all of it is as greasy as the Mothers were when Separate hanging on the finger as Oile and not like water at all at the bottom of the Glass there lies a Yellow-sediment as 't were powder which upon agitation will not rise of it self but must be stirred up with something and then resembles the white Hypostasis of Urin with capillary filaments enterveaving each other And How doth it appear that Urin doth abound with a volatile Salt fixed and Oile I do not understand what he meanes by his volatile Salt fixed by what is it fixed to what degree volatile Salts are sometimes so fixed as only to abate not alter the volatility as the volatile Salt of vipers in Zwelfer and the volatile Salt of Harts-horn of which I keep some with rectified Spirit of Salt Sometimes they are so fixed as to loose the nature of Salt and to become insipid and indissoluble as when volatile Salts are mixed with Lime-water There are a sort of Salts which Zwelfer calls Salia Essentialia

it other shapes Mr. Boyle found it to be Sexangular but the sides not of equall breadth and each two whereof as they were opposite to each other seemed paralell Glauber saith that their shape will be such as I have described in English above if you follow his way in making them And is not this a notable discovery for such men as raise their Glory upon the shewing of Sights Especially if Mr. Henshaw Exhibit them also fistulous which neither Glauber nor Mr. Boyle did The other way of burning Salt-Petre to an Alcali with Brimstone is ridiculous and such as any man that ever made Sal prunellae will laugh at For the Brimstone doth not burn the Nitre to any Alcaly at all nor inflames it at all but serves to purifie it by consuming the Sal-Armoniacall parts or greasy heterogeneities and precipitating its faeces to the bottom of the pot till it become so transparent that after those projections and flagrations you may see the bottom of the pot through the melted Nitre And this is so evident a thing that Senertus and Monsieur Thibaut are positive therein Pietro Sardi as you may see hereafter and Casimirus Semien●wicz in his Ars mag Artiller p. 1. l. 2. c. 3. do prescribe this very way of burning it with Sulphur instead of the more tedious re●ining which is usually practised in order to the making of Gun-powder Imponatur Sal-nitri in vas aliquod cupreum vel ferreum aut fictile vitreatum et igne vasi supposito perque solitos gradus aucto exuratur donec Sal liquefiat et fervendo bulliat Iam sumatur aliquantulum Sulphuris communis subtilissimè pulverisati et Salinitri liquefacto superinspergatur et concipiet subitò flammam et quicquid pinguedinis vel noxij terrestris Salis non sufficienter purgatus Sal-Nitri habuerit exuret et multum clarificabit injectio autem Sulphuris aliquoties reiterari poterit Denique liquefactum et purificatum Salemnitri Effundito in marmor politum vel laminas ferreas aut cupreas vel vascula aliqua metallica vel figulnea vitreata et frigescere ibidem sinito Habebis jam Salemnitri congelatum Parium lapidem vel Alabastritem colore et duritie quâm proximé referentem If that excellent Lithuanian found this to be as good a way to refine the Nitre as that other by new solution affusion of Lixiviated liquors and new coagulation If it be evident that Sal prunellae will Crystalize and burn as other Petre if it be certain that Brimstone cannot burn Salt-Petre as Senertus Tartaglia and Semienowicz avow How shall we do for this fixed Salt or Alcali wherewith to make Nitre by affusion of the Spirit His calcining of it with Antimony hath as little of sence as the former for besides that there is more trouble in the process because that the Alcalisate Salt must be washed from the Antimony which takes off from the improvement If there be any Alcali in those preparations of Diaphoretick Antimony wherein every Apo●hecary tries the Experiment it is from the common or other Salts mixed with the Nitre and not from the Nitre part of which flies away with the Sulphur of Antimony as it deflagrates the rest staies behind and may be extracted with water and reduced into Crystalls of Nitre as a friend of mine tried of which he keeps some by him This Schroder and Rolfincius speaking of Diaphoretick Antimony and its edulcoration confess Aqua post primam edulcorationem nitro gravida ad medietatem evaporata praebet egregiam Aquam Anodynam Eâdem justâ evaporatione praegressâ in cellâ subterraneâ locata concrescit in Crystallos qui Nitrum Anodinum vocatur A Schrodero LAPIS PRUNELLAE ANTIMONIALIS indigitatur The vanity of Some men not knowing when they are well must be trying new conclusions although it be for the worse and obtruding them upon others What if at all was to be done with plain coal must for Ostentation-sake be tryed with Brimstone and Antimony And it had been a more genuine observation to have acquainted the world how after Mr. Boyl had found out a way to reproduce Nitre by affusing the Spirit to the Alcali of Nitre burnt with coal Mr. Henshaw had found out a method how to reduce the Alcali of Nitre burnt with Brimstone and Antimony to Nitre without any new Spirit affused Had he pretended this it had been but an ingenious imposture for vulgar capacities but now there is more of weakness than of knavery in the performance Had he told us out of Mr. Boyle's Essay and especially out of Glauber that the manufacture of Salt-Petre might be improved by affunding Aqua Fortis or the Spirit of Nitre upon the solution of Pot-ashes or any Alcalisate-Salt Nay upon Sal Gemmae Bay Salt common table Salt or Lyme water and that thereby any one might gaine Crystalls of Nitre proceeding according to Glauber Prosper German part 2. pag. 66. Et habebis purum putum Salempetrae instar alius Salis-Petrae ex pecorum aut pecudum Stabulis petiti flammam concipientem If he had hold us this though the advantage would have been greater than by the Alcali of Nitre yet would it not have been considerable because of the expense and Trouble and that it must be performed with the brittle materialls of Glasses as Glauber observes But it would have illustrated a little what I mentioned about the Lixiviate●Salt in the Ashes through which the Salt-Petre-liquor is filtrated shewing how the Alcali and common Salt are turned into Petre by vertue of that Liquor which yet hath nothing of the Acid Spirit whereby the Chymists generate theirs Let us learn from thence how obscure the procedures of Nature are● and how different from those of Art And let us leave off to say that things are alwaies generated of those principles into which they are Analised That which I aim at then is that if the Spirit of the volatile Salt of Soot or of the Urine blood hoofes hair excrements or indeed any part of Animals for all abound with such a volatile Salt fixed and Oile as Petre doth could by the same way or any like it be reduced to Petre or some Nitrous Salt not much differing it from it it would excellently make out a Theory that I am much delighted with till I am convinced in it which is that the Salt which is found in vegetables and Animals is but the Nitre which is so universally diffused through all the Elements and must therefore make a chief ingredient in their nutriment and by consequence of their Generation a little altered from its first complexion And that the reason why Animals that feed on Vegetables are obliged by nature to longer meales than those that feed on other Animals is because Animals are fuller of that Salt then Vegetables And indeed such Animals are but Caterers of it for Man and others whom natures bounty gratifies with a more delicious and lusty Dyet In confess I have

been the more confirmed in this fancy since I have often seen a friend of mine with a natural and facile 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 convert the greater part of Petre into a Salt so like the volatile Salt of Urine that they are scarcely to be distinguisht in smell or tast and yet he adds nothing to it that can possibly be suspected to participate of that nature But indeed all volatile Salts are so alike that it is not easy to distinguish them in any respect I have been carefull not to dismember this last Paragraph that the Reader might with one view survey this strange fancy and Judge better how little I impose upon him in the sequell of my discourse And first I ask our Orator how he applies this Speculation to what he promised us in the introduction to it How does this improve the Art of making Salt-Petre If an ill Memory and a proportionate mixture of something else be demonstrations of a great Witt no man hath given greater testimonies of his abilities than Mr. Henshaw Secondly I demand why He is so Solicitous to transform the Spirit of the volatile Salt of Soot or Urine c into Petre whereas any man that considered what he went about would employ his care rather to coagulate the volatile Salt with which the Spirit of Soot and Urine abounds with Spirit of Nitre Aqua-fortis or the like into Petre or some such Nitrous Salt But behold the Happiness of Mr. Henshawe's Fansy and the unhappiness of his judgment That which he Fansied possible about the coagulation of the volatile Salt abounding in Spirit of Urine with Spirit of Nitre into a kind of Petre this Experiment hath happily succeeded under the tryall of the Honourable and inquisitive Mr. Boyle but yet that Theory which he goes about to deduce thence is as farr from being established thereby as the Artifice of Salt Petre-making is from being thereby advanced From Spirit of Urine saith M● R. B. and Spirit of Nitre● when I have suffered them to remain long together before coagulation and freed the mixture from the Superfluous moisture very slowly I have sometimes obtained fine long Crystalls so shaped that most beholders took them for Crystalls of Salt-Petre But whosoever shal consider how much more trouble and cost there is in distilling those other volatile Spirits than there is in the drawing of the Spirit of Nitre and how small quantities are like to be made this way and those perhaps not serviceable in Gun-powder will easily see that this project is as inutile as the former was in order to the improvement of the making Salt-Petre Oh! But it will excellently make out a Theory that the Salt which is found in vegetables and Animals is but the Nitre which is so universally diffused through all the Elements a little altered from its first complexion I remember that Sc●liger taking occasion to complain of Cardan for some illogicall inferences useth these words Dij benefecerunt quód te faeminam non fecerunt Ad primam quamque speciem promissorum exiluisses I must apply this Sarcasme to Mr. Henshaw who could be deluded by such weak appearances of reason Let us but shape an Hypotheticall Syllogisme for him and consider the consequence If the Spirit of Nitre being poured upon the Spirit of the Volatile Salt of Urine Soot c. doth reduce the Volatile Salt to Petre or some Nitrous Salt not much differing from it then doth it follow that the Salt which is found in Vegetables and Animalls is but the Nitre which is so Universally diffused through all Elements and must therefore make a chiefe ingredient in their nutrition and generation a little altered from its first complexion But the Antecedent is true Ergo In the first place it is evident by the Experiment of Mr. Boyle that even Sea-Salt by the affusion of Spirit of Nitre may be turned into Petre. Nay Glauber teacheth us how Allom Vitriol Miner●lls and Stones may be with more or less trouble converted into Nitre why did not he extend his consideration about the Nitre in all the Elements to them Is it because that they abound not in Oile and volatile Salt upon which he so wisely builds his Argument Secondly since it is made evident by Glauber in many places of his works that the Spirit of Nitre is as it were the Seed of Nitre by which it propagates it self and assumes a body as plants do where it finds one agreeable and such are not only nay not principally which he should have noted the votatile but fixed Salts of any Creature Aqua fortis aut Spiritus Nitri est quasi Semen Salis-Petrae atque hanc naturam habet quando alijs Salibus sicut semen aliquod vegetabile terrae mandatur ut ex ipsis augmentum capiendo multiplicetur quemadmodum herbarum semina faciunt This Seminall principle in Nitre seemes to have the approbation of Mr. Boyle and if it be thus as undoubtedly it is and that those Salts whither volatile or fixed are but the materiall principle I do not see any more validity in the consequence than if I should say because sundry plants grow in the Earth or Water therefore the Earth or Water were but those plants a little disguised in their complexion In fine it is so farr from following hereupon that Salt-Petre disguised is the Chief ingredient of the nutrition and geration of Animals that it doth not follow that it is any ingredient at all but that there is something in those substances mentioned that may be converted into Petre and is as an Aristotelian would say disposed fitly to be the Subject matter of that Forme For as this Argument is shaped what I say is as manifest as that the constitutive parts of the Nitre are to be the volatile Salt the Spirit of Nitre The one thing indifferent to sundry combinations and transmutations and which hath nothing of the nature of Salt-Petre but is palpably transmuted since in the distillation of good Nitre there appears no such thing as volatile Salt The other it is that Specificates the predisposed matter and generates P●●re out of it so much altering the complexion that the affinity betwixt that volatile Salt and Salt-Petre is no more than betwixt a man and a pumpion He talks of the complexion of the Nitre being a little altered but I would faine know how little that is Let me see the like Crystalls a resembling flame and other effects that result from the being and Specification of Salt-Petre If Salt-petre be a chief ingredient in the generation and nutrition of vegetables T is either because of its bulke or Efficacy that it is chief but neither of these is true For the quantity is not so great in vegetables or Animalls should we allow the volatile Salt and Nitre to be all one Not for Efficacy because it is not made out that there is Nitre in the Sea in clay-grounds or Springs or in Countries remote from

which are not to be called properly fixed nor volatile being mediae quasi naturae inter utraque Salia volatilia scilicet quae instar Spirituum levi ignis calore concitata sublime petunt et fixa And there are Salts so fixed naturally that they will endure the Fire without evaporating such are Alcalisate Salts being purely Salt fixed other fixed Salts having of acidity in them and upon distillation yeild an acid Spirit how farr these may be volatilised is not the question but whether there be in Urin a volatile Salt fixed which any man will deny who considers with how much ease the volatile Salt of Urin is procured As for the Oile wherewith Urin is said to abound surely Mr Henshaw converses with men of a strange ●idney that make such water Or that feed much upon green Tortoyses In some morbid persons Physicians Speak of Urines that are oleaginous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I shall favour the Virtuoso so much as to understand what he saies about Urin as relating to persons in health and not sick least I should be to seek as much for the volatile Salt as I am for the Oile which is not to be distilled from it by any Chymicall process that I meet with in Dr. Willis or any else nor to be seen but in such as feed on green Turtle in the West Indies or are not well in their bodies not be spoken of but by such as are not well in their Wits If by Oile he means that which gives a colour to the Urin and is by Dr. Willis called the Sulphureous part of the Urin I shall not now dispute whether that be Oile or no since that same learned and inquisitiv● person assures us he found no great quantity of it in his Analysis Urinae Anatome ostendit quod Eleme●ta é quibus liquor eius conflatur sunt plurimum aquae et Salis aliquantulum Sulphuris et terrae atque Spiritus tantillum Yet a word or two How doth it appear that Nitre is so Universally diffused through all the Elements If he mean the Aristorelian Elements did he ever find it so universally lodged in that Fire is it so diffused through Water how many foot deep is it found in the Earth How doth it appear to be in the Aire Let Mr. Henshaw recollect himself Let him give what Notion he will to his Elements the Assertion is false although it be true that in this Terr-aqueous Globe of ours there is nothing occurrs but what contains in it Salt-Petre or somewhat that may first or last after greater or lesser pains and time be Animated into Salt-Petre viz. Exemplum hoc esto Sal Vegetabilium Animalium et Mineralium Essentialis vel Universalis su● natur● quidem nitrosus est sed prius flammam non concipit quám ex aere vitam et flammam attraxerit Salium autem etiam unus citius et libentius altero vitam illam attrabit prout a Naturâ formatus est Quò fugaciores et magis urinosi sunt sales eo citius in Nitrum se commutant quo mordaciores et magis corrosivi eo difficilius et tardiùs Salispetrae naturam induunt Sed quia Nitrum Sal est utriusque naturae particeps urinosae nimirum et corrosivae et quasi exutroque Sale urinoso nempe et corrosivo compositus ejus ope peritus Naturae Salibus facile succurret et ex iis faciet quicquid voluerit Nec Sal ullus est in rerum natur● qui artis adjumento in Nitrum mutari nequeat Inprimis vero sales illi qui igne sublimantur et ejus vi eleva●i ascendunt ut illi qui in urin● et excrementis animalium omnium sunt Imo animalia vegetabilia et Mineralia ipsa facile admodum Nitri naturam a●ripiunt Hic primus Salium gradus esto Al●er gradus est Salium qui aliquanto fixiores sunt ut artis filii nuncupant et in igne a vegetabilibus animalibus et mineralibus relinquuntur Hi difficilius in Nitri naturam transeunt Omnium difficillime illi qui in tertio gradu sunt ut Sal communis marinus montanus seu fossilis alumen et vitriolum Nam hos ars etiam eò deducit ut in verum Nitrum abeant sed difficilius cum longiore ad eos mutandos tempore indigeat quam ad supranominatos Sales fugaces volatiles et urinosos Quare nemo eâ opinione esto quando in Scriptis meis dico quod hic aut ille Sal in Salem-petrae converti queat quamprimum lixivio extractus aut saltem ignis calcinatione elicitus fuerit quod Sal-petrae verus et ardens futurus sit Tempus adh●c requititur quo ex aere vitam et animam alliciat et ardens evadat Lippis et to●soribus notum est maximam Salis-petrae antehac confecti partem ex lixivio terrae ex ovilibus aliarumque bestiarum Stabulis antiquis petitae exccctam fuisse Quare ex antiquis jumentorum pecudum et pecorum Stabulis et non etiam novis Ideo quia non solum vetera Stabula longo temporis progressu plus ex excrementis et urinâ Salis imbibunt e●que de caus● plus Salis-Petrae conferre possunt Sed etiam Sales ipsi Excrementorum ex animalibus quod potissimum est longo temporis progressu exaere animam suam acceperunt quâ recentes nondum imbutisunt Nam coquat quis torreat et vexet stercora et urinam animalium ut voluerit Nitrum nunquam evadent nisi ex aëre vitam suam hauserint Whereas he saies That the reason why Animals that feed on Vegetables are obliged by Nature to longer meales than those that feed on other Animalls is because that Animals are fulle● of that Salt than Vegetables and indeed such Animals are but Ca●erers of it for man and others whom nature gratifies with a more lusty and delicious dyet To begin with the last passage I observe that our Inventor hath such a Pique against Antiquity that he transgresseth the old proverbe De gustibus non est disputandum It doth not appear to me certain that the feeding upon Flesh as most do now or on Fish as most did heretofore is more delicious than to feed on vegetables and some of their productions Not yet that it is the more lusty food give the word what sence you will The story of Daniel's pulse of St Iohn Baptist of the Negro's in the West-Indies of the Bannyans in the East-Indies They will not grant it who hold I think most truely that before the flood men lived on Vegetables In the Golden age they are not fansied to have had this delicious and lusty food At vetus illa aetas cui secimus Aurea nomen Faetibus arboreis et quas humus educat herbis Fortunata fuit nec polluit ora cruore How many of the Ancient Philosophers did dec ●ine decr this admired dyet but our Virtuoso will as little approve of

Baccius relates that near a certain town which he calls Oppidum Fabrianum there was a deep and close Grott under the Appennine in which Millions of Owles did lodge themselves their dung had been accumulated there for many centuries of years out of this the Salt-Petre-men extracted so much of Nitre as amounted to an inestimable summ● of money And not long agoe whereas in the Warrs betwixt the Crim Tartar and Polonians towards Muscovy great numbers of people being slain in battails were buryed for hast togegether in great cavernes in the Mountains so rotted there out of that Earth in the Cavernes there was extracted a great quantity of Salt-Petre From these premises and from the consideration of the dung of Kine Horses Goates Swine Sheep out of all which Salt-Petre is extracted in great quantities it seems as if one might with some Speciousness argue that the Salt in Animals which is a great ingredient in their nutrition were nothing but Nitre altered a little from its first complexion But whosoever shall consider with Gla●ber that circumstance of a long putrifacti●n and how necessary it is the Earth be Animated and impregnated by the Aire so that in Churches where it is paved they look not for Petre but in open floores or Seats that are loosly boarded and by what degrees and rudiments it proceeds to common Salt as I suppose in this cas● the immature Earth abounds with that which is afterwards turn'd into Nitre and the Northern Countries tha● y●ild little Petre are impregnated with that Salt to common Salt first except a powerfull Seminality intervene as in ●shes impregnated with Mothers in Earth mixed with the Scumme or ashes aforesaid and after into Salt-Petre Whosoever shall consider this will be apt to reject that conclusion and think that since no Chymistry nor other Artific● can discover any Petre in Animals at first that whatever Salt there is in Animals and their excrements it more differs from Salt-Petre than the change of its Complexion amounts unto and that it is a kind of Seminall principle derived from the Aire or some other way that generates by real transmutation the Salt-Petre out of the volatile and fixed Salts and perhaps other particles of their bodies and Excrements I should here conclude my Animadversions upon this History of Salt-Petre but that I think it necessary to shew the world what a Plagiary this Virtuoso is This Theory of his with which he seems so much delighted is but a disguise of what Glauber hath publish●d in his works and inculca●ed more than once That inquisitive person tell us that there is a certain universall Salt diffused through all parts of our Globe and that the three Kingdomes Vegetable Animal and Mineral are impregnated therewith and that this Universal Salt is of such a nature that if it be animated 't is his own word by a certain Nitrous principle Spirit or Seminality it will become true and inflameable Petre. That this Nitrous Spirit can never be incorporated or coagulated of it self but that it must be Sociated with some Saline bodies and then it becomes perfect Nitre And however he allowes a regard to the volatile and Urinous Salts as things most facile to impregnate with and transmute into Salt-Petre yet doth he ascrib● as much to the fixed though the progress be sometimes slower as to the Volatile Salts in this case Equidem lubens fateor quod Spiritus Nitri ex omnibus fixis Salibus sibi corpus assumendo ad pri●●inam Salis-Petrae naturam reverti possit From this opinion of Glauber who sometimes speaks loosly and calls the Salt in Veget●bles and Animals and Minerals Nitrous and even Nitre did Mr. Henshaw borrow his Notion of this Nitre that is diffused through all the Elements and disguised in Vegetables and Animals and Minerals which he omits foolishly Animalia nulla sibi alia quaerunt alimenta quam quae terra ipsis suppeditat quibus Sal-p●trae omnino ades●e debet Salptrae itaque est omnium vegetabilium Mineralium et Animalium Unicus Servator Salessentiale vel naturae nihil aliud est quam Salpetrae non tamen ardens nisi animatus fuerit per aërem et ex eodem vitam aut esse suum hauserit Cuncta haec in omnibus rebus nitrum OCCULTUM latere satis superque arguunt Sal enim mundi sive Sal Universale et essentiale nihil est aliud quam Nitrum postquam Vitam ex aëre extraxit What Glauber's Opinion is may be guessed out of what I have already alledged out of him where he particularly explains himself How our Virtuoso hath disguised and declared his I have also shewed But perhaps you will say that Mr. Henshaw never read Glauber at least he never takes notice of him I answer that in not mentioning of him he shews his disingenuity but Glauber's treatises relating to Salt-Petre were published in the years 1656 and 1659. And that Mr. Henshaw did read him it seems evident from this that his History of Salt-Petre seems rather to be transcribed from out of Glauber's third part of the Prosperity of Germany who transcribed it out of Lazarus Ercker overseer of the Emperor's Mines than from any Experiments or observations of his own and other Salt-Petre-men with whom perhaps he lightly discoursed whatever he pretended the begining of his History pag. 261. For had he minded the work he could not have committed so many Errours I believe that I ought to rectify Mr. Henshawe's computation of what Petre the liquor holds by computation before it be put into the Ash-tubs pag 270. and that for thirty five pound it ought to be twenty five pound for so 't is in Ercker who followes that way of calculating which I believe our Petre-men do not Sure I am that whereas Mr. Henshaw saith that the liquor of the second boyling when it is ready to Crystallize contains in every hundred-weight about threescore and ten pounds of Petre. That Ercker saith Liquore sic perfecte parato ex centenario ejus plus quam 70 l. Salis-Petrae provenient That Signe also of second boyling being boyld to a just height by hanging like Oile on the Scummer as false as it is is out of Ercker viz. Ligula ipsa liquoris bonitatem denotat ubi liquori immissa et iterum extracta ipsum instar olei sibi adhaerentem exhibet Several other passages there are which seeme taken out of Ercker about the colour of the Un-refined Petre and the mistake about the Mother or liquor which remains after coagulation how it is to be disposed of The casting in of Vinegar a pint at a time and the rising of the black Scumme pag 273 is the one a direction the other an observation of Erckers The Casting in of quick-lime to make the Petre whiter and rock the better the injecting of burnt Allom before that are the documents of Ercker but not that I hear the practice of England The covering the Trayes with cloaths

to the Eye This had been an undertaking that would have ennobled Mr. Henshaw had he gone through with it and if he and his fellows despair of bringing things to this perspicuity they had as good suffer us to be content with our old Formes and combinations of Elements with which the world hath subsisted so long and Mechanicall ingenuity been so farr advanced that whosoever is acquainted with the delicious Luxury of Asia Greece and Rome will easily think all our performances nay pretenses not to equall their reall Enjoyments ● and if there be any one thing in the improvement whereof our present Artists I must not say Philosophers the Inventions we boast of being not theirs but the discoveries of more common and thick Skulls Glory it is over ballanced by the multitude of excellent things in which th●y surpassed us Mr Henshaw declines all these Speculations to acquaint us with some other that he hath of this Salt Which if he could clearly make out would lead us into the knowledg of many noble secrets in nature as also to a great improvement in the Art of making Salt-Petre I am so great a well-wisher to the publick good that I shall be willing to enquire into any thing that may advance so great Staple a commodity as Salt-Petre is and alwaies wil be as long as the use of Guns continues and since it is the most plausible pretense for the establishment of the Royall Society that they may and will meliorate and improve the Manufactures and trading of our Nation let us with some heedfulness observe this publick Essay and tryall of their Skill and Utility First then you are to observe that though Petre go all away in Gun-powder yet if you fulminate it in a Crucible and burn of the volatile part with powder of Coal Brimstone Antimony or Meal there will remain a Salt and yet so fixed very unlike common-Salt that it will endure the force of almost the strongest Fire you can give it which being dissolved into water and Spirit of Nitre dropped into it till it give over hissing which is the same with the volatile part that was seperated from it in the fulmination it will be again reduced to Crystalls of Petre as it was at first This Curiosity was the Invention of that Honourable personage Mr. Robert Boyle a treatise writ upon the subject which he was pleased to impart unto me long before Glauber writ any thing of that nature and I translated it into Latine It hath been made use of by Dr. Willis as an instance whereby to shew that Chymicall Fires do not generate new substances but only divide asunder the first constitutive parts and exhibit them Angelus Sala did reproduce Vitriol out of the parts which he had separated Chymically by remixing them together But neither do these few instances in the behalf of the Chymists out of Materialls of a Slight texture serve to any other purpose then to make us more doubfull not more intelligent For there are so many demonstrations that those furnaces do generate new substances that according to the different regimen of the Fire and the difference of i● being open or close and the different Vessels and the different processes it being also evident that by other meanes quite discrepant parts are disclosed than what those vexatious Fires could ever reveal that I think it impossible for any to submit his Judgment to such Convictions And that the observations which Mr. Boyle raised from that Experiment were of such importance as Mr. Henshaw thinks is a point which such as measure speculations by their Utility will hardly grant First you are to observe that though Petre go all away in Gun-powder yet if you fulminate it in a Crucible and burn off the volatile part with powder of Coal There will remain a Salt and yet so fixed that it will endure the force of almost the strongest fire c. This same to me doth not seem so extraordinary a phaenomenon so as to merit an unusuall regard for that Gold is as fixed a body as this Salt is undeniable and yet in the de●lagration of Aurum fulminans its particles flye away though they may be catched under the forme of a purple powder if the fulmination be performed in a close Vessell as Dr. Willis observes De fermentat c. 10. so in Salt Armoniac the common Salt will undergo many sublimations without deserting the concrete and yet it is an easy thing to reduce it to such a state of fixedness as amazeth our Virtuoso Many other instances might be alledged and therefore I proceed to tell the world that though Mr. Henshaw entitle Mr. Boyle to this Noble Experiment yet what he repeats of it is taken from Glauber out of a book of his printed in 1659. de signaturâ Salium c. pag. 28. whom yet he names not This is manifest from this that Mr. Boyle useth live pieces of coal to calcine the Nitre with Glauber in his Pharmacop Spagyric part 2. p. 28 Mr. Henshaw cast in the powder of coal Mr. Boyle Speaks nothing of calcining it with Brimstone or Antimony which Glauber doth and so doth Dr. Willis But the former prescribes the Regulus Antimonij Stellatus Concerning the Experiment as it is performed with coale I have this Scruple That I am not satisfied by any observations I can make that Salt-Petre if it be rightly purified will upon deflagration leave any such Salt behind it at all But that wheresoever any such thing remaines it is the product of a common Salt and other heterogeneous mixtures incorporated with the Petre I am moved to this doubt by the saying of Scaliger concerning the best-sort of Nitre which he terms Sal-Petrae viz. Tam enim Sal quam Nitrum ita uritur ut cineris quippiam relinquatur Sal-Petrae universum absumitur ab igni And in the tryalls of Salt-Petre which are made by the best Artists Pietro Sardi Casimirus Semienowicz it is required of good Salt-Petre that it burn all away upon the Table leaving no impurity or foeculency behind I have taken of the best Salt-Petre at Warwick oftentimes to make this Essay and also to compare the Crystalls and White-rock-nitre I put the pieces upon a broad Pit-coal red-hot and could see a difference in the burning of Each and a different quantity of that incombustible matter remain according to the different purifications insomuch that as far● as my Eye could guide my Judgment out of an ounce of the best Rock-Petre there could not remain half a dram if a scruple of that fixed Salt which Mr. Henshaw speaks of In the Crucible indeed upon burning with coal there did remain about a third part when I burnd the best Petre and more according as it is more impure Dr. Iorden observes that the difference betwixt Salt-Petre and the Ancient Nitre appears in this that a pound of Nitre being burn'd will leave four

cat as do those excr●ments which differ much from those of men though both eat the same meat Sicut acidus spiritus quilibet animam inseparabiliter in ventre suo portat atque in illud corpus cui infunditur dominium suscipit illudque confestim juxta sui naturam format hinc spiritus salis in Alcali Tartari fusus statim sibi format corpus salinum propriae naturae consentaneum fit sal aceti spiritus vel acetum distillatum in eodem Alcali tartari sibi format corpus adaequatum suae propriae naturae fit tartarus vini sic de vitriolo reliquis acidis Ita quoque acidum Stomachi humani cum apprehendit panem vel quicquam alibile in quod dominari possit illud convertit commutat in chylum exinde in carnem humanam eundem panem Acidum Stomachi canini convertit transmutat in carnem caninam uti de reliquis viventibus quotidie docemur eo quod natura in omnibus iisdem instrumentis operatur If the Case be such and that the blood transfused hath received those impregnations of vitality which are agreeable to the nature of the Animal whence it is transfused and is qualified to generate such nourishment and such excrements as are the consequences of those digestive characters if I may so call them and impressions How can we imagine that such blood being immediately transfused into our 〈◊〉 wi●hout those pr●vious alimental ●igillations and digestions produce those effects which are to be expected in human● bodies and are though irrationally in this case wished for But perhaps they think to atchieve their design by introducing a new texture in the vitiated blood and vessels or fermentation whereupon should ensue the amendment I perceive indeed by their stories a new fermentation that the dogs piss blood no desirable or trivial accident But what a little time is there for the blood to pass unto the heart and mix with those other Liquors and ascending blood and so to pass into the Heart and Lungs How do they know that the blood they transfuse is good Upon burning they shall finde a difference in blood of beasts and a different taste and coagulation in the Serum Besides that the blood of young Animals is generally less balsamical and inflammable of another texture and colour the Serum very saline and in a word exceeding different from what is in men and women of years And in the blood of men and women there are often defects not to be perceived but by coagulating and burning of the Serum and blood I have taken the Serum of a Maid seemingly healthful only pained at Stomach and abounding in blood it coagulated and looked like tallow and would not burn at all and smelt noisomely after coagulat●on not before I have several strange instances of this kind If there be such indiscernable causes of distempers and mixtures in blood of persons that are not well if they neither know what they aim at in transfusing in nor what they transfuse Let Mr. Glanvill talk of great Advantages to be expected and let them try it for me Sure I am that the Transactions report an Untruth in saying that Coga was ever the better for it I am told his Arm was strangely ill after it and difficulty cured and if all the great likelihood of Advantages from Transfusion that are in their present Prospect a●ise from no other grounds they are very improbable The Parliament of Pari● have forbid it to be prosecuted but by the allowance of the Parisian Facul●y of Physicians A Swedish Baron died upon it and to argue from the cures of Madmen or from what they suffer without hurt is not for a Physician but for one that deserves to be sent to Bedlam for mad people endures a thousand ill● ● and strong Physick such as others cannot endure and if they find any amendment sometimes by uncouth means it is by accident as it makes them ill which sometimes prove their recovery As for dogs they cannot declare what they suffer but I am in haste and refer my Reader to the perusal of the Histories in the Transactions in which what I last objected is all confessed and if after all I have said he find encouragement to try a remedy that hath sometimes proved not unfortunate but is always rash let him do it for me I am satisfied That the operation carries more of terror and many swoon upon bleeding then a potion or Galenical Physick and that the greatest part of our distempers do not arise from the scarcity or malignant tempers and corruption of our blood is as manifest as can be more arise from the depraved motion and redundancy of the blood and serosities in and about the brain and the laxity and strictness of the habit and pores of the body and in these cases Transfusion is no remedy much less in malignant diseases in which to let blood is often mortal commonly dangerous and it always must be antecedent to Transfusion excepting only the scarcity of blood in which case what strength is there to assimilate or ferment with the new blood As to the Transfusion of blood in Pleurisies the attempt is very ridiculous considering what an Ebullition and Inflammation of the blood there is then in the Lungs whither the transfused blood immediately flows what extravasated serosities do afflict those parts how unfit are they for any seasonable fermentation And in the Small Pox how few are they in 〈…〉 in that disease at all and ●ow 〈…〉 Tran●fusion seem which distu●bs and diverts nature in her present work what h●zard must the Patient run amidst a Fever and that violent commotion of ●umors which afflicts his head back heart and lungs at tha● time should ●e besides all other accidents fall into pis●ing of blood ● a symptom so dangerous in that disease and so usual a consequent of this Operation Having dispatched those papers thus far the length of time since they were sent to London to be transcribed perused and several insertions made according as my memory amidst a constant employment suggested any thing new unto me and the delay of the Printing till Michaelmass-Tearm gives me an opportunity to relate some Observations I made at Bath during my stay there this Summer As famous as the Bathes are and of as general an use as they are there being no better R●medy in the world for the Scurvey the● the Cross-Bath regularly pursued and as it might be I cannot say is commonly practised yet have not our Experimental Philosophers made any Inquiries into its nature and qualities not a man of them ever so much as tried the mixing of several liquors and spirits with the water as I did and found no change upon the mixture of Acid spirits but the urinous and volatile spirits of Sal Armoniack drawn the Leiden way and Harts horn did change the water of the Pump in the Gross Bath which ariseth from the hot