a Volatile sulphur of Vitrioll It hath wonderfull vertues some of which shall be related The use and Dose of the Narcotick sulphur of Vitrioll OF this sulphur 1. 2. 3. 4. or more grains according to the condition of the patient given at once mitigates all pains causeth quiet sleep not after the manner of Opium Henbane and other the like medicines which by stupefying and benumming cause sleep but it performeth its operation very gently and safely without any danger at all and great diseases may be cured by the help thereof Paracelsus held it in high esteeme as you may see where he doth wâ—ite of Sulphur embryonatum Of the use and vertue of the Volatile spirit of Vitrioll THis sulphureous volatile spirit of Vitrioll is of a very subtle and penetrating quality and of a wonderful operation for some drops thereof being taken and sweated upon it doth penetrate the whole body openeth all obstructions consumeth those things that are amiss in the body even as fire It is an excellent medicine in the falling sickness in that kinde of madness or rage which is called Mania in the convulsion of the mother called Suffocatio matricis in the scurvy in that other kinde of madness which is called Melancholia Hypochondriaca and other diseases proceeding from obstructions and corruption of the blood It is also good in the plague and all other feavers mingled with spirit of wine and daily used it doth wonders in all external accidents Also in the Apoplexy shrinking and other diseases of the Nerves the distressed limbe rubbed therewith it doth penetrate to the very marrow in the bones it doth warm and refresh the cold sinews grown stiffe In the Colick besides the internal use a little thereof in a clyster applyed is a present help Externally used in the Goute by anoynting the places therewith asswageth the pains and taketh away all tumors and inflammations it doth heale the scabs tetters and ringworms above all other medicines it cureth new wounds and old sores as Fistulaes Cancers Woolves and what name so ever else they may have It extinguisheth all inflammations scaldings the Gangrene dissipateth and consumeth the knobs and excrescencies of the skin In a word this spirit which the wise men of old called Sulphur Philosophorum doth act universally in all diseases and its vertue cannot sufficiently be praised and expressed And it is much to be admired that so excellent a Medicine is no where to be found If it be mingled with spring water it doth make it pleasantly sowrish and in tast and vertue like unto the natural sowre water of wels Also by this spirit many diseases may be cured at home so that you need not go to bathes afar off for to be rid of them Here I could set down a way how such a spirit may be got in great abundance for the use of bathing without distillation whereby miraculous things may be done but by reason of the ungratefulness of men it shall be reserved for another time Of the vertue and use of the corrosive oyle of Vitrioll THis oyle is not much used in Physick although it be found almost in every Apothecaries shop which they use for to give a sowrish tast to their syrups and conserves Mingled with spring water and given in hot diseases it will extinguish the unnatural thirst and coole the internal parts of the body Externally it cleanseth all unclean sores applyed with a feather it separateth the bad from the good and layeth a good foundation for the cure Also if it be rectified first some metals may be dissolved with it and reduced into their Vitriols especially Mars and Venus but this is to be done by adding common water thereunto else it will hardly lay hold on them The way of doing it is thus How to make the Vitrioll of Mars and Venus TAke of your heavy oyle just as it came over viz. together with its phlegme but that the Volatile spirit be drawn off from it first as much as you please put it into a glass body together with plate of copper or iron set it in warme sand and let it boyle untill that the oyle will dissolve no more of the metal then power off the liquor filtre it through brown paper and put it into a low gourd glass and set it in sand and let the phlegme evaporate untill there appear a skin at the top then let the fire go out and the glass grow coole then set it in a cold place and within some dayes there will shoote faire green Crystals if of iron greenish if of Copper then something blewish take them out and dry them uppon filtering paper the remaining liquor which did not shoote into Vitriol evaporate again in sand and then let it shoote as before continue this proceeding untill all the solution or filtred liquor be turned to Vitriol This Vitrioll is better and purer then the common for it yeeldeth a better Volatile spirit and for that reason I did set down the way how to make it There can also be made a good Vitrioll of both these metals by the means of ordinary yellow brimstone but because the making of it is more tedious then of this here set down I think it needless to describe its preparation in this place The way to make a faire blew Vitrioll out of Luna that is silver DIssolve the shavings or filings of silver with rectified oyle of Vitrioll adding water thereunto but not so much as to Iron and Copper Or else which is better dissolve calcined silver which hath been precipitated out of Aqua fortis either with Copper or salt water the solution being ended powre it off and filtre it and drop into it of spirit of urine or of Sal armoniac as long as it doth hiss and almost all the silver will precipitate again out of the oyle and so there will fall a white powder to the bottome This precipitated silver together with the liquor poure into a phiall-glass set it to boyle in sand for twenty four hours and the liquor will dissolve again almost all the precipitated silver-calx and become blew thereby Then poure off the solution or liquor and filtre it through brown paper and abstract the moisture till a skin arise at the top then in a cold place let it shoote to Vitriol With the remaining liquor proceed further as above in the preparation of the Vitriol of Iron and Copper hath been taught By this way you will get an excellent Vitrioll out of silver which from 4. 5. 6. to 10. grains used onely of it self will be a good purge especially in diseases of the braine If you have a good quantity of it that you may distill a spirit thereof you will get not only an acide or sowre but also a volatile spirit which in the infirmities of the braine is most excellent that which in the distilling remains behinde may be reduced againe into a body so that you lose nothing of the silver save onely that which is
therefore that all the other as well in the dry as in the wet way may be precipitated thereby and reduced into light calxes in so much that the calx of gold or silver precipitated in this manner if so be you proceed well retaineth its splendor or gloss and is like a fine powder wherewith you can write out of a pen. To make a subtle spirit and pleasant oyle of Zinck BEcause I made mention here of Zinck I thought good not to omit that there may be made a penetrating spirit and wholesome oyle out of it by the help of vinegar which is thus to be done Take of the flores which were taught to be made in the first part one part put them into a glass fit for digestion and poure upon them 8. or 10 parts of good sharp vinegar made of honey or in want thereof take wine vinegar and set the glass with the flores and vinegar in a warm place to dissolve and the solution being performed powre off the cleer which will look yellow and after you have filtred it abstract the phlegme and there will remaine a red liquor or balsome to which you must add pure sand such as is well burnt and distill it and first there will come over an unsavory phlegme afterward a subtle spirit and at last a yellow and red oyl which are to be kept by themselves separated from the spirit as a treasure for to heale all wounds very speedily The spirit is not inferior unto the oyle not onely for inward use to provoke sweat thereby but also externally for the quenching of all inflammations and doubtless this spirit and oyle is good for more diseases but because its further use is not known to me yet I will not write of it but leave the further triall to others To distil a spirit and oyle out of lead IN the same manner as was taught of the Zinck there may be out of lead also distilled a subtle spirit and a sweet oyle and it is done thus Poure strong vinegar upon Minium or any other calx of lead which is made per se and not with sulphur let it digest and dissolve in sand or warm ashes so long till the vinegar be coloured yellow by lead and turned quite sweet Then poure off the clear solution and poure on other vinegar and let this like wise dissolve and this repeat so often till the vinegar will dissolve no more nor grow sweet then take all these solutions and evaporate all the moysture and there will remaine a thick sweet yellow liquor like unto honey if the vinegar was not distilled but if it was distilled and made clear then no liquor remaineth but onely a white sweet salt This liquor or salt may be distilled after the same manner as was taught with the Zinck and there will come over not only a penetrating subtle spirit but also a yellow oyle which will not be much but very effectual in all the the same uses as of the spirit and oyle of the Zinck was taught N. B. This is to be observed that for to make this spirit and oyle you need no distilled spirit but that it may be done as well with undistilled vinegar and the undistilled yeilds more spirit then the distilled But if you look for a white and cleer salt then the vinegar must be distilled else it doth not shoote into crystals but remaineth a yellow liquor like unto honey and it is also needless to make the solution in glasses and by digestion continued for a long time but it may as well be done in a glased pot viz. powring the vinegar upon the Minium in the pot and boyling it on a coale fire for you need not fear that any thing of the vinegar will evaporate in regard that the lead keeps all the spirits and lets onely go an unsavory phlegme You must also continually stir the lead about with a wooden spatula else it would turn to a hard stone and would not dissolve the same must be done also when the solution is done in glasses and the solution after this way may be done in three or four houres and when both kinde of solutions are done there will be no difference betwixt them and I think it providently done not to spend a whole day about that which may be done in an houre And if you will have this spirit and oyle better and more effectual you may mix â„¥ i. of crude Tartar made into powder with lb j. of dissolved and purified lead and so distill it after the same manner as you do distill it by it self and you will get a much subtler spirit and a better oyle then if it were made alone by it self To distill a subtile spirit and oyle out of crude Tartar MAny think it to be but a smal matter to make the spirit of Tartar for they suppose that if they do but onely put Tartar into a retort and apply a receiver and by a strong fire force over a water they have obtained their desire and they do not observe that in steed of a pleasant subtle spirit they get but a stinking vinegar or phlegme the pleasant spirit being gone Which some careful operators perceiving they caused great receivers to be made supposing by that means to get the spirit Now when they after the distillation was done weighed their spirits together with the remainder they found that they had suffered great loss wherefore they supposed it to be an impossible thing to get all the spirits and to lose none and indeed it is hardly possible to be done otherwise by a retort for although you apply a great receiver to a smal retort and that there be also but a little Tartar in it and the joynts being wel luted so that nothing can pass through and though you make also the fire never so gentle hoping to get the spirit by that way yet for all that you cannot avoyd danger and loss For at last the retort beginning to be red hot and the black oyle going then and but then the subtlest spirits will come forth which either steale through the joynts or else do break the retort or receiver because they come in abundance and with great force and do not settle easily wherefore I will set down my way of making this most profitable and excellent spirit The preparation and the use of the spirit of Tartar TAke good and pure crude Tartar whether it be red or white it matters not make it into fine powder and when the distilling vessel is red hot then cast in with a ladle half an ounce and no more at once and so soon as the spirits are gone forth and setlted cast in another â„¥ ss and this continue till you have spirit enough then take out the remainder which will look black and calcine it wel in a crucible and put it in a glass retort and poure the spirit that came over together with the black oyle upon it drive it in sand at first gently and
them that deal in minerals but spiritualized with a certain secret fire by which its proper body may be amended and exalted as to become partaker of a golden nature For such copper mines being melted and purged after the common way yeeld not gold but silver only whence it appears that they attaine to perfection not but by that secret fire of lotion or gradation For skilful Chymists have not only that common fire but also another by the help whereof metals are tryed and melted without the knowledge whereof metals cannot be rightly handled As for example in the common melting and burning of minerals which is done by a common fire the volatile part of the metal which is the spirit and vegetable life thereof is driven away by the force of that fire the more fixed thick part being left But if the more impure parts only be by any peculiar fire separated the gradatorious spirit being left with the body there is found a better and more excellent body then that which is melted in a violent common fire The greatest secrets lye in fire as being the strongest element but of these nothing is manifest to the vulgar Philosophers and Chymists In the dross that is cast away undergoing a greater force of fire there lyes something of what is perfect which is drawn from thence if they be melted againe after a peculiar manner which last operation is not but by a common fire But this amending of copper proceeds from a certaine fire that washeth purifieth and exaleth I have often tryed the mine of copper by both fires and I never found any thing but silver to be melted thence by that common fire as well after as before fixation and not gold but by that secret fire only gold and no silver As also tin tryed by the common way yeelds only silver but being reduced into ashes and dross yeelds not silver but gold as having passed the greater force of fire This therefore is to be ascribed to fire operating diversly according to the diversity of the regiment thereof Wherefore the differences of fires is to be known for one destroyes and the other digests and maturates metals one mundifies and washeth another penetrates heats exalts and transmutes metals into a better kind so that it may be truly said In gold and salt are all things Besides the hot and dry fires there are also found those that are cold and moist having no affinity with those by the help whereof nature doth as well in the bowels of the earth as out of the earth like an artist destroy and regenerate metals of which you shall see more amongst the Philosophers and I could say more if it were needful But why Mention made of unknown secrets begets envy Out of old cloth I will not make a new garment because there are some Authors of new books that know nothing but what they have read or heard As for my part I had rather be silent then publish secrets or write or repeat things already written For its all one to write secrees or common writ things viz. in this age Wherefore I thought it better to give others an opportunity of searching out secrets then to publish and communicate them to all indifferently Let it suffice therefore what hath been spoken of the difference of hot and cold fires by the help whereof metals are as well within as out of the earth generated and destroyed Of which I have decred more at large to treat in my book of the Original of Metals where what is here wanting shal not be omitted PARAG. XXXV The separation of silver from the tests which entered into them in time of trying without melting and without labour and costs THis is for those that want conveniences of melting their tests for the separating of silver which together with the lead entered into them in the time of trying And it is a very easie secret without costs and labour PARAG. XXXVI A cheap preparation or making of most fine earthen vessels like to the porcellane retaining spirits resisting the fire and to be made in any place of the world VVE can scarce be without those earthen vessels as in houshold affaires so in a Chymical elaboratory and Apothecaryes shops wherefore mention is made of them not without cause For the houshold affaires there may be made basons dishes cups pots c. For an elaboratory alembicks cucurbits retorts platters and other necessaries For Apothecaryes shops pots greater or lesser for syrups conserves electuaries and for waters of hearbs in defect of those of glass And such vessels may well be preferred before those of glass because they are not so soon broken and retaine any subtile and sharp humidities They are also to be preferred before pewter basons and dishes because they do as well in winter as smmer retaine their cleaness and more easily made clean without washing PARAG. XXXVII A confection of Allome exalting and fixing any colours especially requisite for scarlet and other pretious colours As also a preparation of a cauldron that shall be cheap and not alter colours THis allome is not to be sold because it is made by art of some certain minerals having this vertue as to be able to fix and exalt colours of any kind that they suffer no injury from the sun aire water which do otherwise alter colours to which business is required also a certain peculiar cauldron For diers of scarlet know that the scarlet die which is the best and most pretious of all colours is altered in copper cauldrons wherefore they are wont to cover them over with tin or to make them of tin But this our allome and our cauldron are far to be preferred before those vulgar although they are sold at a cheaper price wherefore this art is not to be slighted because much profit may redound to the possessours thereof PARAG. XXXVIII A certaine cheap preparation of colours for painting as of purple ultramarine vermillian c. but especially of a certain most fine white never yet seen most like the finest pearles also of a silver and golden colour THe aforesaid colours were yet never common nor could be made so plentifully and with so great profit as now c. whilest therefore these serve for the art of painting whereby for memories sake as well sacred as profane histories are painted it will not be amiss if they be taught because we can hardly want them And although it seem a mean yet it is a most useful art and also profitable because those colours are much used in many places whence much profit must of necessity redound to the possessours thereof The conclusion LET no man doubt of the truth of what hath been said in these Annotations For nature and art can do many things but our art is little in vegetables and almost nothing in metals and this is the reason that things never seen or heard seeme incredible and monstrous to the ignorant Wherefore I protest and protest againe that
glowing heat You must have a looking-glass at least in diameter two feet nor must it be too deep but bee in depth the 18 or 20 part of the globe that so it may the further cast beams it must be very artificially smoothed that it may more exactly gather beams to the center Now the preparation of these Looking-glasses is not of this place but shall be in the fourth part of our Furnaces where wee shall teach not only how it is to be made of metals but also of glass and how polisht and used This demonstration which may be otherwise omitted is therefore set downe that it may be knowne how Gold proceeds from the Sunne and is secretly endued with its proper strength and proprieties by Chymistry reducible into that which it was before its coagulation namely into a heating and living spirit communicating its strength and faculties to mans body Therefore the Ancients used great diligence in the melting of gold in which nothing is found more excellent then the purest and finest spirit of wine made by distillation and they did not use common gold melted out of stones or washt out of sand but purged by benefit of fire Philosophically quickened and unlocked not by help of corrosive spirits the usuall way of vulgar Chymists but by some water which Nature freely gives without help of violent distillation by which they manifest that which is hid in gold and they have hid what is manifest and therefore they have made it fit for the separation of its tincture from a gross and black superfluous body For they knew that the compact body of gold hath no affinity with vitall spirits therefore they have chosen onely the finest part of gold to their Elixir viz. its tincture which they have radically joined with the spirit of wine and being joined have made them spiritual or volatile so that neither can be separated from each other in the fire and being in the fire are sublimed or fixed with a longer digestion and coagulated into a fixt stone which they count for the greatest treasure in this world Therefore the ancient Philosophers affirming that there is not a better medicine under the Sun than it which is made from the Philosophicall union of wine and gold both by an inseparable recoagulation and fixation nor without gold can spirit of wine nor this without it be made a medicine because gold without spirit of wine cannot be made volatile nor this be coagulated and fixt without it We therefore their posterity justly follow the opinions of the most famous men not for their authorities sake but for ocular demonstration which is the truest tryall Therefore the knowledge of the preparation of this medicine being bestowed on me from the highest I have intended because a man is not born for himself briefly to deliver its preparation and use but I will not cast pearls before swine but I 'le only shew the way to the studious searchers of the work of God and Nature who doubtless will understand my writing but not the ignorant and unskilfull let therefore the brevity of the preparation offend no man because I mean not to prostitute this Art divinely obtained not with idleness but with much watching labours and pains nor give to the unworthy a bit before chawed but only to communicate it to the pious who shall see with open eyes that the thing is so I desire therefore the simplicity of my stile offend no man being not adorned with rhetoricall figures after the wonted manner for truth wants not many and elegant words being contented with simplicity and brevity with which it is easier and better demonstrated then with those intricate and sophistick discourses Before I will begin the preparation I will briefly describe the qualities of a true spagirick undertaking so great a work that every one may examine himself that takes this task upon him For it doth not suffice to know to make fire or to distill vegetable waters but the true knowledge as well of the fruits of the superior as inferior elements is required and especially piety Not prating but much knowledge makes a Chymist there is no man who can deny that the Art is long since sought by divers for many years even untill this day with much labour and charges but found by very few I doe not wonder that so great a gift of God hath hitherto been communicated to very few for all modern Chymists very few excepted have gone a wrong way For some trusted to their riches thinking violently to get the Art because they were able to make a fair elaboratory maintain many journey men and get store of vessels minerals and coals not considering the saying of the Apostle 'T is not of him that willeth or him that runneth but of God only that sheweth mercy Others whose learning consisted in divers tongues were honoured for their elegancy of prating attributing skill only to themselves and perswading themselves that they had all the elements at their beck for their supposed wisdome and learning not considering the work of Christ thou hast revealed it to little ones and hast hid iâ— from the great and wise Who perswade themselves that they see grass grow not knowing the earth its mother to whom if all things suceed not according to their pleasure they fear not to slander the most pious Philosophers and to impeach them of falsehood and to palliate their ignorance with the nullity of their art who would judge that the thing is far otherwise if they knew the mystical meaning of the Philosophers but because they are blinded with pride no marvell if they take the shell in stead of the kernell and so come not to the wished end The third sort is of covetous slothful men seeking wealth of those mountebanks being as ignorant of Chymistery and Nature as those they teach having neither knowledg of minerals nor metals nor understanding the works of the Philosophers with whom if one dispute of the nature and proprieties of metals they have nothing to answer but what they read and hear viz. it is so writ and so we have proceeded and thus we must proceed and such a matter and no other is required keeping close to the letter not considering whether the Authour of his proceedings be skilfull or not whether he hath borrowed his writings from the experience or readings of other books to whom although a true and genious information of the nature and the knowledge of minerals and metals and Chymick secrets should be delivered yet they would not beleeve despising plain truth as folly in her simple labors which are not chargeable nor tedious Wealth is sought by such like covetous fellows spending in some process of no worth some hundreds or thousand crowns supposing the art to be venall not considering that the Merchant will keep a good and sure art to himself and not seek mony of others I doe not deny that some Artist may be the possessor of some secret or thing
A DESCRIPTION OF NEW Philosophical Furnaces OR A new ART of Distilling divided into five parts Whereunto is added a Description of the Tincture of GOLD Or the true AVRVM POTABILE ALSO The First part of the MINERAL WORK Set forth and published for the sakes of them that are studious of the TRUTH By JOHN RUDOLPH GLAUBER Set forth in English By J. F. D. M. LONDON Printed by Richard Coats for Tho Williams at the Signe of the Bible in Little-Britain 1651. To his Honored Friend JOHN JENISON in the BISHOPRICK of DVRHAM ESQVIRE SIR PErceiving in you a singular ingenuity in penetrating into the Arcana's of nature and a cheerful forwardness in a charitable improvement of the utmost of your experience in doing good to mankind especially to the despised poor who cannot come with price in their hands I esteemed it as a service well pleasing to God and most acceptable to man to be instrumental in adding somewhat to that experience of yours and of those of like publick spirit with your self thereby enabling you to be yet more serviceable to this your generation I therefore here present you with a rich Cabinet of natures unvaluable Jewels But know that it hath many doors the one whereof as being shut to many but not to all I have opened with an English key the other must be entred by a penetrating judgement quickened with Celestial lightening Now where there are publick spirits profound Mediations and a constant industry Divine illumination is at the door The large and boundless secrets of Nature will not attend private interests nor the deep mysteries of Nature be fathomed by shallow apprehensions no nor her fair daughters be courted by inconstant servants But you are otherwise qualified then to despaire of seeing her self in her own colours She unvailes her self to those only that will admire her beauty and not to those that will cast dirt in her face being altogether unable to judge of her features This Philosophical Treatise being frequently profoundly read may be understood and being understood by you wil qualifie you with such capacities that you may be able to make not only all the poor in your country rich but al the sick healthy and thereby bring to your self as much honor as mortality need care for Accept of these my endeavours as proceeding from a sensibleness of your unfeigned love and respects to him who is Sir Yours affectionatly to love and serve you J. F. English Reader FInding the second being the greatest part of this treatise in private hands already translated into English by a learned German I was willing it being in such a forwardness to set a aside for thy good some few hours to teach the other parts thereof speak the same language It is pitty that such useful and so learned writings should be obscured from the English Nation Many indeed would not have any that understand no other language but that of England to read any thing of learning but what is originally writ in English and what is the reason Is it because they would have England kept in ignorance or because they think they are not able to understand any thing besides what is writ in their mother tongue This is my judgemâ—nt that they that be intelligent may understand intelligible things although they do not understand Latin or German words as well as great linguist themselves for I do not believe that tongues do enlarge the capacity any otherwise then they enable any one for the reading of learned Anthors I am so far from having men confined to the knowing of things writ only in their own language that I wish that all things truely worth knowing were writ in every language of the world that intelligent men of all Nations may the better understand intelligible things I abhor to think that any should make a Monopolie of learning which consists more in the undrestanding of things then of tongues Why should any be unwilling that learning and Philosophy both theoretical and practical should be propagated Are not Philosophers the best moralized men of the purest lives and most serviceable in their generation It shall be my practise as long as I live to be instrumental in promoting true knowledge wheaher by way of Translation or any other way of making what is occult manifest Now as for this treatise in stead of a commendatory Epistle it is sufficient to say that Glauber is the Author of it He is carryed upon the wings of Fame throughout the whole world His Fame all know is great and flyes high but his worth surmounts his Fame He is a Philosopher and Chymist indeed as appears by this ensuing Treatise in which are discovered sueh secrets that by the help thereof being understood as possible they may the poorest man may in a short time become very rich the most sickly very healthy and the basest truely honorable In this translation look not so much at words as things as I my self did and as for Errata's which perhaps may prove many besides what I have observed in my cursory reading be thou so courteous as to impute them neither to the Printer nor my self but my absence from the town all the time the book was in the Press This together with thine acceptance shall oblige Thy Friend J. F. A Preface to the Courteous Reader I Have hitherto reserved to my self as secrets some peculiar furnaces and compendious wayes of distilling which with diligent study and speculation I found out some few yeers since by which many excellent works impossible to be done by the vulgar art may be performed but now at last I have considering with my self how advantagious it may be to the world determined to conceale this art no longer but for the good of my neighbour to publish it by giving to Chymists a perfect and fundamental information of this new invented art that they may no longer for the future spend their time and expend their costs in long tedious operations but may after a more easie way by the help of my furnaces be able to effect many excellent things Now this book shall be divided into five parts the first whereof shall teach how to build a furnace in which incombustible things are distilled and sublimed and indeed such things which cannot be done by retort or any other vessels and how the Spirits Flowers and Oyles of Minerals and Metals may by the help thereof be prepared as also what their use and vertues are In the second part shall be shewed another furnace in which combustible things as Vegetables Animals and Minerals are distilled and most perfectly subtilized by help whereof many most excellent medicaments for the cure of most grievous and otherwise incurable diseases and effects may be prepated In the third shall be taught a certain new invention hitherto unknown of distilling burning spirits as of Wine Corne Fruits Flowers Hearbs and Roots as also the waters of Vegetables and Animals and that in a great quantity
because in this furnace the spirit of allome and vitriol cannot be made unless a pipe go out of the furnace neer the grate as you may see by the delineation of the furnace for otherwise it cannot be made besides these spirits are better and more truly taught in the second part And if it be granted that somewhat together with the spirit of salt come forth which is yet impossible what hurt I pray you comes from thence either in the solution of metals or medicine wherefore the spirit made after this way is not to be suspected Yet I will satisfie the incredulous and will shew him another way without the addition of allom or vitrial for the distilling of that spirit but that will be in the second part of this book where I will teach you the furnace by which is made spirit of nitre Aqua foris and amongst combustibles the oyles of vegetables and fats of animals and other things which cannot be made by this and by this way I will satisfie those who are not pleased with the former Now for want of glass receivers we are forced to use earthen but these cannot retain the spirit of salt made after the aforesaid wayes in which case I could indeed discover a certain little manual by vertue of which the aforesaid spirit may be received even in a great quantity in earthen recipients but for certain causes I shall here be silent and shal refer it till the edition of the second part Let it suffice therefore that I mentioned such a thing wherefore omitting that I shall proceed to shew you the vertues and use of this spirit as well in Alchymie as in medicine other Mechanical arts Of the use of the spirit of Salt IT is worth while to speak of the power and vertues of this excellent spirit what other authors have cleerly described I shall here pass over and refer the reader to the writings of those Authors touching only on some few of which they said nothing The Spirit of salt is by most accounted a most excellent medicine and safely to be used as well inwardly as outwardly It extinguisheth a preternatural thirst in hot diseases abstergeth and consumeth flegmatique humors in the stomack exciteth the appetite is good for them that are hydropical have the stone and gout c. It is a menstruum dissolving metals excelling all other therein For it dissolveth all metals and minerals excepting silver and almost all stones being rightly prepared and reduceth them into excellent medicaments It doth also many excellent things in mechanicall arts Neither is it to slighted in the kitchen for with the help thereof are prepared divers pleasant meats for the sick as well as for those that are in health yea and better then with vinegar and other acid things and it doth more in a small quantity then vinegar in a great But especially it serves for those countreys that have no vinegar It is used also instead of verjuice and the juce of Lymons For being prepared after this way it is bought at a cheaper rate then vinegar or juice of Lymons Neither is it corruptible as expressed juices are but is bettered by age Being mixed with Sugar it is an excellent sauce for rost meat It preserves aso divers kinds of fruits for many yeers It makes also-raisins and dryed grapes to swell so as to acquire their former magnitude again which are good to refresh a weak stomach in many diseases and serves for the preparing of divers kinds of meats of flesh and fish but you must mix some water with the spirit or else the raisins will contract too much acidity This spirit doth especially serve for making meats delightfully acid for whatsoever things are prepared with it as Chickens Pigeons Veale c. are of a more pleasant tast then those which are prepared wirh vinegar Beefe being macerated with it becomes in a few dayes so tender as if it had been a long time macerated with vinegar Such and many more things can the spirit of salt do A distillation of vegetable oyles whereby a greater quantity is acquired then by that common way by a gourd still AS many distillers as hitherto have been have bin ignorant of a better way to distill oyles of spices woods and seeds then by a gourd still or alembick with a great quantity of water And although they may also be made by retort yet there is a great deal of care required or else they contract an Empyreuma wherefore that way by a still is alwayes accounted the better which way indeed is not to be slighted if you distill vegetables of a low price and such as be oleaginous but not so in the distillation of spices and of other things that are of a greater value as are Cinnamon Mace Saffron c. which cannot be distilled in a gourd still without loss because then there is required a great quantity of water and by consequence great and large vessels to which something adheres wherefore we lose almost half which is not to be so much valued in vegetables that are oleaginous as in annisseed fennel and caryoway seed c. But the loss made in the distilling of dryer and dearer vegetables as of Cinnamon Lignum Rhodii Cassia is evident enough and by consequence not to be slighted Neither can it be that all things can be distilled that way for a good quantity by coction acquireth a gummy tenaciousness which cannot ascend with the water But that this way for the future be prevented I will shew another way to distill the oyles of spices and other pretious things which is done with spirit of salt whereby all the oyle is drawn forth without any loss the process whereof is this viz. Fill a gourd with cinnamon or any other wood or seed upon which pour so much of the spirit of salt as will be sufficient to cover the wood then place it with its Alembick in sand and give it fire by degrees that the spirit of salt may boyle and all the oyle will destill off with a little flegme for the spirit of salt doth with its acrimony penetrate the wood and freeth the oyle that it may distil off the better and easier And by this way the oyle is not lost by the addition of that great quantity of water in those great and large vessels but is drawn in lesser glass vessels with the addition of a little moysture Distillation being finished the spirit is poured off by inclination from the wood being again useful for the same work And if it hath contracted any impurity from the wood it may be rectified but the residue of the spirit which remains in the wood ye may recover if that wood be cast into the aforesaid furnace upon burning coals by which means it may come forth again pure and clear and by this means we lose none of the spirit of salt And after this way by help of the spirit of salt are drawn forth oyles of dearer vegetables together
it be evaporated leaves behinde the best spirit of salt serving for the same or such like uses again Of the external use of the Corrosive oyle of Antimony THis oyle hath been long used by Chirurgions for they have with a feather applyed it to wounds almost uncurable to separate impurities for the acceleration of the cure that after other medicaments being applyed may the better operate But it is better if it be mixed with spirit of salt for they are easily mixed and it is made more mild thereby and the too great corrosive faculty thereof is mitigated Neither is there any other beside the spirit of salt with which this oyle can be mixed unless it be the strongest spirit of nitre for the weak spirit of Antimony precipitates the butter of Antimony as you may see in the preparation of Bezoardicum Minerale But the strongest spirit of nitre dissolving this butter makes a red solution of wonderful vertue in Chymistry of which we are not to treat in this place and if this be drawn off again by distillation it leaves behinde the first time a fixed Antimony and Diaphoreticall which otherwise must be drawn off twice or thrice viz. if it be weak and not able to dissolve the butter without precipitation Now this Bezoardicum is the best and safest Diaphoretick in all diseases that require sweat as in the plague french pox feavers scorbute leprosie c. if it be given from 6. 8. 10. to twenty grains in proper vehicles it penetrates the whole body and evacuates all evil humors by sweat and urine The Oyle of Arsenic and Auripigmentum AS the spirit of salt doth not easily work upon Antimony by reason of the abundance of crude sulphur unless it be reduced into flowers in the preparation whereof some part of its sulphur is burnt so also Arsenic and Auripigmentum are hardly dissolved with spirit of salt unless they be reduced into flowers and the spirit of salt be very strong which may be able to work upon it These may be distilled by retort like Antimony into a thick heavy oyle which being used in cancrous eating ulcers exceeds that of Antimony in mortifying mundifying and purging those evils After the same manner may corrosive oyles be made out of all the realgars being ordained for outward uses Oyle of Lapis Calaminaris TAke of the best yellow or red Lapis Calaminaris very subtilly poudered as much as you please and pour upon it five or six times as much of rectified spirit of salt mix and stir them well together and do not leave them long unstirred but ever and anon shake the glass with the materials and this do oftentimes or else the Lapis calaminaris will grow together into a very hard stone which can be dissolved no more which is prevented by the aforesaid often shaking and when the spirit of salt will dissolve no more thereof in frigido set the glass in warm sand so long untill the spirit be tinged with a most yellow colour which then decant and pour on fresh and again set it in digestion to extract and do not forget to shake the glass often The solution being finished filter it and cast away the residue of the terra mortua Afterwards set the solution in sand and give fire and almost three parts of the spirit of salt will go over insipid which is nothing but the flegme although the spirit was never so well rectified the reason whereof is the most dry nature of lapis calaminaris to which the spirit of salt is very friendly and therefore very hard to be separated from it For I never knew any mineral or metal beside Zinck which exceeds lapis calaminaris in dryness At last when no more flegm will go over let all things coole which being done take out the glass and thou shalt finde a thick red oyle as fat as oyle olive and not very corrosive for that spirit of salt being almost mortified with lapis calaminaris is deprived of its acidity This oyle is to be kept from the aire or else within a few dayes it attracts much aire which it converts into water and thereby becomes weakened This oyle is of wonderful vertue being used as well inwardly as outwardly And I wonder that in so long a time there hath been no body who hath operated in lapis calaminaris described the nature thereof seeing it hath in it a golden sulphur of which thing in the fourth part for if the terrestreity thereof were separated from it artificially pure gold would be manifested therein now the greatest part thereof is volatile and immature and cannot easily be reduced into a body in melting wherefore hitherto that stone hath not 〈◊〉 esteemed of by Chymists but to the wise was 〈…〉 c. The use of the oyle of Lapis Calaminaris 〈…〉 given from 1. 2. 3. drops to ten and fifteen with sutable vehicles it purgeth the dropsie leprosie gout and other noxious fixed humors not yeelding to vegetable Catharticks of which more at large in the second part of the spirit of urine and salt of tartar It serves outwardly for an excellent vulnerary balsome the like to which can scarce be shewed not only in reducing old corrupt wounds but also in those that are green for it doth powerfully dry mundifie and consolidate It is also used in houshold affaires for birdlime being dissolved in it yeelds a certain tenacious matter serving to catch birds mice c. about the house or in the field For it is as permanent in the heat of the Sun as in the cold of winter wherefore it may be used at any time of the yeere all small animals stick to it if they do but touch the matter A ligature or string smeered therewith and bound about any tree prevents the spiders from climbing up thereon and other kindes of insects that are noxious to the fruit a thing worth taking notice of This oyle is not by the pouring on of water corrupted neither is it precipitated as that of Antimony wherefore it is useful for many things Common yellow sulphur boyled in it viz. in a strong fire so as to be dissolved in it swims upon it like fat is thereby purified and made as transparent as yellow pellucid glass and a better medicine then those common flowers of sulphur it serves also for other uses all which to relate here it would be too tedious This oyle being mixed with clean sand and distilled by retort in a fire that is very strong otherwise the spirit of salt will leave the lapis calaminaris yeelds a most fiery spirit the lapis calaminaris remaining in the bottome of the retort This spirit is so strong that it can scarce be kept it dissolves all metals and all minerals excepting silver sulphur wherefore by the help thereof many excellent medicaments are made which cannot be made with the common spirit though never so well rectified which although it be often rectified yet is not without flegme which cannot be separated
from it by the power of rectification so well as with lapis calaminaris This spirit doth perform many things in medicine as in Alchymie as also in other arts as you may easily conjecture but here is not opportunity to speak more of these things yet for the sake of the sick I shall add one thing to which few things are to be compared the plaine and short process whereof I would not have thee be offended at And it is this viz. Mix this spirit with the best rectified spirit of wine digest this mixture somewhile and the spirit of salt will separate the spirit of wine and will make the oyle of wine swim on the top the volatile salt being mortified and this oyle is a most incomparable cordial especially if with the said spirit of wine spices have first been extracted and with the said spirit of salt gold hath been dissolved For then in the digestion of this mixture the oyle of wine being separated attracts the essence of the cordial species and of other vegetables being extracted before with the spirit of wine as also the tincture of gold and so by consequence a most efficacious imcomparable and universal medicine for all diseases fortifying the Humidum radicale that it way be able to overcome its enemies for which let praise and glory be given to the immortall God for ever who hath revealed to us so great secrets Of the extrinsecal use of the spirit of salt in the kitchen I Said before that in stead of vinegar and verjuice it may be used as also in stead of the juice of Limons now it remains that I shew you how it is to be used and that indeed as wil for the sake of the healthy as the sick Let him therefore that will dress a pullet pigeons veale c. in the first place put a sufficient quantity of spices of water and butter and then as he pleaseth a greater or lesser quantity of spirit of salt and by this means fleshes are sooner made ready being boyled then that common way an old hen though the flesh thereof be old is made as tender as a chicken by the addition of this spirit but he that will use it in stead of the juice of Limons with rost meat must put into it the pill of limons for preservation sake because it preserves it It is used in stead of verjuice by it self alone or mixed with a little sugar if it be too acid He that will stew beef and make it as tender as kid must first dissolve it in tartar and a little salt before he wets the flesh therewith and the flesh will not only be preserved but made tender thereby but to keep flesh a long time you must mix some water therewith and with weights press down the flesh that it may be covered with the pickle for by this means flesh may be preserved a great while After the same manner may all kinds of garden fruits be preserved as cucumbers purslaine fennel broom German capers c. and indeed better then in vinegar Also flowers and hearbs may a long while be preserved by the help thereof so that you may have a rose all the winter It preserves also wine if a little be mixed therewith A little thereof being mixed with milk precipitates the cheese which if it be rightly made is never corrupted being like to such cheese as they call Parmesan The whey of that milke dissolves Iron and cures any scab being washed therewith With the help of spirit of salt is made with honey and sugar a most pleasant drink not unlike to wine There is made also of certain fruits with the spirit of salt a very good vinegar like to the Rhenish vinegar Such and many more things which I wil not now divulge may be done with spirit of salt And thus have I in some measure taught the use of the spirit of salt which I would not have you take as if I had revealed all things for for brevities sake as also for some other reasons I have silently passed over many things Neither do I know all things my self but those things which I do know I have so far declared that others may from thence have hints of seeking further He that would describe all every power vertue thereof had need to write a whole volume that which is not my purpose at this time to do but may prehaps be done another time There shall also be shewed in the second part of this book some secrets which may be prepared by the help of this spirit as how it may be dulcified to extract the tincture of gold and of other metals leaving a white body which tincture is a medicine not to be slighted Wherefore now seeing it is manifest how great things this spirit can do every one will desire a good quantity for his houshold uses especially seeing most excellent spirits may be made after an easie and short way How an acid spirit or vinegar may be distilled out of all vegetables as hearbs woods roots seeds c. FIrst put a few living coals into the furnace then put upon them the wood that is to be distilled that it may be burnt out of which whilest it is burning goes forth the acid spirit thereof into the receiver where being condensed it fals down into another receiver resembling almost common vinegar in its smell wherefore also it is called the vinegar of woods And after this manner you may draw forth an acid spirit out of any wood or vegetable and that in a great quantity without costs because the wood to be distilled is put but upon a very few living coals and upon that another for one kindles the other and this spirit requires no more charges then of the wood to be distilled which is a great difference betwixt this and the common way of distilling where besides retorts is required another fire and out of a great retort scarce a pound of spirit is drawn in the space of five or six hours whereas in ours in the space of one day and that without any cost or labor may be extracted twenty or thirty pound because the wood is immediately to be cast into the fire to be distilled and that not in pieces but whole Now this spirit being rectified may commodiously be used in divers Chymical operations for it doth easily dissolve animal stones as the eyes of Crabs the stones of Perches and Carps Corals also and Pearle c. as doth vinegar of wine By means thereof also are dissolved the glasses of metals as of tin lead Antimony and are extracted and reduced into sweet oyles This vinegar being taken inwardly of it self doth cause sweat wonderfully wherefore it is good in many diseases especially that which is made of Oake Box Guaiacum Juniper and other heavy woods for by how much the heavier the woods are by so much the more acid spirit do they yeeld Being used outwardly it mundifies ulcers wounds consolidates extinguisheth and mitigates
inflammations caused by fire cures the scab but especially the decoction being made of its own wood in the same Being mixed with warm water for a bath for the lower part of the body it cures occult diseases of women as also malignant ulcers of the leggs This spirit therefore deserves some place in the shops i. e. it is unjustly rejected in the shops seeing it is easie to be made In distilling of wormwood and other vegetables there remaines in the bottome of the furnace ashes which being extracted with warme water yeelds a salt by decoction which being again dissolved in its own spirit or vinegar and filtred doth by the evaporating of flegme being placed in a cold place pass into a Crystalline salt which is of a pleasant tast not like unto a lixivium nor unto other salts that are dissolved in aire This salt is also more efficacious being reduced into Crystals by its proper Spirit then that which is made by the help of sulphur or Aqua fortis and oyle of Vitrioll and otherwayes which Chymists and Apothecaries use The spirit of paper and linen cloth PEices of linen cloth gathered and got from Sempsters being cast into the furnace upon living coales yeeld a most acid spirit which tingeth the nailes skin and hair with a yellow colour restores members destroyed with cold is good in a gangrene and erysipelas if linen clothes wet in the same be applyed thereto c. The same doth spirit made of paper viz. of the peices thereof The spirit of Silk AFter the same manner is there a spirit made of pieces of silke which is not so sharpe as that which is made of linnen and paper neither doth it tinge the skin but is most excellent in wounds as wel old as green and it makes the skin beautiful The spirit of mans haire and of other animals as also of horns OUt of horns also and hair is made a spirit but most fetid wherefore it is not so useful although otherwise it may serve for divers arts being rectified it becomes clear and to be of the odour of the spirit of urine It dissolves common sulphur and yeelds a water that cures the scab in a very short time Now for this business shreds of woollen cloth undyed may serve being cast in a good quantity into the furnace Pieces of cloth dipt in this spirit and hanged in vinyards and fields keep out Deer and Swine from coming in because they are afraid of the smell of that spirit as of a huntsman that waits to catch them The spirit of vinegar honey and sugar HE that will distill liquid things must cast red-hot coals into them as for example into vinegar in the furnace or if it be honey or sugar let them first be dissolved in water by which means they will be drunk up by the coales which being therewith impregnated must afterwards at several times be cast into the furnace and be burnt and whilest the coals are burning that which is incombustible comes forth And by this means you may distill liquid things in a great â—uantity Vinegar which is distilled this way is of the same nature as that which is distilled in close vessels But honey and sugar that are distilled after this manner are a little altered and acquire other vertues but how they shall be distilled without the loss of their volatile spirit shall be taught in the second part Also after this manner may all liquid things being drunk up by living coales be distilled Of the use of distilled vinegar many things might be said but because the books of all the Chymists treat abundantly thereof I account it needless to repeat what they have writ Yet this is worth taking notice of that the sharpest vinegar hath a great affinity with some metals which may be extractby the help thereof also dissolved and reduced into medicaments yea many things may be made with the help thereof as the books of all the Chymists testifie But there is yet another vinegar of which there is often mention made in the books of the Philosophers by the help whereof many wonderful things are performed in the solutions of metals the name whereof the ancients have been silent in of which I do not here treat because it cannot be made by this furnace but I shall treat of it in another part yet so that I incur not the curse of the Philosophers How spirits may be made out of the salt of tartar vitriolated tartar the spirit of salt tartarizated and of other such like fixed salts AS many Chymists as there hath been almost all have been of the opinion that a spirit cannot be drawn out of salt of tartar and other fixed salts For experience hath taught that by retort little or no spirit can be drawn from thence as I had often experience of before the invention of this furnace the reason of which thing was the admixtion of sand earth bole pouder of tiles c. for to prevent the flowing of salt of tartar being by this means dispersed But this is done through the ignorance of Authors who have been ignorant of the properties of salt of tartar For a stony matter as sand flint bole c. being mixed with salt of tartar feeling the heat of the fire and being made red with the same is joyned to it most closely so as no spirit can be drawn from thence but become a most hard stone For sand and such things that are like to it have so great an affinity with the salt of tartar that being once united can scarce ever be separated Yet it may be made by Art by the addition of pure sand or flint because the whole substance of the salt of tartar may be turned into a spirit in the space of one or two hours as shall be taught in the second part and it excels all other medicaments in vertue in curing the stone and gout And if by the regiment of art there be left any Caput Mortuum in that distillation it hath being dissolved in the aire a power to putrefie metals being prepared and mixed with it in the space of few hours so as to make them become black and to grow up like trees with their roots trunks boughs which by how much the longer they are so left become the better Of calx of lead being subtilized and of salt of tartar may be made a spiritus gradatorius of wonderful vertues as well in medicine as Alchymie There is made of the Caput Mortuum per deliquium a green liquor which doth wonderful things whence it is proved That Saturne is not the lowest of the planets Enough to the wise And so is Lac Virginis and the Philosophical Sanguis Draconis made SOmetimes there is found a certain earth or bole which hath no affinity with tartar which being mixed with salt of tartar yeelds a spirit but very little But in this furnace may all fixed things be elevated because the Species not being included in it but
turned into spirit Moreover the acide or sowre oyle of common Vitriol doth precipitate all metals and stones of beasts or fishes also pearles and corals they being first dissolved in spirit of salt or of Nitre and maketh faire light powders of them which by the Apothecaries are called Magisteries much fairer then by precipitation with salt of Tartar is done especially of corals and pearles such a faire glistering and delicate powder is made and likewise also of mother of pearle and other shels of snailes that it giveth as fair a gloss to them as the fairest oriental pearles have which way hath not been made common hitherto but being known only to few hath been kept very secret by them as a singular Art Such magisteries commonly were precipitated out of vinegar onely by salt of Tartar which for lightness whiteness and fair gloss are not comparable at all to ours But if in stead of the oyle of Vitriol you take oyle of sulphur then these powders will be fairer then when they are done by the oyle of Vitriol in so much that they may be used for painting for a black skin Having made mention of Magisteries I cannot forbear to discover the great abuse and error which is committed in the preparing of them Paracelsus in his Archidoxes teacheth to make Magisteries which he calleth extracted Magisteries but some of his disciples teach to make precipitated Magisteries which are quite different from the former Paracelsus is clean of another opinion in the preparing of his Magisteries then others in the making of theirs doubtless Paracelsus his Magisteries were good cordiall living medicines whereas the other were but dead carkases and although they be never so faire white and glistering yet in effect they prove but a gross earthy substance destitute of vertue I do not deny but that good medicines may be extracted out of pearles and corals for I my self also do describe the preparations of some of them but not at all after such a way as theirs is For what good or exalting can be expected by such a preparation where a stony matter is dissolved in corrosive waters and then precipitated into stone again Can its vertue be increased thereby surely no but rather it is diminished and made much the worse thereby For it is well known that the corrosive spirits no less then fire do burn some certain things for not all things are made better by fire or corrosives but most of them are absolutely spoyled by them Some perchance will say that such preparations of Magisteries are onely for to be reduced into a finer powder that so much the sooner they may perform their operation To which I answer that pearles corals and other of the like nature if they be once dissolved by corrosive waters and then precipitated and edulcorated never or hardly can be dissolved againe by acid spirits Whence it is evident that by such preparations they are not opened or made better but rather closed or made worse And we see also by daily experience that those Magisteries do not those effects which are ascribed unto them By which it appeareth cleerly that to the Archeus of the stomach they are much less grateful then the crude unprepared corals and pearles whose tender essence being not burnt up by corrosives do oftentimes produce good effects For our Ancestors have ascribed unto corals and pearles that they purifie the impure and corrupt blood in the whole body that they expel Melancholy and sadness comforting the heart of man and making it merry which also they effectually perform whereas the Magisteries do not And this is the reason why unprepared corals pearles and stones of fishes have more effect then the burnt Magisteries For it is manifest and well known that the abovesaid diseases for the most part do proceed from obstructions of the spleen which obstructions are nothing else but a tartarous juice or a sowre flegme which hath possessed and filled up the entrals and coagulated it self within them By which obstruction not only head-ach giddiness panting of the heart trembling of the limbs a spontaneous lassitude vomits unnatural hunger also loathing of victuals then cold then hot flushing fits and many more strange symptomes are caused but also a most hurtful rottenness and corruption is introduced into the whole mass of blood from whence the leprosie scurvy and other loathsome or abominable scabs do spring Of which evil the onely cause as hath been said is a crude acide Tartar from which so many great diseases do rise This to be so may easily be proved for it is notorious that melancholik folks hypocondriaques and others do often cast up a great quantity of acid humor which is so sharpe that no vinegar is comparable to it and doth set their teeth on such an edge as if they had eaten unripe fruit What remedy now take away the cause and the disease is taken away If you could take away the peccant matter by purgings it would be well but it remaineth obstinate and will not yeeld to them By vomit it may be diminished in some measure But because that not every one can abide vomiting it is therefore no wisdome to turn evil into worse Shall then this tartar be killed and destroyed by contraries which indeed in some sort may be effected as when you use vegetables or animals whose vertue consisteth in a volatile salt such are all species or sorts of cresses Mustard-seed horse-radish scurvy grass also the spirit of Tartar of Hartshorn and of urine and the like which by reason of their penetrating faculty pass through all the body finding out the Tartar thereof destroying the same as being contrary unto it and in this combat two contrary natures is kindled a great burning heat whereby the whole body is throughly heated and brought to sweating and whensoever by these contraries a sweating is caused there is alwayes mortified some of this hurtful Tartar But because that of that acid humor but a little at a time can be mortified and edulcorated by contrary volatile spirits and that therefore it would be required to use them often for to kill and expell all the Tartar and because also as hath been mentioned before a strong sweat alwayes is caused by every such operation whereby the natural spirits are much weakened so that the patient would not be able to hold out long thereby but by taking away of one evil another and greater one would be occasioned And therefore such things must be offered to that hungry acid humor by which the corrosive nature thereof may be mortified and grow sweet with that proviso nevertheless that those things be such as are not contrary or hurtful to the nature of man but grateful and friendly as are corals pearles and crabs eyes c. For amongst all stones none are more easily to be dissolved then Pearles Corals Crabbs-eyes and other stones of fishes But the truth of this viz. that every corrosive is killed by feeding upon pearles and corals and
did not crystallise may be extracted with spirit of wine and the saeces being cast away the extraction will be pleasanter The spirit of wine abstracted from it there will remaine a medicine of no small value in all diseases of the braine To extrast a red Tincture out of Antimony or common sulphur BOyle sulphur or Antimony made into powder in a lye of the salt of Tartar till the lye turn red and powre this spirit upon it and distil gently in a Balneum and there will come over a faire Tincture with the volatile spirit silver anoynted therewith will be guilt though not lastingly It serveth for all diseases of the lungs How to ripen Antimony and common sulphur so that several sorts of such smels as vegetables have arise from thence DIssolve Antimony or sulphur in the liquor of pebles or sand coagulate the solution to a red mass upon this mass powre spirit of urine and let it extract in a gentle warmth The spirit being coloured red powre it off and powre on other spirit let it extract likewise and this you must iterate so often till the spirit will extract no more tincture then powre all the extracts together and abstract the spirit of urine from it in Balneum through a limbeck and there will remaine a blood red liquor and if you powre upon this spirit of wine it will extract a fairer tincture then the former was leaving the saeces behinde and this tincture smelleth like garlick and if it be digested three or four weeks in a gentle warmth it will get a very pleasant smel like unto the yellow prunes or plums and if it remaine longer yet in digestion it will get a smel not inferior to musk and ambar This Tincture having been digested a long time and got several smels is not only notably by the fire increased in pleasantness of smel and taste but also in vertue for so many and various sweet smels are perceived in it that it is to be admired which variety and exaltation proceedeth onely from the pure and ripening spirit of urine for there is hid in it a fire which doth not destroy but preserve and graduate all colours whereof in another place more shall be said N. B. Betwixt the spirit of urine and the animal and mineral Copper there appeareth a great sympathy for it doth not onely love copper above all other metals and mingleth easily with it and maketh it extraordinary faire and of good use in Physick but it prepareth it also to such a medicine whereby all venereous sores both by inward and outward use how deep so ever they took roote in the blood without the use of any other medicaments are perfectly cured it maketh fruitful and barren according as it is used it cleanseth the matrix hindreth the rising thereof and miraculously furthereth womens courses that have been stayed above all other medicamenes of what name so ever If this spirit be mingled with the volatile but not corrosive spirit of vitriol or common salt there will come a salt out of it which is inferior to none in fusibleness and useful both in Alchymy and Physick N. B. The liquor of the salt of Tartar and the spirit of wine do not mixe without water this being the mean partaking of both their natures and if you add unto it spirit of urine it will not mingle but keep its own place so that these three sorts of liquors being put in the same glass and though they be shaked never so much will not encorporate for all that the liquor of the salt of Tartar keepeth to the bottome next to it will be the spirit of urine and on the top of that is the spirit of wine and if you powre a distilled oyle upon it they will keep uppermost of all so that you may keep four sorts of liquors in one glass whereof none is mingled with the other Although this be of no great profit yet it serveth for to learn thereby the difference of spirits Of the spirit and oyle of Hartshorn TAke Hartshorn cut it with a saw into peeces of the bigness of a finger and cast in one of it at a time in the aforesaid distilling vessels and when the spirits are fettled then another and continue this untill you have spirits enough and the vessel being filled with the peeces that were carryed in take them out with the tongs and cast in others and do this as often as is needful The distilling being finished take off the receiver and powre into it dephlegmed spirit of wine which will cleanse the volatile salt powre the oyle with the spirit and salt volatile through a filtring paper made wet first lying in a glass funnel and the spirit of wine together with the spirit of Hartshorn and the volatile salt will run through the paper and the blackish oyle will stay behinde but it must quickly be powred out else it will through after them The spirit together with the volatile salt rectifie through a retort and the best part of the spirit will come over together with the spirit of wine and volatile salt and when the phlegme is coming take off the spirit which is come over that the naughty phlegme may not come amongst it keep it wel for it is very volatile the oyle may be mingled with salt of Tartar and rectified through a glass retort and so it wil be cleer if you will have it fairer you must rectifie it with spirit of salt The first which is done with salt of Tartar is of more vertue it cureth the quartane proveketh sweating extreamly cureth all internal wounds and pains which were caused by fals blows or other wayes 6. or 8. 10. to 20. drops of it taken in wine and sweated upon it in the bed The spirit is very good for all obstructions of the whole body from ℈ ss to ʒss thereof taken in a fit vehicle provoketh urine and forceth down womens courses it cleanseth the blood and maketh sweat mightily In the Plague Pox Leprosie Scurvy Melancholia Hypochondriaca malignant feavers and the like where sweating is necessary it proveth a rare medicine To make the spirit of mans haire an excellent medicine AFter the same manner you may make spirits out of all kinde of horns and claws of beasts but since by reason of their ill smel the use of them is not liked of though in several heavy diseases as in the fits of the mother and Epilepsie they do admirably well therefore I will acquiesce However it is worth observing that the spirit made of mans haire is not to be rejected in metallical operations for it dissolveth the common sulphur and reduceth it into a milk which by further ripening may be turned into blood the like whereunto no spirit is able to do The same spirit may also of it self without addition of sulphur be fixed into a ruby but that which is ripened with sulphur is the better and if it be brought so far by the fire that it have
but such as savours of the tast and smell of the malt Which is not the salt of the corn but of the artificer not operating aright in the preparation of his malt in distilling and rectifying For if it were prepared a right in all things corn yeelds the best spirit not unlike to that which is made out of the lees of wine in tast odour and other vertues Which Art although it be not known to all yet it doth not follow that it is impossible Now I did not say that it is that common way whereby that spirit which is like to the spirit of wine is distilled but another which is more subtill and witty Out of all vegetables is drawn a burning spirit yet such as is perceived by some difference of the tast and odour but that is not the spirits fault but of the vegetable as of hearbs seeds corn c. communicating their vertues tast and odour to the spirit whence that spirit deserves to be called not simple but compounded for else all the burning spirit being rightly rectified from its flegm is made out of any thing having the same vertues with the spirit of wine although it seem unprobable to some I do not deny that one simple may yeeld more or less sweet spirit then another For sweeter wines yeeld sweeter spirits Also cleere wine yeelds a sweeter spirit then the lees of wine although they come forth out of one and the same vessel For clarified wine and that which is sparated from the faeces yeelds a sweeter spirit then the Lees and impure heterogeneal sediment which corrupts the simple and sweet spirit with 〈◊〉 strong tast and smell so that that may deservedly being as it were simple be preferred before this which is accidentally corrupted And this is to be understood of all other spirits What hath hitherto been said hath been spoken for the sakes of them who have perswaded themselves that they could not perform chymical operations so well by the spirit of corn as with the spirit of wine for I never found any difference of both in the extraction of minerals as vegetables Let him therefore that can receive my opinion and experience seeing I will have nothing to doe with contradicting Carpers Without hurt to others I dare not reveal the Art of distilling sweet spirit with great profit out of corn in all things like to that which is made of the faeces of wine viz. without preparation or grinding of malt which shall haply be communicated elsewhere at some time or other For this Book is not written for the publishing of secrets but of a new invented distillation But thou that wilt make a sweet burning spirit out of malt or honey know this that the corn must be brought after a certaine peculiar manner into malt and lose its ungrateful savour before its distilling and fermenting or else after the wonted manner a certain ungratefull spirit will be drawn from thence that cannot be compared to the spirit of wine The whole Art therefore consists in a true preparation For ungrateful things are by Art brought into a gratefulness and on the contrary grateful things are made ungrateful by negligence And thus much for information sake Of the fermentution of Malt. TAke of malt ground in a mil as much as you please upon which in a wooden vessel set up right pour cold water as much as will moisten it and serve for mixtion and comminution then also pour as much warm water as will suffice for the making the mixture moist and thin and also warm for it must be neither hot nor cold which being done mix with it some new barm and cover it with a cloth and in a short space being exposed to heat it will begin to ferment wherefore the vessel is not to be filled to the top and leave it so long in fermentation until the mixture descends which for the most part is wont to be done the third day and the malt will be ready for distillation Of the fermentation of Honey NEither hath honey any need of a singular Art in its fermentation because being mixed with 6 7 8 10 parts of warm water it is dissolved and unto the solution is added ferment as hath been spoken concerning malt which afterward is left covered in some heat for to be fermented being fit for distillation when it becomes to wax hot Now know that too great a quantity of honey makes a very slow fermentation viz. of some weeks and months wherefore for acceleration sake I advise that a greater quantity of water bee added although otherwise it yeelds plenty of spirits but ungrateful which therefore I advise no body to distil as being unprofitable unlesse any one know how to take away the ungratefulness thereof Of the preparation of fruits seeds flowers hearbs roots c. THe fruits of trees as cherries plums apples pears figs juniper-berries elder-berries dwarf-elder and mulberries c. are bruised in wooden vessels with wooden pestils and upon them being bruised is poured warm water and ferment added to quicken it as hath been abovesaid of malt Seeds are broken in a mill flowers hearbs and roots are cut small and are stirred up to fermentation by mixing of warm water and barm An Annotation BEfore thou distil the aforesaid vegetables prepared by the help of fermentation diligently weigh and accurately observe whether the mixture be sufficiently fermented for sometimes there is sometimes too much cold or hot water put to it sometimes the vessel is not well covered by which meanes the cold air is let in whence the fermentation is hindered and consequently the distillation of the spirit For by the help of fermentation the burning spirit of the vegetables is set at liberty without which it cannot be done also the distillation is hindred by too much hast as wel as by too much delay for if thou begin to distil before the time viz. fermentation not being yet perfected thou shalt have but few spirits wherefore also the better part is by many that are unskilful cast to the swine but without any great loss if the matter were malt because that swine are fed therewith But not so if other vegetables were the matter of the distillation Also too much slowness where the matter begins to be sowre before it be distilled yeelds very few spirits that which often happens whilest hearbs and flowers c. are out of ignorance left in fermentation 3 4 5 and more weeks before they be distilled for the greatest part of the spirit is then turned to vinegar which would not be so very ill done if so be these men knew how to clarifie the remainders and torn it into vinegar that nothing thereof be lost for the vinegars of hearbs flowers seeds and roots are not to be contemned And so often times a thing to be lamented the better part if they be spices and pretious things is lost The matter of the distillation and other choice things as seeds and hearbs are
cast away with loss wherefore for admonition sake I was willing to adde such things that the operators may have an opportunity to consider the matter a little more profoundly with themselves or at least of learning the art of distilling from countrymen who do not suffer their malt to putrefie grow sowre or mouldy before they fall upon their distillations but presently fermentation being made the third or the fourth day begin their distillation But some one will object that my vegetable spirits are not pure by reason of the ferment that is mixed having in it self a spirit I answer there is not so great a portion of the ferment mixed which can corrupt the vegetable spirit For although some spoonfuls of ferment yeelding but a few drops of spirit be added to a great quantity of the vegetables yet there can come no hurt or detriment to so many quarts of the vegetable spirit I have seen some supercilious men that would not adde ferment to the matter of their spirit but sugar or honey by which they would promote fermentation and so have thought to get a pure spirit not considering that honey and sugar after fermentation are made to yeeld their spirits also whereof one spoonful yeelds more then ten or twenty of Barm But honey and sugar fermenting not without difficulty themselves how can they promote the fermentation of other things Who also have had experience that the addition of their ferment hath been superfluous whilest their flowers and hearbs have stood some weeks in maceration before they begun to ferment and that oftentimes they have contracted an acidity mustiness and stink the reason of which was an unsutable ferment There are indeed the fruits of some trees that have a sweet and ful juice as grapes cherries apples pears figs c. which need not the addition of any ferment having a natural ferment of their own but other vegetables not so being lean as hearbs flowers roots It is necessary there to promote the fermentation of them by the addition of a sutable ferment left in length of time these hearbs and seeds lose their spirit exhaling in maceration And thus much I was willing to say for information sake and indeed for the sake of them who seek after the best and choicest medicines wanting a good burning spirit as a companion applicable to them For this spirit came not only by it self as Aqua vitae into a medicinall use as well internal as external especially that which is prepared of cordial and cephalick hearbs but also being united with the proper oyls of those hearbs in many desperate diseases where it could put forth its vertues eminently And thus much sufficeth concerning the preparation of vegetables that goes before the distillation of burning spirits The manner of distilling in generall followeth HE that is going to distil hath need to stir his fermented matter very well with a stick that the thicker parts may be well mixed with the thinner and then he must fill therewith his distilling vessel set upon a treefoot and joined to the copper globe in the furnace on one side and to the refrigeratory on the other the joints in all places being well closed either with Oxe bladders or with starch and paper Also the interiour part of the globe in the distilling vessel must be fenced with a copper or wooden basket that the hearbs seeds and other things enter not into the globe into which only water must come Also the upper hole must be close stopped with a fitting stopple wrapt about with linnen clouts viz. that hole by which the matter to be distilled is put in like to vessels of wine that are stopped Which being well done you must kindle the fire in the furnace under the globe until all the matter in the whole vessel boil wel and that burning spirit rise and go out though the refrigeratory where it is condensed into the glass receiver that is set under it no less then distilled out of a stil and you must continue the fire til all the spirit be come forth which you may know by the tast Which being done and all things being cold let the remainders be taken out by the lower largetap hole for meat for swine or other uses The spirit that is drawn off may be exalted and rectified at your pleasure in the same vessel being first made clean together with the refrigeratory Note wel that sometimes there is left a fat oil with the flegm in rectifying of the spirit proceeding from that hearb of which that was the spirit which did distil off with the spirit from the matter with a strong fire in the first distillation but in the rectifying could not ascend with the spirit in a gentle fire but is constrained to remain with the insipid flegm And this oyl also hath its vertues especially that which is rectified by a glass gourd in Balneo with spirit of salt and clarified Now the like oyl is got almost from all hearbs roots seeds flowers and fruits but out of one subject more then another according to the hot and cold temper thereof Especially the sediment of wines yeelds a good quantity of such oyl which is as medicinable as the true oyl of wine being rectified not before it be endued with a sweet savour and it is an excellent cordiall although I knew no body that knew this before And thus I have shewed the generall way of distilling burning spirits by help of the aforesaid wooden distillatory Now also follows The manner of distilling spices seeds flowers hearbs roots Woods c. FIrst the seeds must be broken in a mill flowers hearbs and roots cut smal the woods broken are filed upon which afterwards a good quantity of water in which they may swim must be powred for the maceration of them so that when the distillation is ended there may remain some water lest for want of water they be burnt in the distilling â—nd yeeld an oyl savouring of the empyreuma and not sweet Neither is too great a quantity to be powred on them but as much as shall serve to prevent the burning of the aforesaid vegetables in the distilling of the oyl thereof And indeed fresh vegetables may presently without any foregoing maceration being put with their proper waters into the distilling vessel be distilled But they that be dry may for the space of some dayes be macerated before they be distilled Also the water appointed for maceration must be salted for the better mollifying and opening the aforesaid materials that they may the sooner yeeld their oyl Now green and fresh need not any salt water yet it wil not be hurtful to mix some therewith because salt helps the boiling water so as to make the oyl more easily to ascend It also helps and furthers distillation as doth Tartar and Allome if they be rightly mixed and ordered Which being all rightly done the materials that are macerated must be put by a funnel into the distilling vessel and fire must
the great dammage of the sick For almost all natural baths and volatile spirits of salts minerals and metals partake of some most subtile penetrating heating and drying sulphureous salt spirit but the spirits of vegetables and animals partake of a certain volatility that is most subtile penetrating heating opening cutting and attenuating both urinous and nitrous viz. contrary to the former as appeares by the pouring on of any volatile sulphureous spirit as of common salt vitriol allome minerals and metals upon the rectified spirit of urin or salt Armoniack where presently the one mortifies the other and takes away its volatility and subtilty so that of both subtile spirits of divers natures there cometh a certaine salt of no odour and efficacy Whence it is manifest that all spirits partaking of divers natures and essences have not the same faculties Therefore be thou cautious in giving most potent spirits lest thou give an enemy in stead of a friend and learn their natures vertues and essences before thou usest them in medicine But thou dost aske whether is that great force of those spirits gone as it were in a moment did it evaporate in that duel No I say but transmuted into a corporeal substance for of a most pure mineral subtile and most volatile sulphur and a most penetrating animal Mercury is made a certain corporeal salt which is wonderful and deserves to be called Aquilâ— Philosophorum because it is easily sublimed with a gentle heat in which many things lye for it doth not only conduce to the solution of metals especially of gold but also of it self by the power of maturation doth become a most efficacious medicine Of which no more at this time because I will only advise the reader that he be diligent in searching out the spirits of nature which although they change their bodies yet are not therefore to be called dead but rather reduced to a better perfection And let this suffice concerning the dry use of baths in provoking sweat for the expelling of diseases now for what diseases this or that spirit serves thou shall reader find in its proper Treatise of which there hath been mention above but in a word know that those volatile sulphureous spirits of salts minerals and metals are good in all obstructions of the inward parts viz. of the spleen lungs and liver but especially are most excellent in heating the cold nerves because they do most efficaciously heat attenuate cut expel and mundifie wherefore they are good in Contractures Palsies Epilepsie Scorbute Hypochondriacal Melancholy Morbus Gallicus Itch and other corrosive ulcers and Fistulaes c. But the spirit of another kinde as of Tartar Hartshorn salt Armoniack Urine c. are hot also but not so dry and besides the heating vertue have also a penetrating cutting mollifying attenuating absterging and expelling power wherefore also they work wonderfully in all obstructions of the inward and outward parts for they do better then all others open the pores of the skin and provoke sweat mollifie and open the hemorrhoides proyoke the menses of young and elder women purge and heat the womb and therefore cause fruitfulness they heat and purge a cold and moist braine acuate the intellect and memory let they that be great with child take heed of them and also they that have a porous open skin Such and other more properties and that deservedly are ascribed to these spirits Now those two aforesaid baths in one whereof those spirits are used in a humid way being mixed with warm water for the whole body to be bathed and sweat in but in the other in a dry way where the vapours are by force of the fire made under the Globe forced up into the sweating box towards the patient which being used after this manner do oftentimes penetrate and operate more efficaciously then that humid way are not to be slighted for the recovery of health as doing things incredible Now those spirits not being found in shops nor being to be made by any according to the manner that I have shewed in the second part I would have thee know that there is yet another matter which needs not to be distilled and it is mineral which being put into the Copper instrument doth of its own accord without fire yield such a sulphureous spirit which penetrates very much and goeth into the sweating box like in all things to that which is made out of salts minerals and metals Nature also hath provided us another matter that is to be found every where which being in like manner put into the instrument doth by it self and of its one accord without fire yeild a spirit in vertue not unlike to that which is made out of crude Tartar or salt Armoniack Soot Urine c. Of which in the second part doing viz. the same things with that which is made with costs and labour Those foresaid 2. matters therefore can do the same things which are required for a bath and sweating which those two foresaid kinds of spirits viz. mineral and sulphureous vegetable and animal can do c. Now what those two matters which are easily every where to be found are thou desirest to know but I dare not if I would for the sake of the pious to reveal them for the sake of the ungrateful and unworthy For it is an offence to cast pearle before swine which yet the pious may by the blessing of God finde out by the reading of the rest of my writings Now follows a wooden vessel which is to be used in stead of a Caldron in boyling of Beer Metheglin Vinegar c. MAny things might be said concerning this matter for although men may be found in any part of the world who know how to make malt of corne and of this beer and vinegar yet many things may be said of this matter for the correcting of it but because it is not my purpose to shew such things now yet I shall say something of the use of that copper globe which any one may provide in stead of Caldrons and which is to be used with a certain wooden vessel in the boyling of beer which by this way he may as hath been spoken above concerning the operations make as well as by the help of Caldrons Moreover I could here also teach some other most profitable secrets viz. how honey may be freed from its ungrateful odour and tast by the help of precipitation and how afterwards a most sweet spirit is to be drawn out of it very like in all things to the spirit of wine also how the best and sweetest wine cleer and durable like to Mallago may be made thence also how after purging it is to be crystallised so as to resemble Sugar-candy in goodness and tast also how the sweetness thereof may be converted into Tartar very like to the natural Also how out of fruits of trees as cherries apples pears c. a very good and durable wine in goodness colour tast and vertue
almost like oriental ruby wherefore being broken in peices may be used in stead of an ornament but this is more soft and brittle then glass of Antimony This glass or those flowers of auripigmentum which are not yet reduced into glass do notably devitreat the aforesaid cups with a red beautiful colour He therefore that will vitrifie the aforesaid cups must first heat them red hot in a fire made with coals and being thus hot dip them in the aforesaid melted flowers and being taken out thence put them under an earthen or iron red hot vessel and there let them coole which do perform the same things as those which are said of the Antimonial cups These cups are not dangerous as to be feared because as Antimony is corrected by calcination so auripigmentum is by sublimation from which if all the malignity be taken away either by fire or by nitre the vomitive vertue is taken away as afterward shall be demonstrated more at large in these five parts when they shall come forth again with enlargements viz. what purging things are and how they put forth their vertues a consideration being had of their malignity There are also other wayes of vitrification and indeed very fine and most desireable by all if they should be communicated but because it is not now my purpose to treat here of mechanical things but onely of some particular vitrifications of vessels belonging to our furnaces I am resolved to omit them at this time and make an end of these things I am resolved God willing to set forth these parts more corrected and in a larger manner where many excellent things now omitted for some reasons shall be published and commuincated Wherefore I wil now put an end to this fift part where although I might have added something that is singular concerning artificial furnaces yet because time will not now permit it shall be deferred to another time and place where we shall treat further of the examining trying and separation of metals For the best way of melting of metals in a greater quantity hath not yet been known And although they that deal in minerals perswade themselves of the perfection of their art yet I can demonstrate an easier and more compendious way of melting of metals in a shorter time in a greater quantity and with less costs and paines Of which more at large elsewhere wherefore Courteous Reader be contented with these things and if I shall see that these few things shall be acceptable to thee I will sometime hereafter for thy sake and to thy profit communicate wonderful secrets which the world will not believe and which hitherto are hid either out of envy or ignorance A Cup or melting vessel belonging to the fourth Furnace AN APPENDIX TWO yeers since I began to publish my new invented furnaces where also there was mention made of some secrets which though I thought never to divulge yet nevertheless I underwent many troubles for the communicating of them Wherefore I beseech every body that they would no more create troubles to me or to themselves by their petitions or writings because for certaine causes I shall for the future communicate nothing but those things which follow Expect therefore patiently the time of another Edition when these five parts shall come forth more corrected and enlarged and many most choice secrets shall be communicated which were for certain causes omitted in the first Edition I shall now God willing communicate those things which follow yet upon this condition because many are such that by means thereof thou maist with a good conscience without hurt to thy neighbour through Gods blessing get great riches that thou be mindful of the poor and a good steward of riches got honestly and use them to the glory of God and the eternal salvation of thy soul The preparation of corn as of Barley Wheat Oates c. of Apples Pears Cherries c. where fermentation being made they do yeeld by way of distillation a pure spirit very like the to spirit of wine without great costs of the remainders whereof if the matter were corn may be made good beer or vinegar but if the matter were any kinde of fruit as apples pears a very good drink like to wine so that by this means thou maist finde a double profit by which thou maist not onely have whereby to live honestly but also to lay up for thy heirs An excellent and wholesome drink of fruite and corn that is durable and like to Spanish French and Rhenish wine A distillation of the Aqua vitae of certaine vulgar things not costly and like to the Aqua vitae of French and Rhenish wine A preparation of sugar like to the Westerne and of tartar like to the natural Rhenish out of honey and not costly where one pound of sugar doth not exceed the price of eight or ten stivers and a pound of tartar that doth not exceed the price of two stivers A peculiar purification of crude tartar without loss and a reduction of it into great crystals not costly so as the price of one pound doth not exceed six stivers The taking away of the ingrateful tast and odour of honey so as afterwards there may be made from thence a certain good Aqua vitae retaining no more the smel and taste of honey also a very good Meade or Methegline like unto very good wine with which the same things may be done as with the best wine A preparation of Meade out of raisins great and smal very like in all things to Spanish wine out of which also is made a very good vinegar without great costs A preparation of wine and good vinegar of wilde grapes Durable and wholesome drinks of gooseberries barberries mulberries strawberries and the like The mending of troubled acid musty wines c. The preparation of a very good vineger out of certain vegetables which are to be found every where which may be compared to that which comes out of France and in a great abundance whereof two runlets of nine Gallons do not exceed the price of one Ryal The promoting of the ripening of wines of the cold countries of Europe a very few that are very cold being exempted that they may yeeld very good sweet and durable wines whereas otherwise they could come to no maturity being very like to those which hotter countries yeild A certain secret way of carrying wines from mountainous places where carts ships and other commodities are wanting where the carrying of ten pipes doth not exceed the price of one pipe otherwise carryed so that by this means outlandish wines may be brought to any place with great profit A very good and easie preparation of verdegrease out of copper whereof one pound doth not exceed the price of six stivers A new and compendious distillation of vinegar of which a runlet of eighteen gallons doth not exceed the price of half a ryal with which many things may be done especially the crystallizing of
174 How to make a good oyle out of soot without distilling ibid. Of the spirit and oyle of honey ibid. Of the oyle and spirit of sugar 175 To distil an excellent spirit and blood red tincture of coals and sugar 176 Of the spirit of Must or new wine ibid. Of oyle olive 177 The use of the blessed oyle 179 Of the oyle of wax ibid. A good spirit for the stone ibid. Of the spirit or acid oyle of sulphur 180 To the Courteous Reader 181 The Contents of the third Part. A Preface of the copper instrument and furnace 185 Of wooden instruments that are to be used in stead of stils baths and cauldrons 189 The preparation of the vessel 192 The making of a wooden vessel for a Balneum which is to be used in stead of copper and leaden cauldron for digestion and distillation by glass vessels 193 A wooden vessel serving for boyling of Beer Metheglin Vinegar c. as well as copper iron and tin vessels ibid. A wooden vessel for a bath for sweet or mineral waters which may be according as you please kept warm for the preservation of health 194 Of the use of wooden vessels in distilling boyling bathing c. and first of the wooden vessel ibid. Of the preparation of the lees of wine boer hydromel and other drink ibi Of the preparation of all kinde of corn as wheat oats barley c. which must go before the distilling of the spirit 195 Of the difference of malting 196 Of the fermentation of malt 197 Of the Fermentation of honey 198 Of the preparation of hearbs flowers seeds c. ibid. An Annotation 199 The manner of distilling in general followeth 202 The manner of distilling spices seeds flowers hearbs roots woods c. 203 How oyles are to be coagulated into balsoms 204 The manner of preparing follows 206 There follows now the use of the second wooden vessel which is to be used in stead of those of copper or lead serving for distillations digestions extractions and fixations 208 And first of a volatile extract ibid. A purging extract 210 A diaphoretical extract 211 A diuretical extrast 212 A Somniferous extract ibid. A cordial extract 213 Of an odoriferous extract 214 Of baths 215 Of a bath of sweet or common water 216 Of the nature and property of natural baths ibid. And first of sulphureous bathes that have a subtle acidity 218 The mixture of those subtile mineral sulphureous and salt spirits with water 220 Of sulphur baths 221 The use of the copper globe in dry bathes which are more excellent then the moyst in many cases 222 Now follows a wooden vessel which is to be used in stead of a cauldron in boyling of beer vinegar metheglin c. 226 The Contents of the fourth Part. OF making the Furnace 233 How minerals are to betryed 238 Of the melting of mines and metals 243 Of the separation of metal ibid. Of separating courser metals 247 What is to be held concerning the perfection of metals 248 Another demonstration by a dry way 255 Of the Philosophers stone 262 Whether minerals as antimony arsenick orpin cobolt zinck sulphur c. may be transmuted into metals and into what 265 Another way of separating the superfluous Antimonial sulphur 268 Of the tincture of Sol and Antimony 269 Another tincture and medicine of gold 272 Of looking glasses 273 Metallick mixaure for the matter of the glasses 276 Of the smoothing and polishing looking glasses 278 Of mettallick glasses 280 The colouring of the foresaid vessel follows in which it is made most like to Venice 284 Of the preparation of the colours for the colouring the mass of flints and crystals 285 The Contents of the fifth Part. OF the preparation of the furnace 293 Of the preparation of the furnaces 297 A lute for the errecting of furnaces 298 Of the closing of the joynts hindering the evaporation of subtile spirits 299 Another lute for broken glasses 300 How those subtle spirits when they are made may be kept that they evaporate not 301 How glass stoples are to be smoothed grinding for the retaining of subtle spirit in their glass vessels 303 Of the making of the best crucibles 313 Of the vitrisication of earthen vessels belonging to the first and second furnace 320 Of the use of the foresaid cups 324 An Appendix 328 Annotations upon the Appendix of the fifth Book A Preparation of corn wheat barley oates c. also of pears apples cherries and other tree fruits to be performed by the help of fermentation when thorough the help of distillation they yeeld a very good and most pure spirit very like that which is made of the lees of wine without great costs where also from the Remainders of the corn the burning spirit being drawn off may be made a very good beer or vinegar and of the remaines of the fruit a very good drink like to wine whence there is a double benefit so that any one may not only have from thence wherewith to live but also to lay up 338 The making of wine not unlike to Rhenish French or Spanish that shall endure for many yeers out of corn or fruits 340 A making of a burning spirit out of the baser sort of things which are commonly known like to that made out of Rhenish and French wine and at an easie rate 343 The making of sugar like to that of the India and of tartar like to that of the Rhenish out of honey not costly so that the price of one pound of sugar doth not exceed eight or ten stivers and a pound of tartar exceed not the price of two stivers ibid. A peculiar purification of vulgar impure tartar without any loss and the crystallizing or reduction of it into great crystals a pound whereof being purified doth not exceed the price of six stivers 347 The taking away of the ungrateful odour avd tast of honey which being taken away there is drawn forth out of honey a very good burning spirit which savours not of the qualities of honey and also a hydromel like to natural wine in tast and other vertues c. ibid. The making of a hydromel very good and clear out of raisins both greater and smaller resembling the best Spanish wine out of which also is made a very good and cleer vineger ibid. How good wines and good vinegars may be made in those places where grapes grow in unmanuered places and are acid 349 Also the preparation of wholesome drinks out of goose-berries barberries mul-berries and other wilde fruits 351 The correction of troubled viscous wines and such as begin to be red musty and sowre ibid. A very easie making of vinegar in great quantity out of certaine vetables that are every where to be had viz. very good cleer and durable like to French vinegar c. 352 A production of wines in cold places which othâ—rwise by reason of the cold aire do not bring forth wines the coldâ—st places of all only excepted viz. of the
in a short time and without much costs as also of boyling Beer Hydromel Wine and other things which otherwise are made in Copper or Iron vessels and all this by the help of wooden vessels and benefit of a certain smal Copper or Iron instrument of two or three pound weight and that after a certain easie maner without furnaces This newly invented Art doth also teach divers Chymical operations as putrefactions digestions circulations extractions abstractions cohobations fixations c. And this invention is very necessary and profitable for young beginners in this Art for they need not in the making of burning spirits waters of Vegetables Extracts and other Medicaments so many Furnaces and so many Copper Iron Tin Earthen and Glass vessels for it is here taught how all the aforesaid operations may be done only by the help of a certain smal Copper or Iron vessel in wooden vessels as well as by Alâ—mbicks and other great Copper vessels by which meanes a great deal of costs is saved In the fourth part shall be taught another certaine and hitherto unknown furnace in which all Chymical operations may most easily be done being most profitable for the trying of the natures of Minerals and Metals as also for the proving examining melting cupelling and separating of Metals that nothing may be lost of them and that after a compendious and easie way and that also to great advantage In the fifth shall be taught how to make and prepare Iron Earthen Glass and other kind of Instruments necessary for the aforesaid four furnaces as also other necessary and most profitable Manuals And indeed in the first part the Fabrick of the first furnace being delineated I shall also shew how by the help thereof may be made Spirits Oyles Flowers and other most profitable Medicaments also their vertues and use and that as faithfully as I may and without fraud And truly I do not doubt but those of understanding will approve of this work but ignorant Zoiles will contemne it For it is said according to the Proverb He that builds by the high way will hear many things from them that finde fault and especially from the vulgar c. But it would be well if those Thrasoees would put forth something more excellent before they finde fault with and carp at other mens paines and labours Wherefore let no one rashly judge of this work untill he be throughly informed concerning the same and then I do not doubt but the Authour shall be by him commended And if haply all things shall not presently succeed well to his minde with him that shall build this furnace and operate therewith let him think with himself that prehaps he hath erred in some part for it is a new and unknown work in which any one may easily erre and not presently therefore murmur against the Author blameing him because he hath not wrote cleer enough but let him ascribe it to his own ignorance and let him study to understand the Authours meaning and still be practising upon it and then I do not doubt but he will have better success which I pray every one may have AMEN THE FIRST PART OF PHILOSOPHICAL FURNACES CONTAINING A NEW ART OF Making Spirits Oyles Flowers and other Medicaments by the help of the first of those Furnaces after a most easie and peculiar manner out of Vegetables Animals and that with great profit ALSO The CHYMICAL and MEDICINAL use thereof By JOHN RUDOLPH GLAUBER LONDON Printed by Richard Cotes for Tho Williams at the signe of the Bible in Little-Britain 1652. E. The first subliming pot which is set into the upper hole of the furnace D. The upper hole of the furnace F. The second pot G. The third H. The fourth A. The ash hole with the wideness of the furnace B. the middle hole by which the coals and matter to be distilled are cast in C. A stopple of stone which is to stop the said hole after injection D. The upper hole with a certain false bottome which is to be filled with sand E. The cover of the upper hole which is laid on after the injection of the coales and materials F. A pipe going out of the receiver and joyned to the first pot C. The first receiver H. The second I. The third K. A stoole on which the first receiver stands having a hole in the middle through which the neck of the first pot to which a dish is annexed passeth L. The dish through the pipe whereof the refrigerated spirits distill M. A receiver into which the spirits collected in the dish do flow N. A screw to be raised higher at pleasure for the better joyning the receiver to the pipe and it goeth through a stoole O. The place of the pipe for the distilling of spirit of Vitriol and Allome P. A grate consisting of two strong cross iron bars fastened in the furnace and foure or five more less that are moveable for the better cleansing of the furnace G. The first crooked pipe fitted to the pipe of the furnace F. The pipe of the furnace H. A receiver fitted to that pipe and set in a tub of water for the accelerating the operations which recipient hath a cover with two holes through the first whereof goeth a single crooked pipe and through the other two crooked pipes whereof one goeth into the receiver as did the single and the other out of the receiver H. into H. H. I. The tub of water M. A third pipe By this way flowers are sublimed and spirits distilled speedily and in great quantity THE FIRST PART OF PHILOSOPHICAL FURNACES Of the structure of the first Furnace AS for the first Furnace it may be built greater or lesser as you please a regard being had of the quantity of the water to be distilled and also either round or square either of Bricks or by a Potter with Potters clay Now when the Diameter is of one span viz. withinside the height must be of four viz. one from the bottom to the grate another from the grate to the hole made for putting in of Coales and two from thence to the top of the Pipe which must at least go forth out of the Furnace one span lest the receivers should by the worms of the Furnace be heated The Pipe also must have on the fore part a Diameter answering the third part of the intrinsecal Diameter of the Furnace also a little larger on the hinder part then the forepart Let the grate be such a one as may be taken out at your pleasure and made clean being stopt by the water that is cast in and distilled for it is easily stopt in distilling of Salts melted with the coales whereby the aire is kept from coming to the fire and the distillation by consequence hindred Or let there be put into the vessel cross-wise two strong Iron bars upon which lay four or five lesser distant the one from the other the breadth of a finger going a little out of the Furnace
in which when they are stopt you may take them with a paire of Tongs stir them and cleanse them from the burnt water and then again put them into their own places wherefore also the Furnace must on the fore part be open under the grate that you may the better order the grate Also the grate must have above a covering of Iron or Stone with a hole in the midle thereof with a certain distinction which is to be filled with sand that the cover may the better and more fitly shut the hole and prevent the exhaling of the spirits which by this means will being forced go forth thorow the Pipe into the receivers after you have cast in the water which is to be distilled Of the Receivers Let the receivers be made of glass or of strong earth which may retain the spirits and such is Waldburgick Hassiack Frechheimensian Siburgic earth c. They are better that are made of glass if they are to be had and those especially which are made of strong and firme glass which may be smoothed about the joynts with a Smiris stone and so fitted that they may the better be joyned together and then they need not laving but how they shall be smoothed with the Smiris stone and be fitted shall be taught in the fifth part which treates of Manuals because by this means they are joyned so close that no spirits can go through the joynts otherwise you must close the joynts with the best lute such as will not let the spirits exhale which shall be taught in the book treating of Manuals The form of the recipient you may see in the delineation thereof As for the quantity thereof know that by how much the greater they are so much the better they are for then you need the fewer but the more by how much the lesser they are Let the superior orifice be larger then the inferior so that alwayes another receiver may with its inferior orifice be joyned to it and let the inferior orifice have a Diameter of three fingers breadth or thereabouts I mean in case the Diameter of the Furnace be of one span For a greater Furnace requires greater holes as also orifices of the receivers by which means a sufficient and due proportion of aire may be given to the fire or if the Diameter of the furnace be more then a span it must also have two or three pipes which being considered together should have a wideness answering the wideness of the third part of the Furnace for so great a wideness and so much aire is required if the fire burn freely and do its office to which vessels of the aforesaid proportion must be applyed that the fire be not choaked Now the figure that is annexed will teach the conjunction of the receivers as also their application to the furnace And in the first place the receiver stands in a threefoot stoole bored thorow in the middle that the neck of the first receiver may pass thorow to which is applyed a dish with a pipe receiving the dropping spirits To the first there is joyned a second and to that a third and so consequently viz. neer unto a wall or ladder so many as you please Let the upper receiver and indeed all the rest be left open To the lower as hath been said is joyned a dish with a pipe by which the distilled spirits run down into another certain glass vessel added thereunto which being filled is taken away and another is set in the place of it because that is set under it without luting and therefore may easily be changed And if you please to distil any thing else you must take away that dish with a pipe and make it clean and then joyn it close again that no spirit may breath forth to the work of the lower receiver And if that dish cannot be so closely joyned that nothing exhale pour in a spoonful of water for that doth astringe neither doth it hurt the spirits because in the rectifying it is separated Of Subliming vessels These you need not make of glass or of such earth as may retain the spirits as hath been above mentioned it is sufficient if so be they be made of good common potters earth and be well glazed within viz. of such a form and figure as appears by the annexed delineation Yet you must choose good earth that will endure the fire for the lower pots are so heated by the fire that they would be broken if they should not be made of good earth Now I will shew you in general the manner it self of distiling as also the manual necessaries in every distillation The manner of distilling In the first place let there be some burning coales put in which afterwards must be covered with more until the Furnace be full almost to the pipe which being done let not the uppermost cover be laid over its hole that the heat and smoke may pass that way and not thorow the pipe and receivers which will thereby be red hot and this will be a hindâ—ance to the distillation untill the fire be sufficiently kindled and the furnace be throughly hot then cast in with an Iron ladle of the water prepared for distillation as much as will cover the coales which being done stop the furnace very close by pressing down strongly the upper cover upon its hole or sand which is put in the lower part of the hole being a place made for that purpose Now let him that casts in any thing thorow the middle hole presently stop it with a stopple of stone and that very close for by this means all those things which were cast in will be forced after the manner of a thick cloud to break forth through the pipe into the receivers and there to condense themselves into an acid spirit or oyle and thence to distil into the dish set under through the pipe whereof they do yet distil down further into an other glass receiver The Coales being burnt out and all the spirits being come forth you must cast in more Coales and more materials untill you have got a sufficient quantity of Spirits In this way of distilling you may at your pleasure cease and begin again without any danger When you will make clean the Furnace you need do nothing else then draw out the Iron bars that ly on the cross bar that the Caput Mortuum may fall down which afterwards may be taken away with a fire shovel which being done you must put in the bars again and â—ay them on the cross bars as before upon which you must cast burning coals and upon them others until there be enough then on them all being well kindled cast your materials When you go to make clean the receivers and to begin to distil an other thing you need not remove them but only pour pure water into them viz. by their upper receiver by the descending whereof the other are purified And by this way not only out of vegetables
yeers and being broken is easily repaired And by this way you shall need only materials to be distilled no retorts and receivers are not in danger by which means much cost is saved Besides the aforesaid wayes I have yet another and that more compendious viz. of distilling and subliming and more easie by which means in a very little time an incredible quantity of spirits of salts and flowers of Minerals and metals may be made which I shall refer till another time because for the present I have said enough Now I do not doubt but diligent Chymists will follow my steps and finde out those things which were unknown to me For it is easier to adde to things founde out then to finde out things unknown The construction therefore of the furnaces being in mine opinion cleerly shewed there now follows the manner of distilling and subliming with it Although haply and contrary to my hope any obscurity should be met withall yet one process will explain another and the diligent operator and searcher of nature shall without doubt by his practise attain the effect after the same manner as I have prescribed And this is that which together with the blessing of God may overtake all pious Chymists Amen How the Spirit of Salt is to be distilled THE reason why I enter upon the spirit of salt before I say any thing of the spirits of vegetables is this viz. because it is even the chiefest which can be made in this furnace for few exceed this in strength and vertues wherefore I also have given it the preeminency Neither is there any of the acid spirits about which the Chymists hitherto have been more busied then this wherefore also it was of all of greatest price c. For some have mixed salt with potters clay and have made this mixture into little bals which they have for to get the spirit forced by retort into a very strong fire some have mixed salt with bole some with the powder of tyles others with burnt Allume c. Others using a more compendious way have made salt to flow in a retort which hath a pipe both in the upper and hinder part by the upper pipe of which they have dropped in cold water to elevate the ponderous spirits of the salt but by the hinder they have blown with bellows to force the spirits into the retort and this way is not altogether to be slighted yet it hath this inconveniency that in process of time the retorts are broken that they can no longer retain the salt and so the distillation is intercepted Some have attempted it with Iron retorts but by this means the spirits have been deaded because they easily set upon the Iron whence in stead of spirit they have had flegme And such and other tedious wayes of distilling they have invented and by the best of them indeed they could scarce distill one pound in 24. or 30. houres space with 50. 60. or 100 pound of coals this being the reason because the salt is very little wrought upon and therefore it is that few ever had the spirit right and good whence also the vertues thereof have been unknown And this therefore I was willing to make known that it might appeare what price this spirit hath hitherto been of and how easie and abundantly and with what little cost it may after my new invented way be made It is said above that the materials may in this way of distilling be immediately cast into the fire yet this must be wisely understood For although some of the species may without any preparation be immediately cast into the fire yet it doth not follow that all and every one of them must for in some of them we must use our discretion as in the distilling of salt For if the salt be immediately cast into the fire it will not only yeeld no spirits but will leap so long upon the coals untill it finde a descent to the lowest part of the furnace Now this may be prevented divers wayes and first indeed after this manner Dissolve salt in common water then quench burning coales in this water that they may be impregnated with the salt which afterwards set on fire in the furnace but you must first cast in other burning coals upon which you must cast those that are impregnated with salt untill the furnace be full as is above said and whiles the coales burn the the salt is resolved by the force of the fire into spirit Now you must observe that he that distils spirit of salt after this manner must make choice of glass receivers because the spirit whilest it is hot penetrates by reason of its wonderful subtilty those that are earthen And this spirit is of a most grateful tast But in defect of glass receivers I shall shew you another way wherein you may use those that be of earth Mix salt and vitrial or allome together grinding them very wel in a morter for by how much the better they are ground the more spirit they yeeld Then cast this mixture into the fire with an Iron ladle viz. so much of it as will be sufficient to cover the coals and then with a great fire the spirits come forth into the receivers where being coagulated they distill down into a dish and thence into another receiver And if thou knowest how to work aright the spirits will like water continually run out through the pipe the thickness of a straw and thou mayest easily every hour make a pound of the spirit Now the reason why thou shalt by this way have more spirits then by the other is this viz. because the vitriol and allome which is mixed with the salt makes it flow quickly by which means it is prevented from falling down through the coals to the lower part of the furnace but sticking to the coals is almost all of it turned into spirits The Caput Mortuum which is reddish easily fals with the ashes through the grate and can no more be distilled but yeelds by excoction a white fixed salt which serves for the flowing of metals and being dissolved in warm water serves also for a glyster against the worms which it kils and purgeth also the bowels Thou wilt object that the spirit made after this maner is not the true spirit of salt by reason of the mixture of vitriall and allome but mixed and compounded I answer There can by this way distill no spirit of vitrioll and allome being that which I often tryed casting vitriol or allome into the furnace where I received no spirit at all the reason of this is because these spirits are far more heavy then the spirit of salt neither can they ascend so great a height viz. of three spans but are burnt whence unless the flegme nothing distils Wherefore the spirit of salt that is made after this manner is not mixed but pure and meer spirit of salt of the same tast and vertue as that is of that is made by it self
refer the reader therefore to the second part where it shall be shewed how such spirits are to be rectified without the loss of their vertues which being so prepared may well be accounted for the fourth pillar of Physick And these things I was willing at least for information sake to shew you not to offend you and that because I was moved with pity and compassion towards my neighbor The Quintessence of all vegetables POur upon spices seeds woods roots fruits flowers c. the spirit of wine well rectified place them in digestion to be extracted untill all the essence be extracted with the spirit of wine then upon this spirit of wine being impregnated pour the best spirit of salt and being thus mixed together place them in Balneo to digest untill the oyle be separated and swim above from the spirit of wine then separate it with a separating glass or distill off the spirit of wine in Balneo and a cleer oyle will ascend for if the spirit of wine be not abstracted then that oyle will be as red as blood and it is the true quintessence of that vegetable from whence by the spirit of wine it was extracted The Quintessence of all Metals and Minerals DIssolve any metal excepting silver which must be dissolved in Aqua fortis in the strongest spirit of salt and draw off the flegme in Balneo to that which remaines pour the best rectified spirit of wine put it to digesting untill the oyle be elevated to the top as red as blood which is the tincture and quintessence of that metal being a most pretious treasure in medicine A sweet and red oyle of metals and minerals DIssolve a metal or Mineral in spirit of salt dissolve also an equall weight of salt of wine essentificated mix these dissolutions and distill them by retort in a gradual heat and there will come out an oyle sweet and as red as blood together with the spirit of salt and sometimes the neck of the retort and receiver will be coloured like a Peacocks taile with divers colours and sometimes with a golden colour And because I would without any difference comprehend all metals and minerals under one certain general process let him that would make the essence of silver take the spirit of nitre and proceed in all things as was spoken of the other metals Concerning the use of these essences I need not speak much thereof for to him that knows the preparation shall be discovered the use thereof Concerning the corrosive oyles of metals and minerals seeing they cannot be described by any one process it will be worth while to set down what is peculiar to each of them as followeth The oyle or liquor of Gold DIssolve the calx of gold in the spirit of wine which must be very strong or else it cannot dissolve it but in defect of the strongest spirit thereof mix a little of the purest salt-peter but that oyle is the best which is made with the spirit of salt alone From the gold dissolved abstract half the solution and there will remaine a corrosive oyle upon which pour the expressed juice of limons and the dissolution will become green and a few feces fall to the bottom which may be reduceed in melting This being done put this green liquor in Balneo and draw off the flegme that which remains take out and put upon a marble in a cold moist place and it will be resolved into a red oyle which may safely and without danger be taken inwardly curing those that are hurt with Mercury But especially it is commended in old ulcers of the mouth tongue and throat arising from the French pox leprousie scorbute c. where the oyle of other things cannot be so safely used There is not a better medicine in the exulceration and humors of the glandules in the ulcers of tongue and jaws which doth sooner mundifie and consolidate Neither yet must we neglect necessary purgings and sudorifickes for fear of a relapse the cause not being taken away Neither will there any danger follow whether it be given inwardly or used outwardly as in the accustomed use of other medicaments and gargarismes for it may dayly and truly without all danger be used at least three times with a wonderful admiration of a quicke operation Oyle of Mars DIssolve thin plates of Iron in rectified spirit of salt take the solution which is green of a sweet tast and smelling like fetid sulphur filter it from that filthy and seculent residence then in a glass gourd in sand abstract all the humidity viz. with a gentle fire which will be as insipid as rain-water because the iron by reason of its dryness hath attracted all the acidity to it self but in the bottom will remain a masse as red as blood burning the tongue like fire It takes away all proud flesh of wounds and that without all danger It is to be kept in a glasse close stopt from the aire lest it be resolved into an oyle which will be of a yellow colour But he that desires to have the oyle may set it on a marble in a moist Cellar and within a day it will be resolved into an oyle which will be in colour betwixt yellow and red It is a most excellent secret in all corroding ulcers fustula's cancer c. being an incomparable consolidator and mundifier And it is not without profit mixed also with common water to wash the moist fetid ulcers of the leggs which cause humors by being applyed warm like a bath for it dryes and heales suddenly if withal Purges be administred It cures also any scab That red masse being yet unresolved being put on the oyle of sand or flints of which in the second part makes a tree to grow in the space of one or two hours having root trunk and boughs which being taken out and dryed in the test yeelds good gold which that tree extracts from the earth i. e. from the flints or sand Thou maist if thou pleasest more accurately examine this matter Oyle of Venus SPirit of Salt doth not easily work upon Copper unless it be first reduced into a calx and that after this manner Take plates of Copper made red hot in an open crucible quench them in cold water they will cleave into red scales then the remainders of the plates make red hot quench as before do this so often till thou hast got a sufficient quantity of the calx which being dryed and poudered extract with the rectified spirit of salt in sand untill the spirit of salt be sufficiently coloured with a green timcture which you must decant and filter and then abstract from it the superfluous moisture that there may remain a green thick oyle which is an excellent remedy for ulcers especially such are venereal being applyed outwardly Oyle of Jupiter and Saturne NEither are these two metals easily dissolved in the spirit of salt yet being filed are dissolved in the best rectified spirit of salt But
will fly out and some part thereof will be resolved into an acid water which is to be preferred before the flowers in my judgement but the rest of the Mercury drops into a receiver But here are required glass vessels because the aforesaid water is lost in earthen And this water without doubt doth something in Alchymie It is also good being applyed outwardly in the scab and venereal ulcers The flowers of Zinck IT is a wonderful metal and is found in the spagyrical anatomie to be meer sulphur golden and immature Being put upon burning coales doth suddenly fly away wholly it is inflamed also and partly burns like common sulphur with a flame of another colour viz. golden purple and yeelds most gallant white and light flowers The use BEing given from 4. 5. 6. grains to 12. they provoke sweat wonderfully and sometimes vomit and stooles according to the offending matter The vertues thereof being exteranlly used are also wonderful for there are not found better flowers for they do not only speedily consolidate fresh wounds but also old such as alwayes drop water in which cases they excell all other medicaments For they are of such dryness which hath joyned with it a consolidating vertue as that they do even things incredible They may be used divers wayes as to be strewed by themselves putting over them a stiptick plaister or being brought into a unguent with honey to be put into wounds which unguents in deep wounds may be boyled to a hardness for the making of small suppositories which are to be put into the wounds which must afterwards be covered with some plaister and preserved from the aire Being applyed after this manner they cure fundamentally being mixed with plaisters also they do wonderfull things If they be mixed with rose or raine water so as to be united together and afterwards some of this mixture be sometimes every day dropt into red eyes that water yeelding not to other ophthalmicks do restore and heal them These flowers being taken up in lint and strewed upon those places of Children that are galled with their urine those places being first washed with water heale them quickly They heale also quickly any excoriation which is contracted by lying long in any sickness and is very paineful if they be strewed thereon These flowers also are more easily dissolved in corrosive waters then other metals and minerals neither doth the spirit leave them in the fire but an insipid phlegme only distils off leaving a fat and thick oyl as is above said concerning the lapis calaminaris being ordained for the same uses but more efficaciously then that Which spirit if it be by the violence of fire driven forth is of so great strength that it can scarce be kept And not only spirit of salt but also Aqua fortis and Regia may after this manner be exalted so as to be able to do wonderful things in the separation of metals but here is not place for these things they shall be spoken of in the fourth part But you need not make flowers for this work because crude Zinck doth the same although the flowers do it something better whence it appears that a metal contracts a higher degree of dryness in sublimation Flowers of Antimony THere is no difficulty to make the flowers of Antimony for Chymists have a long time made use of them and because their preparation was tedious they were not sold at a low rate Wherefore there was no body willing to attempt any thing else in them because they were used only for vomiting the dose whereof was from 1. 2. 3. 4. grains to 8. and 10. in affects of the stomack and of the head as also in feavers plague morbus gallicus c. Neither is it a wonder if Chymists tryed no farther in them for we see that there are found men in these dayes who perswade themselves that there is nothing which was not found out by the learned ancients can be found out in these dayes and if there were any thing to be yet found out it was found out already by them But this opinion truly is very foolish as if God gave all things to the ancients and reserved nothing for them that should come after Neither indeed do they understand nature in their operations which works incessantly and is not wearyed in her labours c. But how ever it is manifest that God hath revealed things in these times which were hid from them of old and he will not cease to do the same even to the end of the world But to return to our purpose againe which is to shew an easier way of making the flowers of Antimony whereby a greater quantity may be had as also that they may serve for other uses Take of crude Antimony poudered as much as you please first make your furnace red hot then cast in at once a pound of Antimony or thereabouts viz. scatteringly upon the coals and presently it will flow and mixed with the coals by the force of the fire will be sublimed through the aire into receivers like a cloud which will there be coagulated into white flowers Note that when the first coales are burnt up more must be put in to continue the sublimation and those must be first kindled before they are put in lest the flowers be by the dust of the coales arising together with the flowers discoloured and contract thence a gray colour but it matters not if you will not use them by themselves to provoke vomiting because there is no danger thereby for that colour comes only from the smoake of the coales wherefore you need not be afraid of them But let him that dislikes this colour first kindle the coales before he put them into the furnace and then he shall have white flowers Also you must not shut the middle hole through which the coales and Antimony are cast in that thereby the fire may burn the more freely for else the flowers of the superior pots will be yellow and red by reason of the sulphur of the Antimony which is sublimed higher then the regulus Now you may by this way make a pound of the flowers with 3. 4. 5. pound of coals It is a little that goes away from the Antimony viz. the combustible sulphur which is burnt all the rest going into flowers You must have a care to provide a sufficient quantity of subliming pots by reason that a large space is required for the sublimation of the flowers The flowers that are prepared after this way are sold at a lower rate so that one pound thereof is cheaper then half an ounce of those that are made after the other manner Also they are safer as being made with an open and free flame of the fire for they do not provoke vomit so vehemently morever the flowers of the lower pots are not vomiting but diaphoretical as if they had been prepared with nitre for thus they are corrected by the fire And by this way at
The preparation of the volatile spirits of Metals DIssolve either Iron or Copper or Lead or Tin with the acid spirit of vitriol or of common salt abstract or draw off the phlegme then driâ—e the acid spirit againe from the Metal and he will carry along a volatile spirit which by rectifying must be separated from the corrofive spirit And such Metallical spirits are more effectual then those that are made of the salts The preparation of the volatile spirit of Minerals TAke of Antimony made into fine powder or of gold-Marcasite or of some other sulphureous Mineral which you please two parts Mixe therewith 1. part of good purified Salt nitre and cast in of that mixture one little quantity and then an other and so forth after the manner above described and there will come over a spirit which is not inferior to the former in efficacy and vertue but it must also be well rectified Another way CEment what laminated or granulated Metal you please except gold with half as much in weight of common Sulphur closed up in a strong melting pot or crucible such as doth not let the Sulphurgo through for the space of half an houre untill that the Sulphur hath penetrated and broken the plates of Metals Then beat them into powder mixe them with the like quantity in weight of common salt and so distill it after the way above mentioned and you will get a volatile spirit of great vertue and every such spirit is to be used for such special part or member of the body as the Metal is proper for it out of which the spirit is made So Silver for the braine Tinne for the lungs Lead for the spleen and so forth The spirit of Zinck OF Zinck there is distilled both a volatile and also an acid spirit good for the heart whether it be made by the help of the spirit of Vitrioll or of salt or of Allome or else by the means of Sulphur for Zinck is of the nature of gold The volatile spirit of the Drosse of the Regulus Iron THe black scoria of the Regulus Martis being first faln asunder in the aire yeilds likewise a very strong sulphureous volatile spirit not much unlike in vertue unto the former The like Sulphureous volatile spirits can be made also of other minerals which for brevities sake we do omit as also in regard that they are almost the same in vertue How to make a white acid and a red volatile spirit out of salt nitre TAke two parts of Allome and one part of salt nitre make them both into powder mix them well together and cast into the still a little and a little thereof as above in the making of other spirits hath been taught and there cometh oveâ— an acid spirit together with the volatile spirit and so many pounds as there is of the materials which are to be cast in so many pounds of water must be put into the receiver to the end that the volatile spirits may so much the better be caught and saved And when the distillation is performed the two spirits may be separated by the means of a gentle rectification made in Balneo and you must take good heed that you get the volatile spirit pure by changing the receiver in a good time so that no flegme be mixed with the red spirit whereby it will be weakened and turn white The marke whereby you may perceive whither the spirit or the flegme doth go forth is this when the volatile spirit goeth then the receiver looketh of a deep red and afterward when the flegme doth come the receiver looks white again and lastly when the heavy acide spirit goeth then the receiver to be red again but not so as it is was when the first volatile spirit came over This spirit can also be made and distilled after another way viz. mixing the salt nitre with twice as much bole or brick dust and so framed into little bals to prevent melting but no way is so good as the first especially when you will have the red volatile spirit Of the use of the red volatile spirit THis volatile spirit which being quite freed from flegm remaineth alwayes red and doth looke like blood in all occasions may be accounted like in vertue unto the former fulphureous spirits especially in extinguishing of inflammations gangrenes it is a great treasure the clothes being dipt in it laid upon the grieved place Also it goeth almost beyond all other medicines in the Erysipelas and colick and if there be any congealed blood in the body which came by a fall or blow this spirit outwardly applyed with such waters as are proper for the grief also taken inwardly doth dissolve and expell it and being mingled with the volatile spirit of urine it doth yeild a wonderful kinde of salt as hereafter shall be taught The use of the white acid spirit of salt nitre THe heavy and corrosive spirits of salt nitre is not much used in Physick though it be found almost in all Apothecaries shops and there is kept for such use as above hath been mentioned of the spirit of vitriol viz. to make their conserves and cooling-drinks tast sowrish Also it is used by some in the colick but it is too great a corrosive and too gross to be used for that purpose and although its corrosiveness may be mitigated in some measure by adding of water thereto yet in goodness and vertue it is not comparable at aâ—â— to the volatile spirit but is as far different from it as black from white and therefore the other is fittest to be used in Physick but this in dealing with metals and minerals for to reduce them into vitriols calxes flores and crocus Aqua Regis IF you dissolve common salt which hath been decrepitated first in this acid spirit of salt nitre and rectifie it through a glass retort lying in sand by a good strong fire it will be so strong that it is able to dissolve gold and all other metals and minetals except silver and sulphur and several metals may by the means thereof be separated much better then by that Aqua regia which hath been made by adding of Salt Armoniack But if you rectifie it with lapis calaminaris or Zinck it will be stronger yet so as able to dissolve all metals and Minerals silver and sulphur excepted whereby in the handling of Metals much more may be effected then with common spirit of salt nitre or sulphur as now hereafter shall be taught and first in the preparing of gold The preparation of Aurum fulminans or Aurum Tonitruans TAke of fine granulated or laminated gold whither it he refined by Antimony or Aqua fortis as much as you please put it in a little glass body and powre four or five times as much of Aqua regis upon it set it stopt with a paper in a gourd in warme sand and the Aqua regis within the space of one or two hours will dissolve the
but not too hard and there will a green mass remaine behinde which you may cast in by little and little and so distil it as of silver hath been taught It doth yeild a strong and powerful spirit and flores also for outward use in putrid wounds to lay a good ground thereby for the healing A medicine out of iron or steel IN the same manner you may proceed with iron and steel and there will remaine behinde a good crocus of a great stipticity or astringency especially out of iron or steele and may with good success be mixed with oyntments and plasters Of Tin and Lead IF Tin or Lead be dissolved therein after the abstracting of part of the spirit they will shoote into cleer and sweet crystals But Tin is not so easily dissolved as lead both may safely be used for medicines Also there may be spirits and flores got out of them by distilling The rehearsing of the preparation is needless for what for the preparing of silver hath been taught is to be understood also of other metals The use of the crystals of Lead and Tin THe crystals of lead are admirably good to be used in the plague for to provoke sweating and expel the venome out of the body they may also with credit be used in the bloody flux Externally dissolved in water and clothes dipt therein and applyed they excellently coole and quench all inflamations in what part of the body so ever they do befall Likewise the spirit thereof used per se and the flores mixed among oyntments do their part sufficiently But the crystals of Tin do not prove altogether so quick in operation though they do act their part also they are more pleasant then those that are made of Lead for in Tin there is found a pure sulphur of gold but in Lead a white sulphur of silver as is proved in my Treatise of the Generation and nature of metals Of Mercury VVHen you dissolve common Mercury in rectified spirit of Nitre and abstract the spirit from it again then there will remaine behinde a faire red glistering precipitate but when the spirit is not rectified it will not be so faire because that the impurity of the spirit remains with the Mercury and pollutes it This calcinated Mercury is called by some Mercurius praecipitatus and by others Turbith minerale wherewith the Surgeons and somtimes one or other unskilful Physitians do cure the pox they do give at once 6. 8. 10. graines more or less according to its preparation and force in operation to the patient for if the spirit be not too much abstracted from it it worketh much stronger then when by a strong fire it is quite separated from it for the spirits that remaine with the Mercury make it quick and active which else without the spirits would not be such The other metals also if they be not first made soluble by salts or spirits can perform either none or but very smal operation unless it be Zinck or Iron which being easily soluble are able to work without any foregoing dissolution as hath been shewn above when we treated of the oyle of vitriol But that the sharp spirits are the cause of that operation may hence be perceived and made manifest that although you take â„¥ ss of quick-silver and pour it down into the stomach yet it would run out again beneath as above it was poured in But if it be prepared with the spirits or salts then but few graines of it will work strongly and the more it is made soluble the stronger it worketh as you may see when it is sublimed from salt and vitriol that it groweth so strong thereby that one graine doth work more then eight or ten grains of Turbith Mineral and three or four grains thereof would kill a man by reason of its mighty strength Also it worketh extreamly and much more then the sublimate when it is dissolved in spirit of Nitre and crystallised so that you cannot well take it upon your tongue without danger Which some perceiving evaporate the Aqua fortis by a gentle heat from it so that the Mercurius remained yellow which in a smaler dose wrought more then the red from which the spirits were quite evaporated And they used it not only externally strewing it into impure sores for to corrode or fret away the proud flesh not without great paine to the patient but also without distinction of young or old gave it inwardly for to purge which is one of the most hurtful purges that can be used For this evil guest however he be prepared cannot leave his tricks unless it be reduced into such a substance as that it never can be brought back to a running Mercury for then much good can be done therewith in physick without any hurt or prejudice to the health of man whereof perchance something more shall be said in another place I cannot omit for the benefit of young innocent children to discover a great abuse For it is grown very common almost among all that deale in physick that as soon as a little childe is not well before they know whether it will be troubled with wormes or with any thing else they presently fall upon Mercury supposing that in regard it hath no taste it be so much the better for to get the children to take it for to kill the wormes But those men do not know the hurtful nature of it which it doth shew against the sinews and nerves For some are of opinion that if they know to prepare Mercury so that it can be given in a greater dose as is to be seen in sublimed Mercurius dulcis that then it is excellently prepared but they are in a great error and it were much better it were not so well prepared that the less hurt might be done to man in regard that then they durst not give it in so great a dose For if that which is prepared with Aqua fortis or spirit of salt nitre be used in the pox to men that are advanced in years it cannot do so much hurt because it is given in a small dose and doth work with them whereby nature gets help for to overcome and expel that hurtful venome and its malignity is abated by the strong salivation which the provident nature hath planted in it so that not so much mischief can come by it as by Mercurius dulcis whereof is given to little weak children from ten to thirty graines at once which commonly unless they be of a strong nature and do grow it out doth cause a weakness and lameness in their limbs so that if they do not come to be quite lame at last they have a long time to struggle withal till they overcome it In like manner those also do err which do shake Mercury in water or beer so long until the water come to be gray-coloured and so give that water or beer to little children to drink for the wormes pretending that they do not
give the substance or body of Mercury but onely its vertue But this gross preparation is no better then if they had ministred the running Mercury it self Neither have I ever seen that the use of Mercurius dulcis or of the gray coloured water was seconded with good success in killing of the worms But it is credible that it may be done by yellow or red precipitate in regard of its strong operation But who would be such an enemy to his childe as to plague and torture it with such a hurtfull and murthering medicine especially there being other medicines to be had which do no harme to the children as is to be found by iron or steel and the sweet oyle of vitriol And so much of the abuse of Mercury I hope it will be a good warning unto many so that they will not so easily billet such a tyrannical guest in any ones house whereby the ruine thereof of necessity must follow And that cure deserveth no praise at all whereby one member is cured with the hurt of two or three other members As we see by the pox when one infected member is cured by Mercury and that but half and not firme at all that all the rest of the body is endangered thereby for the future And therefore it would be much better that such crude horse-physick might be severed from good medicaments such used instead of them as may firmely safely and without prejudice to other parts perform the cure of which kinde several are taught in this book But in case that you have patients which have been spoyled by such an ill-prepared Mercury then there is no better remedy to restore them then by medicines made of metals wherewith Mercury hath great affinity as of gold and silver for when they are often used they attract the Mercury out of all the members and carry it along with them out of the body and so do rid the body thereof But externally the precipitated Mercury may more safely be used then internally in case there be nothing else to be had viz. to corrode or eat away the proud flesh out of the wound But if in stead of it there should be used the corrosive oyle of Antimony Vitriol Allom or common salt it would be better and the cure much the speedier and it would be better yet that in the beginning good medicaments were used to fresh wounds and not by carlesness to reduce them to that ill condition that afterwards by paineful corrosives they must be taken away But such a Mercury would serve best of all for souldiers beggers and children that go to schoole for if it be strewed upon the head of children or into their clothes no louse will abide there any longer In which case Mercury must by his preparation not be made red but onely yellow and it must be used warily and not be strewed on too thick lest the flesh be corroded which would be the occasion of great mischief Of Aqua fortis OUt of Salt nitre and vitriol taking of each a like quantity or if the water is to be not altogether so strong two parts of vitriol to one part of salt nitre a water distilled is good to dissolve metals therewith and to separate them from one another as gold from silver and silver from gold which in the fourth part punctually shall be taught The Aqua fortis serveth also for many other Chymical operations to dissolve and fit metals thereby that they may be reduced the easier into medicaments but because the spirit of salt nitre and the Aqua fortis are almost all one and have like operations for if the Aqua fortis be dephlegmed and rectified you may perform the same operations with it which possibly may be performed with the spirit of salt nitre and on the other side the spirit of salt nitre will do all that can be done with the Aqua fortis whereof in the fourth part shall be spoken more at large Now I know well that ignorant laborators which do all their work according to custome without diving any further into the nature of things will count me an Heretick because I teach that the Aqua fortis made of vitriol and salt nitre is of the same nature and condition with the spirit of salt nitre which is made without vitriol saying that the Aqua fortis doth partake likewise of the spirit of vitriol betause vitriol also is used in the preparation of it To which I answer that although vitriol be used in the preparation of it yet for all that in the distilling nothing or but very little of its spirit comes over with the spirit of salt nitre and that by so small a heat it cannot rise so high as the spirit of salt nitre doth and the vitriol is added onely therefore unto the salt nitre that he may hinde its melting together and so the more facilitate its going into a spirit And for the more to be convinced of this truth the unbelieving may adde to such spirit of salt nitre as is made by it self a little of oyle of vitriol likewise made by it self and try to dissolve silver gilded with it and he will finde that his spirit of salt nitre by the spirit of vitriol is made unfit to make a separation for it preyeth notably upon the gold which is not done by Aqua fortis Of the sulphurized spirit of salt nitre THere can also be made a spirit of salt nitre with sulphur which is still in use with many viz. that they take a strong earthen retort which hath a pipe at the top and fasten it into a furnace and having put salt nitre in iâ— they let it melt and then through the pipe they throw peeces of sulphur of the bigness of a pea one after another which being kindled together with the nitre doth yield a spirit called by some spirit of salt nitre and by others oyle of sulphur but falsely for it is neither of both in regard that metals cannot be dissolved therewith as they are done with other spirit of salt nitre or sulphur neither is there any great use for it in physick and if it were good for any Chymical operations by the help of my distilling instrument might easily be made and in great quantity N B. But if salt nitre be mixed with sulphur in due proportion and in the first furnace be cast upon quick coles then all will be burnt and a strong spirit cometh over whose vertue is needless here to describe but more shall be mentioned of it in another place Of the Clissus AMong the Physitians of this latter age there is mention made of another spirit which they make of Antimony Sulphur and salt nitre a like quantity taken of each which they call Clissus and which they have in high esteem and not without cause because it can do much good if it be well prepared The inventor for the making thereof used a retort with a pipe as was mentioned by the sulphurized
spirit of salt nitre through which pipe he threw in his mixture And it is a good way if no better be known but if the Author had known my invention and way of distilling I doubt not but he would have set aside his that hath a nose or pipe retort and made use of mine The materials indeed are good but not the weight or proportion for to what purpose so great a quantity of sulphur it being not able to burn away all with so smal a quantity of salt nitre And if it doth not burn away but only sublime and stop the neck of the retort whereby the distillation is hindred how can it then yeeld any vertue Therefore you ought to take not so much sulphur but only such a quantity as will serve to kindle the salt nitre viz. to lb i. of salt nitre four drams of sulphur but because Antimony also is one of the ingredients which hath likewise much sulphur for there is no Antimony so pure but it containeth much combustible sulphur as in the fourth part of this book shal be proved therefore it is needless to add so much sulphur unto Antimonie to make it burn because it hath enough of it self And therefore I will set down my composition which I found to be better then the first Take Antimony lb i. salt nitre lb ij sulphur â„¥ iij. the materials must be made into smal powder and well mixed and at once cast in â„¥ ij thereof and there will come over a sulphureous acid spirit of Antimony which will mix it self with the water which hath been put before in the receiver which after the distillation is finished must be taken out and kept close for its use It is a very good diaphoretick or sweat-provoking medicine especially in feavers the plague epilepsie and all other diseases whose cure must be performed by sweating The Caput Mortuum may be sublimed into flores in that furnace which is described in the first part Of the Tartarifed spirit of nitre IN the very same manner there may also be distilled a good sweat-provoking spirit out of salt nitre and Tartar a like quantity taken of each which is very good to be used in the plague and malignant feavers The Caput Mortuum is a good melting powder for to reduce the calxes of metals therewith or else you may let it dissolve in a moyst place to oyle of Tartar Of the Tartarised spirit of Antimony A Much better spirit yet may be made of Tartar salt nitre and Antimony a like quantity being taken of each and made into fine powder and mixed well together which though it be not so pleasant to take is therefore not to be despised For not only in the plague and feavers but also in all obstructions and corruptions of blood it may be used with admiration of its speedy help The Caput Mortuum may be taken out and melted in a crucible and it will yeeld a Regulus the use whereof is described in the fourth part Out of the scoria or dross a red Ticture may be extracted with spirit of wine which is very useful in many diseases But before you extract with spirit of wine you may get a red lixivium out of it with sweet water which lixivium may be used externally for to mend the faults of the skin and to free it from scabbiness Upon this lixivium if you poure Vinegar or any other acid spirit there will precipitate a red pouder which if it be edulcorated and dryed can be used in physick It is called by some Tartar auratum diaphoreticum but it is no Diaphoretick but maketh strong vomits and so in case of necessity when you have no better medicine at hand it may be used for a vomitory from 6. 7. 9. to 15. grains Also out of the scoria there can be extracted a faire Sulphur with the spirit of urine and distilled over the Limbeck which is very good for all diseases of the lungs Of Stone-coles IF you mixe stone-coles with a like quantity of salt nitre and distill them you will get an admirable spirit and good to be used for external sores for it cleanseth and draweth the wounds together exceedingly and there will also come over a metallical vertue in the form of a red powder which must be separated from the spirit and kept for its use But if you cast in stone-coles alone by themselves and distill them there will come over not only a sharp spirit but also a hot and blood red oyle which doth powerfully dry and heal all running ulcers especially it will heal a scald-head better then any other medicine and it doth consume also all moyst and spongious excrescencies in the skin where ever they be but if you sublime stone-coles in the furnace described in the first part there comes over an acid metallical spirit and a great deale of black light flores which suddenly stanch bleeding and used in plasters are as good as other metallical flores Of the Sulphreous spirit of salt nitre or Aqua fortis IF you take one part of sulphur two parts of salt nitre and three parts of vitriol and distill them you will get a graduating Aqua fortis which smelleth strongly of sulphur for the sulphur is made volatil by the salt nitre and vitriol It is better for separating of metals then the common Aqua fortis If silver be put in it groweth black but not fixed some of it poured into a solution of silver a great deal of black calx will precipitate but doth not abide the tryal You may also abstract a strong sulphureous volatile spirit from it which hath like vertue as well internally as externally for bathes and may be used like unto a volatile spirit of Vitriol or Allome Of the Nitrous spirit of Arsenick IF you take white Arsenick and pure salt nitre of eacha a like quantity ground into fine powder and distill them you will get a blew spirit which is very strong but no water must be put into the receiver else it would turn white for Arsenick from which the blew cometh is precipitated by the water This spirit dissolveth aud graduateth the copper as white as silver and maketh it malleable but not fix The remaining Caput Mortuum maketh the copper white if it be cemented therewith but very brittle and unmalleable but how to get good silver out of Arsenick and with profit you shall finde in the fourth part In physick the blew spirit serveth for all corroding cancrous sores which if they be anoynted therewith will be killed thereby and made fit for healing To make aspirit of Sulphur crude Tartar and Salt nitre IF you grinde together one part of Sulphur two parts of Crude Tartar and four parts of salt nitre and distill it Philosopher-like you will get a most admirable spirit which can play his part both in Physick and Alchymie I will not advise any body to distill it in a retort for this mixture if it groweth warm from beneath it fulminateth
are suddenly killed and most miserably destroyed What nimbler poyson then could there be invented I beleeve there is none who will not acknowledge it to be such And seeing that the ancient Philosophers and Chymists were alwayes of opinion that the greater the poyson is the better medicine may be made of it after it is freed from the poyson which with us their posterity proved true by many experiences as we see by Antimony Arsenick Mercury and the like minerals which without preparation are meer poyson but by due prepartion may be turned into the best and most effectual medicaments which though not every one can comprehend or believe yet your Chymists know it to be true and the doing of it is no new thing to them And because I treat in this second part of medicinal spirits and other good medicaments and finding that this which can be made out of the gunpowder is none of the least I would not omit in some measure and as far as lawfully may be done to set down its preparation which is thus performed How to make a spirit of Gunpowder YOur distilling vessel being made warm and a great receiver with sweet water in it being applyed to it without luting put a dish with gunpowder containing about 12. or 15. grains a peece one after another into it in the same manner as above was taught to do with gold For if you should put in too much of it at once it would cause too much winde and break the receiver As soon as you have conveighed it into the vessel shut the doore and the gunpowder will kindle and give a blast that it maketh the receiver stir and a white mist or steam will come over into the receiver As soon as the powder is burnt you may cast in more before the mist is settled because else the distilling of it would cost too much time and so you may continue to do untill you have spirit enough Then let the fire go out and the furnace grow coole and then take off the receiver poure the spirit with the water that was poured in before the flores being first every where washed off with it out of the receiver into a glass body and rectifie it in a B. through a limbeck and there will come over a muddy water tasting and smelling of sulphur which you must keep In the glass body you will finde a white salt which you are to keep likewise in the glass-body Take out the Caput Mortuum which remained in the distilling vessel and looks like gray salt calcine it in a covered crucible that it turn white but not that it melt and upon this burnt or calcined salt pour your stinking water which came over through the limbeck and dissolve the calcined white salt with it and the feces which will not dissolve cast away Filtre the solution and poure it upon the white salt which remained in the glass body from which the sulphureous spirit was abstracted before and put the glass body with a limbeck luted upon it into sand and abstract the sulphureous water from it which will be yellowish and smell more of sulphur then it did before This water if it be abstracted from the salt several times will turn white almost like unto milk and tast no more of sulphur but be pleasant and sweet It is is very good for the diseases of the lungs Also it doth guild silver being anoynted therewith although not firmely and by digestion it may be ripened and reduced into a better medicine The salt which remained in the glass body urge with a strong fire such as will make the sand wherein the glass standeth red hot and there will sublime a white salt into the limbeck in taste almost like unto salt Armoniack but in the the midst of the glass body you will finde another which is yellowish of a mineral taste and very hot upon the tongue These sublimed salts as well the white which did ascend into the limbeck as the yellow which remained in the glass body are good to be used in the plague malignant feavers and other diseases where sweating is required for they doe mightily provoke sweating they comfort and do cleanse the stomach and cause sometimes gentle stools But what further may be done in Physick with it I do not know yet In Alchymie it is also of use which doth not belong to this place upon the remaining salt which did not sublime you may pour rain water and dissolve it there in the glass body if it be whole still else if it be broken you may take out the salt dry and dissolve and filtre and coagulate it againe and there will be separated a great deal of saeces This purified salt which will look yellowish melt in a covered crucible and it will turn quite blood red and as hot as fire upon the tongue which with fresh water you must dissolve again and then filtre and coagulate by which operation it will be made pure and clear and the solution is quite green before it be coagulated and as fiery as the red salt was before its dissolution This grass green solution being coagulated again into a red fiery salt it may be melted again in a clean and strong crucible and it will be much more red and fiery N. B. And it is to be admired that in the melting of it many fiery sparks do flye from it which do not kindle or take fire as other sparks of coales or wood use to do This well purified red salt being laid in a cold and moist place will dissolve into a blood red oyle which in digestion dissolveth gold and leaveth the silver this solution may be coagulated and kept for use in Alchymie There may also a pretious Tincture be extracted out of it with alcolized spirit of wine which Tincture guildeth silver but not firmely And as for use in Physick it ought to be kept as a great Treasure But if the red fiery salt be extracted with spirit of wine before gold be dissolved therewith it will yeild likewise a faire red Tincture but not so effectual in Physick as that unto which gold is joyned And this Tincture can also further be used in Alchymie which belongeth not hither because we onely speak of medicaments Of the use of the medicine or Tincture made of the Gunpowder THis Tincture whether with or without gold made out of the red salt is one of the chiefest that I know to make if you go but rightly to work and prepare it well for it purifieth and cleanseth the blood mightily and provoketh also powerfully sweat and urine so that it may safely and with great benefit be used in the plague feavers epilepsie scurvy in Melancholia Hypochondriaca in the gout stone and the several kinds of them as also in all obstructions of the spleen and liver and in all diseases of the lungs and it is to be admired that of such a hurtful thing such a good medicine can be prepared Therefore
thus when the crystals are come to be pure enough by often dissolving and coagulating then dissolve them once again in pure water and pour the solution into a clean vessel of wood copper or earth being glased and let it not stand still as above taught with the crystals but as soon as it is powred in with a clean wooden stick stirr about continually without ceasing till all be cold which will be done in half an houre In this stirring the Tartar hath no time to shoote into crystals but doth coagulate into the smallest glistering powder pleasant to behold and like unto frozen snow settleth to the bottom of the vessel then poure off the water and dry the powder and keep it for use The waters which you powred off in regard that they containe yet some Tartar ought not to be cast away as others do but evaporated and the Tartar contained in them will be saved and so nothing will be lost and in this manner not onely white Tartar may be reduced into clear crystals but also the red being several times dissolved and crystallised loseth its redness and turneth white and cleer Besides the above said there is another way to reduce the Tartar into great white crystals at once by precipitation but these being good enough for our purpose viz. to make good medicines out of metals I hold it needlesse to lose more time by the relation of it and so I will acquiesce The other way to make a metallised spirit of Tartar TAke of purified Tartar dissolved and coagulated but once as much as you please poure so much raine or other sweet water to it as will serve to dissolve it in which solution you must boyle the plate of metals until the Tartar have dissolved enough of it so that it will dissolve no more the signe whereof is when the solution is deep coloured of the metal and during your boyling you must often supply the evaporated water with pouring on of other lest the Tartar come to be too dry and burn and this solution may be done best of all in a metallical vessel as when you will make the solution of iron you may do it in an iron pot and for copper you may take a copper kettle and so forth for other metals a vessel made of the same is to be taken But you must know that gold silver and crude Mercury unless they be first prepared cannot be dissolved like iron and copper but when they are prepared first for the purpose then they will also be dissolved In like manner some minerals also must be first prepared before they can be dissolved with Tartar an water But if you can have good glasses or glased vessels of earth you may use them for all metals and minerals for to dissolve them therein and the solution you may not onely use of it self for a medicine but also distill it and make a very effectual spirit and oyle of it as followeth To distil the spirit and oyle of Lead and Tin TAke the filings of Lead and Tin and boyle them with the water or solution of Tartar in a leaden or tin-vessel untill the Tartar be sweetned by the water so that it will dissolve no more to which pass it will be brought within twenty four hours for both these metals will be dissolved but slowly but if you would perform this solution sooner then you must reduce the metals first into a soluble calx and then they may be dissolved in less time then an houre The solution being done you must filtre it and in B. abstract all the moysture to the thickness or consistency of honey and there will remaine a pleasant sweet liquor which of it self without any further preparation may safely be used inwardly for all such diseases for which other medicaments made of these metals are useful Especially the sweet liquor of lead and tin doeth much good in the plague not only by driving the poyson from the heart by sweating but also by breaking or allaying the intolerable heat so that a happy cure doth follow upon it but externally the liquor of lead may be used succesfully in all inflammations and it healeth very suddenly not only fresh wounds but also old ulcers turned to fistulaes for the Tartar cleanseth and lead consolidates The liquor of tin is better for inward use then for outward whose operation is not so fully known yet as that of lead But if you will distill a spirit thereof then cast it in with a ladle by little and little as above in other distillations oftentimes was mentioned and there will come over a subtle spirit of Tartar carrying along the vertue and best essence of the metals and therefore doth also prove much more effectual then the common spirit of Tartar which is made alone by it selfe and this spirit as well that which is made of tin as that of lead if it be well dephlegmed first may be used and held for a great treasure in all obstructions especially of the spleen and few other medicins will go beyond them but besides there must not be neglected the use of good purging medicines if need require them With the spirit there cometh over also an oyle which is of a quick operation especially in wounds and sores of the eye where other oyntments and plasters may not so fitly be used for it doth not only allay the heat and inflammation a common symptome of the eye wounds but also doth hinder and keep back all other symptomes which few other medicaments are able to do and for the residue if it be driven further by the strongest fire then there will come over a sublimate which in the aire dissolveth into oyle which is also of a powerful operation not only in physick but also in Alchymie And the Lead runeth together in a fair white Regulus which is much whiter purer and fairer then other common lead but the Tartar retaines the blackness and raiseth it self to the top as a fusible dross which is impregnated with the sulphur of lead wherewith you may colour haire bones feathers and the like and make them to be and remaine brown and black I made tryal once of such a distillation in an iron vessel whereby the same in the inside was so whitened by the purified lead that it was like unto fine silver in brightness which afterwards trying againe it would not fall so faire as at first whereat none ought to wonder for I could write something more if it were fit of Tartar knowing well what may be effected with it if I did not stand in fear of scoffers which do vilifie all what they do not understand I durst presume to call Tartar the sope of the Philosophers for in the cleansing of some metals by long experience I found it of admirable vertue though I would not be understood thus as if I did count it to be the true Azoth universalis Philosophorum whereby they wash their Laton but I cannot deny but that it is
and â„¥ v. or â„¥ vj. of spring or raine water put all into a clean copper vessel which is not greasie and boyle it upon a coal fire as long or somewhat longer then you use to boyle an egg or at the furthest half a quarter of an hour take off the skum in boyling let it stand till it be milk warm so that it may be drunke This potion tasting almost like warme wine sweetned with sugar give unto the patient to drink and let him fast upon it and within half an hour it wil begin to work upwards and downwards whereat you need not to be amazed but only keep the body warm and within an houre it will have done working But if you will drive out wormes from little children by purging then in stead of the copper-vessel take a clean iron-vessel and put in a less quantity of Tartar sugar and water and boyle it as abovesaid and give it to them and it will purge onely downward but sometimes it will also give a gentle vomit which will do them no hurt but rather will cleanse the stomach the better But if the drink be too weak so that it doth not work it may be used againe the next day but you must take more of the ingredients or else let them boyle longer there is no danger in it at all if you proceed aright and it is much pleasanter to take then the bitter wormseed wherewith they usually torment children The reason why this decoction works in this manner is that the Tartar and sugar being boyled in metallical vessels with water worke upon the metal and extract vertue out of it which causeth vomiting and purging the Tartar also being helpful to it How to make a Tartarised spirit of Mercuâ—y VUlgar Mercury cannot be dissolved like the former metals with Tartar and water without any foregoing preparation but must be sublimed first with salt and vitriol or crystallised with Aqua fortis and then it may be dissolved by boyling with Tartar and water and reduced into a balsame like other metals but it is not to be used inwardly unless it be digested a sufficient time so that its fiercenesse be allayed Externally it may safely be used in all desperate especially venereal sores and it is a very effectual and profitable medicine for them But most of all it doth serve for Alchymie although few do know this guest because he will not be seen by every one The spirit which comes over from it by distillation is an admirable thing not only in physick but also in Alchymie yet you must take heed that in stead of a friend you do not harbor a great enemy for its force and vertue is very great and powerful How to make a Tartarised spirit of Gold and Silver GOld and silver also can by no means be dissolved with Tartar in a wet way but in a dry way adding its helper to it it will easily dissolve which doth not belong hither but if you will draw a spirit of it then the gold and silver must first by dissolving and coagulating be reduced to crystals and then dissolved with purified Tartar and water and of Gold you will get a yellow solution and of silver a white inclining unto green which being reduced to the consistency of honey may be used safely and without fear The solution of Gold doth loosen and keep the body open it effectually strengtheneth the stomach heart lungs and liver and other principal members and that of silver purgeth very forcibly according to the quantity given like another purge but without harme or danger so that in all diseases where purging is necessary it may be used safely from ℈ i. to Ê’ss but that of gold is used in a smaller quantity and both the liquor of gold and of silver may very suceessfully be used externally but because for external uses inferior metals will serve â—he turn it is needless to use costly things thereto The spirit which is forced from it by distillation is endued with great vertue for the volatile part of the metal cometh over joyned with the spirit of Tartar the remainder may be reduced so as it was taught of other metals This spirit especially that of Gold is exceeding good in the plague and other diseases where sweating is necessary for it driveth not onely by sweating all malignities from the heart but also doth strengthen the same and preserveth it from all hurtful symptomes Likewise also that of silver is very commendable especially if it be first dephlegmed from its Caput Mortuum as above was taught in the preparation of the common spirit of Tartar For any Physitian expert in Chymistry may easily guess what the spirit of Tartar well rectified and impregnated with the vertues of gold may effect and therefore it is needless to make any further mention of it but it shall be left to the tryal thereof To make a Tartarized spirit of Antimony CRude Antimony cannot be dissolved in such a manner as above hath been taught but if it be first prepared into flores or a vitrum it yeildeth easily its vertue in boyling and it is done thus Take to one part of the flores or of smal ground vitrum Antimonii made per se three parts of pure Tartar and 12. or 15 parts of clean water boyle the Antimony with the Tartar and water in a glased pot for three or four hours and the evaporated water must be still supplyed with other that the Tartar may not burn for want of water and the vitrum must be sometimes stirred about with a wooden spatula which the flores being light do not need This done the Tartar water will be deep red coloured by the Antimony and leave the remaining Antimony settled in the bottom from which powre off the solution and after having filtred it evaporate the water from it and then extract it once more with spirit of wine and you will get a blood red Extractum whereof 1. 2. 3. to 10. or 12. drops given at once causeth gentle vomits and stooles which may be safely used by old and young people in all diseases that have need of purging and you need not fear any danger at all For I know no vomit which purgeth more gently then this and if you please you may make it work only per inferiora downward so that it shall cause no vomits at all and you need do nothing else but make a toste of brown bread and hold it hot to your nose and mouth and when this is almost cold have another hot in readiness and so use one after another by turns till you feel no more loathing and that the vertue of Antimony hath begun to work downward This is a good secret for those that would use Antimonial physick but that they are afraid of vomiting which they are not able to endure But if you will not spend so much paines as to make such an Extract then do as you was taught above to do with the copper and
use of such Antimonized wine is this viz. that it be drunk at meals betwixt meals like other ordinary drink to quench thirst but for all that it must not be drunk in a greater quantity then that Nature be able to bear it For if you would drink of it immoderately it would stir vomits which ought not to be for it is but only to work in an insensible way which if it be done it preserveth not only the body from all diseases proceeding from corrupted impure blood as the plague leprosie pox scurvy and the like but by reason of its hidden heat whereby it doth consume and expel all evil and salt humors as the Sun dryeth up a poole by sweat and urine so doth unburthen the blood from all such sharpe and hurtful humors c. It doth not only cure the above said diseases but also all open sores ulcers fistulaes which by reason of the superfluity of salt humors can admit of no healing and it doth dispatch them in a short time in a wonderful manner and so firmely that there is no relapse to be feared This drink is not only good for the sick but also for the whole though in a smaller quantity because that it wonderfully cleanseth the whole body and you need not fear the least hurt either in young or old sick or healthy And let no man stumble at it that many ignorant men do diffame Antimony and hold it to be poyson and forbid it to be used for if they knew it well they would not do so but because such men know no more then what they get by reading or by heare-say they pronounce a false sentence and it might be replyed unto them as Apelles did to the Shoe-maker Ne â—utor ultra crepidam but what shall we say Non omnis fert omnia tell us When an Ass after his death doth rot out of the carcass there grew beetles which can flye higher then the Ass from whence they came In the like manner we wish it may fare with the haters of the royal Antimony viz. that their posterity may get seeing eyes and what they know not they may forbear to despise and scoffe at I must confess that if Antimony be not well prepared and besides be indiscreetly used by the unskilful that it may prejudice a man in his health which even the vegetables also may do But to reject it by reason of the abuse would be a very unwise act If perchance a childe should get into his hand a sharpe-edged knife and hurt himself or others because it doth not understand how to use a knife should therefore the use of a knife be rejected and forbidden to those that are grown up and know how to use it Good sharpe tooles make a good workman so good quick working and powerful medicines make a good physitian and the sharper the toole is the sooner a stone carver or other crafts man can spoyle his work by one cut which he doth amiss which also must be understood of powerful medicines for if they be used pertinently in a short time more good may be done with them then with weak medicaments in a long time Now as a sharpe toole is not to be handled but by a good workman so likewise a powerful medicine ought to be managed by an understanding and conscientious physitian who according to the condition of the person and the disease knows to increase or abate the strength of the medicine and not by such an one as doth minister it ignorantly without making any difference at all Let no man marvaile that I ascribe such great vertues unto Antimony it being abundantly enriched with the primum ens of gold If I should say ten times as much more of it I should not lye It s praise is not to be expressed by any mans tongue for purifying of the blood there is no mineral like unto it for it cleanseth and purifieth the whole man in the highest degree if it be well prepared first and then discreetly used It is the best and next friend to gold which by the same also is freed and purified from all addition and filth as we said even now of man Every Antimony for the most part agreeth with the gold and its medicine for out of Antimony by the cleansing Art may be made firme gold as in the fourth part shall be taught and which is more by a long digestion a good part of the same is changed into gold Whereby it is evident that it hath the nature and property of gold and it is better to be used for a medicine then the gold it self because the golden vertue is as yet volatile in this but in the other is grown fixed and compacted and may be compared to be like an old man to a young child which you may lead whither you please Therefore it is my advice that in the Antimony its medicine should be sought it being hid therein very richly and not to trifle away time and cost in vaine and useless things Further note That if you desire to contract neerer together the vertue of Antimony or any other mineral or metal as above was taught to be done with the Tartar you must by exhalation of the superfluous moystness in Balneo reduce the solution to a honey thick liquor and poure spirit of wine upon it for to extract and within few dayes it will be very red then powre it off and powre on other and let this likewise extract continue this proceeding with shifting the spirit of wine till the spirit of wine can get no more Tincture then put all the coloured spirit of wine together into a glass with a long neck and digest it so long in a tepide Balneum till the colour or best essence of Antimony be separated from the spirit of wine and settled to the bottom like a blood red thick fat oyle so that the spirit of wine is turned white againe which is to be separated from the faire and pleasant oyle of Antimony which is made without any corrosive and is to be kept as a great treasure in physick The spirit of wine retaines somewhat of the vertue of Antimony and may be used with success of it self both inwardly and outwardly But the Tincture as a Panacea in all diseases acteth its part with admiration and as here mentioned of Antimony so in the same manner all metals by the help of Tartar and spirit of wine may without distilling be reduced into pleasant and sweet oyles which are none of meanest in Physick for every knowing and skilful Chymist will easily grant that such a metallical oyl as without all corrosives out of the gross metals is reduced into a pleasant essence cannot be without great and singular vertue How to make good spirits and oyles out of Pearles Corals Crabs-eyes and other light soluble stones of beasts and fishes TAke to one part of pearles or corals made into fine powder three or four parts of pure Tartar and so
be melted out of it but also that other inferior metals may be purified thereby so that they are like unto the best gold and silver in all tryals and although I never got any great profit by the doing of it yet it doth suffice me that I have seen several times the possibility and truth thereof which in its proper place likewise shall be taught This liquor of the flints is of that nature toward the metals that it maketh them exceeding faire but not so like women do scowre their vessels of tin copper iron c. with lye and smal sand till all filth be scoured off and that they get a bright and faire gloss but the metals must be dissolved therein by Chymical art and then either after the wet or dry way digested in it for its due space of time which Paracelsus calleth to go into the mothers wombe and be born again if this be done rightly then the mother will bring forth a pure child All metals are engendred in sand or stone and therefore they may well be called the mother of metals and the purer the mother is the purer and sounder child she will bear and among all stones there is none found purer then the peble crystal or sand which are of one nature if they be simple and not impregnated with metals And therefore the peble or sand is found to be the fittest bath to wash the metal withal But he that would take this bath to be the Philosophers secret Menstruum whereby they exalt the king unto the highest purity would be mistaken for their Balneum is more friendly to gold by reason of its affinity with it then with other metals but this doth easier dissolve other metals then gold Whereby it is evident that it cannot be Bernhards his fountaine Bernhardi fontina but must be held only to be a particular cleanser of metals But omitting this and leaving it to the further practise and tryal of those that want no time nor conveniency for to search what may be done with it let us take notice of the use of this liquor in physick for which uses sake this book is written That which hath been said was onely done to that end that we may observe that we must not alwayes look upon dear and costly things but that many times even in mean and contemptible things as sand and pebles much good is to be found How to extract a blood-red Tincture with spirit of wine out of the liquor of peble-stones IF you will extract a Tincture out of peble-stones for use in Physick or in Alchymie then in stead of the white take a faire yellow green or blew peble or flint whether it hold fixed or volatile gold and first with salt of Tartar distil the spirit thereof or if you do not care for the spirit then melt the mixture in a covered crucible into a transparent soluble and fusible glass and in a warme morter make it into fine powder put this powder in a long necked glass and powre upon it rectified spirit of wine it needeth not to be dephlegmed it maters not if it be but pure let it remaine upon it in a gentle warmth till it be turned red the glas with the prepared peble or flints must be often stirred about that the peble be divided and the spirit of wine may be able to work upon it then powre off the coloured spirit of wine and powre on other and let this likewise turn red this powring off and on must be iterated so often till the spirit of wine get no more colour out of it All the tinctured spirit of wine put together and abstract in a Balneum through a Limbeck from the Tincture which will remaine in the bottome of the glass body like a red juyce which you must take out and keep for its use The use of the Tincture of pebles or flints in Physick THis Tincture if it be made of gold pebles or sand is to be held for none of the least medicines for it doth powerfully resist all soluble Tartareous coagulations in the hands knees feet reins and bladder and although in want of those that hold gold it be extracted but only out of common white pâ—ble it doth act its part however though not altogether so well as the first Let no man marvel that sand or pebles made potable have so great vertue for not all things are known to all and this Tincture is more powerful yet if first gold have been dissolved with the liquor of pebles before the extraction And let no man imagine that this tincture comes from the salt of Tartar which is taken to the preparing of the oyle of sand because that of it self also doth colour the spirit of wine for there is a great difference betwixt this Tincture and that which is extracted out of the salt of Tartar for if you distil that of the salt of Tartar in a little glass body or retort there will come first a cleer spirit of wine then an unsavory phlegme and a salt will remaine behinde in all like unto common salt of Tartar wherein after its calcining not the least colour appeareth and because none came over neither it might be questioned where it remained then To which I answer that it was not a true Tincture but only that the sulphur in the sprit of wine was exalted or graduated by the corporeal salt of Tartar and so got a red colour which it loseth as soone as the salt of Tartar is taken from it and reassumeth its former white colour even as it hapneth also when the salt of urine or of hartshorn or soot or any other like urinous salt is digested with spirit of wine that the spirit turneth red of it but not lastingly but just so as it fals out with the salt of Tartar for if by rectification it be separated again from the spirit of wine each viz. both the salt and also the spirit of urine doth recover again its former colour whereby it appeareth that as above said it was not a true Tincture He that will beleeve it let him dissolve but â„¥ i. of common white salt of Tartar in lb i. of spirit of wine and the spirit will turn as red of it as if it had stood a long time upon several pounds of blew or green calcined salt of Tartar and if I had not tryed it my self several times I should have also been of that opinion but because I found it to be otherwise therefore I would not omit to set down my opinion though I know I shall deserve smal thanks of some especially of those which rather will err with the greater number then to know and confess the truth with the less number However I do not say that the supposed tincture of the salt of Tartar is of no vertue or useless for I know well enough that it was found very effectual in many diseases for the purest part of the salt of Tartar hath been dissolved by
followeth Take of the urine of sound men living chaste gather a good quantity together in a wooden vessel let it stand for its time to putrefie and distil a spirit thereof which afterward in a great glass retort with a wide neck must be rectified over calcined Tartar and still that which cometh over first may be saved by it self and so the second and third also the strongest may be used for the preparing of metallical medicines and the weaker for a medicine alone by it self or else mingled with fit vehicles and the stronger may serve for the preparations of metallical medicines the salt which in the rectification cometh over with the strongest spirit may be put to the weakest to make it the stronger or else it may be saved by it selfe in a good strong glass But because the spirit of urine is tedious to make therefore I will shew how to get it easier out with salt Armoniack The preparation is thus Take of salt Armoniack and lapis calaminaris ana make each by it self into powder and then mixe them together and cast of it into the red hot vessel at once no more then â„¥ ss or â„¥ i. Unto the vessel there must be applyed a great receiver for this spirit goeth with such a force and power that it were impossible to distil it in a retort without danger or loss for I broke more then one receiver with it before I did invent this instrument The spirits being wel settled in the receiver cast in more of your mixture this continue so long till all your matter is cast in then take off the receiver and powre the spirit into a strong glass which must be well closed at the top but not with wax and a bladder because it softeneth the wax and doth penetrate through the bladder but first stop it with paper then melt Lacca or sulphur and powre it upon it so that it come to be very well closed and then it will not be able to exhale or thou mayest get such glasses made as in the fifth part shall be taught for to keep all the subtle spirits in them for more security sake And this spirit if no water have been mixt with it in the receiver needeth no rectifying but he that will have it stronger yet may rectifie it through a glass retort and so keep it for use And this is the best way to make a strong spirit out of salt Armoniack the same may be done also by taking of filed Zinck in stead of lapis calaminaris also by adding of salt of Tartar salt made of the Lee of wood ashes unquencht lime and the like but the spirit is nothing neer so strong although all those things may be done with it that are done with the former as that which is made with lapis calaminaris or Zinck The process or the manner of making it is this TAke lb i. of salt Armoniack made into powder and as much of salt of Tartar mixe both together by the help of a lye made of Tartar or only with common water so that all come to be like a pap and cast in one spooneful thereof at once into a distilling vessel then cast in more till you have spirit enough N. B. The salt of Tartar may also be mixed drye with the salt Armoniack without any lye or water and so distilled but it is not so good as when the mixture is tempered with lye or water for if it be cast in dry the spirit will come over in the form of a volatile salt but if the mixture have been moystened then most part thereof will come over like a fiery burning spirit in like manner also the mixture of lyme and salt Armoniack may be tempered moist and it will yield more spirit then if it be distilled dry It may be asked why lapis calaminaris Zinck and unquencht lyme calcined Tartar salt of pot-ashes fixed salt nitre or the like things prepared by the fire must be added unto salt Armoniack and whether it be not as good to add some bolus or other earth as usually is done to other salts and so to distill a spirit of it To which I answer that there are two sorts of salts in salt Armoniack viz. a common acide salt and a volatile salt of urine which without mortifying of one of them cannot be separated for as soon as they feel the heat the volatile salt of urine carrieth the acid salt upwards and they both together yeild a sublimate of the same nature and essence with common salt Armoniack which is not sublimed salt Armoniack is purer then the common And no spirit would come over from it if it should be mingled with bole brick dust sand or any other strengthless earth and so distilled but the whole salt as it is of it self leaving its earthy substance behinde would sublime thus dry but that it falleth out otherwise with the lapis calaminaris which is also like an earth so that a separation of the salts is wrought thereby and a volatile spirit commeth over the reason is that the lapis calaminaris and Zinck are of such a nature that they have a great affinity with all acid things and do love them and are loved by them likewise whereof some mention hath been made in the first part so that the acide salt sticks to it in the warmth and uniteth it self with it and the salt volatile is made free and distilled into a subtle spirit which could not have been done if the acide salt had not been kept back by the lapis calaminaris or Zinck But that a spirit is distilled off by addition of fixed salts the reason is because that fixed salts are contrary unto acid salts and if they get the upperhand do kill the same and rob them of their strength whereby those things which are mixed with them are freed from their bond and so it fals out here with salt Armoniack that when by addition of a vegetable fixd salt the acidity of the salt Armoniack is killed the salt of urine which formerly was bound therewith gets its former freedom and strength and sublimated turnes into a spirit Which could not have been done if common salt had been added to the salt Armoniack in stead of salt of Tartar for the salt of urine would thereby as by a far greater enemy be killed and kept back so that it could yield no spirit I thought it fit to give notice hereof to the ignorant not for those who knew it before and to the unknowing it will do much good and that they may have a light for other labours for I have many times seen and see iâ— still by daily experience that the most part of your vulgar Chymists whatsoever they do having got it either by reading seeing or hearing they hurle it over like botchers and are not able to give any solid reason why this or that must fall out in such or another manner not labouring to finde out the natures and conditions
lost its stink and be made fixe then it will be able sufficiently to pay for the paines and coals bestowed upon it N. B. Hither belongeth the Process to powre dissolved metals upon filed hartshorn and so to distil them Of the oyle of Ambar AMbar yeildeth a very pleasant oyle and of great vertue especially the white Ambar the yellow is not so good and the black is inferior to this for by reason of its impurity it cannot be well used inwardly and there cometh over also along with it a volatile salt and an acid water which must be separated the water for ought that I know is of little vertue the salt if it be sublimed from the salt of Tartar and purified is a good diuretick and in the stone and the Gout and may successefully be used both inwardly and outwardly The oyle if it be rectified especially that which comes over first is an excellent medicine against the plague epilepsie rising of the mother and megrim 6. 8. 10. to 20. drops being taken thereof at once and the nostrils also being anoynted therewith for to smel to it and it is to be observed that when it is rectified through spirit of salt it proveth much cleerer then done by it self without addition but if it be rectified with salt of Tartar it is of much more vertue though it fall not so cleer as that which is done by spirit of salt N. B. If it be rectified over a strong Aqua Regia having before once already been rectified with spirit of salt it will turn so subtle that it is able to dissolve iron or copper in some sort and to reduce them into good medicines and in this second rectification by Aqua Regia all will not come over but part of it will be coagulated by the corrosive water so that it turneth thick like unto mastick which in the warmth is soft and may be handled with ones fingers like wax but in the cold it is so hard that it may be broken and made into powder and glistereth like gold Of the oyle of soot OF the soot which is taken from Chimneys where nothing is burnt else but wood there may be distilled a sharp volatile salt and a hot oyle The salt is in vertue not unlike unto that which is made of hartshorn or ambar and it quencheth inflammation from what cause so ever it do proeeed The oyle may without rectification externally be used very successefully for all loathsome scabs and for a scald head c. But if it be rectified as hath been taught to be done with the oyle of Tartar of Ambar and of Hartshorn then it may safely used inwardly as the above written oyles are used for it be doeth prove as good as these yea better in some special cases How to make a good oyle out of soot without distilling BOyle the soot in common water till the water turn blood-red urine is better then water and set this solution being in an earthen pot in winter time into the greatest frost so long till all in the pot be frozen into one peece and turned white then brake the pot and the ice and in the midst thereof you will finde the hot oyle unfrozen and liquid in colour like blood which is not much inferior in vertue unto that which is distilled yet afterward it may be rectified and so exalted in its vertue when you please and is to be noted that this separation doeth only succeed in the greatest frost and cold and not else Of the spirit and oyle of haney OF honey there may be made a subtle spirit and a sowre vinegar if it be mingled with twice as much of pure calcined sand and so distilled and it falleth muchbetter yet if it be made with the flores of Antimony which were taught to be made in the first part whereby the spirit is increased in its vertue and its running over hindred thereby and so distilling it there will come over a pleasant spirit a sharp vinegar and some red oyle also which must be separated the spirit after the rectification inwardly used is good in all diseases of the lungs It openeth and enlargeth the breast strengthneth the heart takes away all obstructions of the liver and spleen it dissolveth and expelleth the stone resisteth all putrefaction of the blood preserveth from and cureth the plague all agues dropsies and many other diseases daily used from ℈ j. to ʒj taken with distilled water proper for the diseases the sowre vinegar coloureth haire and nayles as yellow as gold it cureth the itch and scabs of the skin it cleanseth and healeth old and new wounds they being bathed and washed therewith The red oyle is too strong to be used of it self it may be mingled with the subtle spirit which came over first and so used and the spirit will be exalted thereby in its vertue Of the oyle and spirit of sugar IN the same manner as hath been taught of honey there is also made a spirit and oyle of sugar viz. adding pure sand to it or which is better of the flores of Antimony and then according to the rules of Art one spoonful after the other of this mixture cast in it will yeild a yellow spirit and a little red oyle which after the distillation must be digested in Balneo so long together till the spirit have assumed the oyle and be turned thereby very red colour it needeth not to be rectified but may daily be used either by it self or with such vehicles as are proper for your purpose in all it is like in vertue unto that which was made of honey yet this of sugar is more pleasant then the other it reneweth and restoeth all the blood in man in regard that it received great vertue from the diaphoretical flores of Antimony and this spirit may fitly be used in all diseases it can do no hurt neither in cold nor hot diseases it doth help nature mightily and doth so much good that it is almost beyond belief Especially if for a time it be daily used from ℈ j. to ʒj The residue of it is black and may be kept for the same use again viz. for an addition to other honey or sugar or else you may sublime it again into flores in the furnace described in the first part or in the furnace described in the fourth part of this book with an addition of iron or Tartar or salt nitre into a Regulus c. To distil an excellent spirit and a blood red tincture of corals and sugar IF you mix sugar with red corals made into powder and distil it there will besides the spirit come over a blood-red Tincture like a heavy oyle which is to be joyned with the spirit by digestion in Balneo and it will be as vertuous as that which was made with Antimony diaphoreticum It doeth perfectly and lastingly cure epilepsie in young and old it cleanseth the blood from all filth so that leprosie together with its several species may
be given as hath been spoken concerning the burning spirit and the oyle of the seed or wood macerated in the water will come forth in the coition together with the water And although by this way more oyle comes forth viz. Maceration being made by the addition of salt then without salt by the help of the sweet water alone as is the fashion in all places almost to distil oyls of spices yet much remaines inseparable by the water and consequently not to be sublimed with the water Therefore the better way is that which I shewed in the first part to be performed with the spirit of salt which if you please you may follow All the oyle being come forth that which is perceived by the changing of the receivers the fire is to be extinguished and the remainder is to be taken out which if it be of seeds hearbs or fruits may being yet warm be fermented by the addition of ferment for the distilling of the spirit of which there cannot be so great a quantity by reason of taking away of the oyle as otherwise is drawn out of things that have not lost their oyle For all burning spirit partakes of much oyl of the essence and nature whereof more a little after Now the oyls must be made without the addition of any salt for salt hinders the fermentation without which the burning spirit cannot be had But the water that is distilled together with the oyle is to be set in a certain temperate place until the oyle ascend and swim upon the water from whence it is to be separated with a Tunnel of which in the fifth part also there are some oyles which doe not ascend but fall to the bottome which are are also to be separated with a Tunnel and kept for their uses Now how these oyles may be kept clear long and not contract any clamminess shall be taught in the 5 part but how they shall after they have lost their clearness by long standing and are become tenacious be restored and clarified again is taught in the first part wherefore I need not here repeat it How Oyles are to be coagulated into Balsames IT hath been the custome a long time to turn aromaticall oyles into Balsames where alwayes one hath been willing to excell another in this Art which nevertheless was nothing hitherto but for a washing and cleansing for they could not be used inwardly but only outwardly for their odour to comfort the heart and brain Now the aforesaid oyls are coagulated many ways and are made portable in Tin Silver and ivory boxes Some have mixed the fat of a lamb with them by help of heat and have turned them into a liniment which they have colored with divers colours as for example they have corrupted the oyles of green hearbs as rosemary majoram lavender rue sage with a green colour by the admixtion of verdigrease which is noxious to the head and heart where one corroborates and refresheth another destroyes They have tinged the Balsame of Cinnamon and lignum Rhodium with a red colour by the help of a poysonous Cinnabar Others that are more industrious have tinged their Oyles with extracted colours of vegetables which balsames are more safely taken inward But they are not durable acquiring a sliminess and stink wherefore they have mixed a white wax to coagulate them By which means they are become more durable without stinking but yet in length of time so tenacious that being smeared or rubbed upon the skin they stick fast by reason of the wax that is mixed with them at last others have found out a better way of coagulating aromatical oyles and other things viz. by the addition of the oyle of Nutmeg made by expression having lost its odour and colour by spirit of wine which they called the Mother of Balsames And this way hath been a long time concealed by Apothecaries as a great secret until at length it be made of publick right so that balsames prepared after this manner are sold almost in all shops But however that be the best way yet they are not durable balsames that are made that way because they lack salt I doe not contemne and disapprove of Balsames made after this way for if a better way were knowne better had been made for no man is forced beyond his power Wherefore they are not onely to bee excused that have used Lambes fat Waxe and the oyle of Nutmegs in the making of their Balsames but also to be honored for their communication Now seeing the aforesaid Balsames cannot bee taken inward nor bee so well outwardly administred by reason of their unctuosity others have consulted to congelate the Oyles by the admixtion of their owne proper fix-salts and Balsames prepared after this manner are made free from clamminesse or tenaciousnesse and may be dissolved in wine beer or any liquor Wherefore they may be not onely conveniently taken inward but also more conveniently then those old be rubbed outwardly for the odours sake because they are easily washed off againe with water They doe not onely give a most sweet odour being rubbed but also by reason of the admixtion of a fixed salt having the nature of salt of Tartar doe beautifie the skin Wherefore they are commended being dissolved in fair warme water for a washing for the head and face not onely because they beautifie but corroborate with their excel-cellent odour that which those fat Balsames cannot doe Wherefore this way is to be preferred farre before the other Let him therefore that will receive what I have said for rare things and new things are not alwayes accepted especially being obscure but I hope for the approbation of the age to come The manner of preparing follows TAke the remains of the burning spirit and being put into a sack press it hard reduce the water pressed out into vinegar and of roses thou shalt have a rose vinegar and of other things another being the best in a family for to season meats then take the remains out of the sack and reduce it to white ashes in a potters furnace upon which pour the flegme of its own burning spirit being separated to extract the salt from which evaporate again all the humidity in a glazed earthen pot calcine the coagulated salt gently in a clean crucible and it will be white and be like to salt of Tartar in tast from which abstract sometimes its owne proper burning spirit calcining the salt first every time and the spirit will be so exalted by its proper salt so that it will presently assume its proper oyle and will being powred upon it associate it to itself so as to be perceived no more in the spirit which will remaine very clear Which being done calcine the salt yet once more very well in a crucible and dissolve so much of it in its proper flegme as sufficeth for the coagulation of the oyle then mix this solution with the burning spirit mixed with its oyle and set it in a vial of
hath also this commodity in it that although by littleness of the dose or the strong nature of the patient it doth not work by vomit or stool yet it doth not like other medicines hurt the body but works either by sweat or urine so that Antimony being rightly prepared is seldome adminstred without profit When as on the contrary vegetable Catharticks being given in less dose or by reason of some other causes do not work although they do not make the body swel and produce manifest diseases yet they may threaten to the body occult sicknesses Now the Arcanum of Antimony doth not only not do hurt if it do not sensibly operate but by insensible working doth much good to the body of man Wherefore there is a great difference betwixt purging minerals and vegetables For minerals are given in a less dose without nauseousness but vegetables with a great deal of nauseousness and sometimes with danger to the sick in a greater dose Now that nauseousness also proceeding oftentimes from the great dose of the ungrateful bitter potions does more hurt then the potion it self I wish that such kinde of gross medicines were abolished and the sweet extracts of vegetables and essences of minerals were substituted in their place A purging Extract TAke of the roots of black Hellebor gathered in a fit time and dryed in the aire one pound the roots of Mechocan Jâ—llap of each four ounce Cinnamon Annisseed and Fennel-seed of each one ounce of English Saffron a dram powder all these ingredients then powre upon them the best rectified Spirit of wine in a high glass gourd and upon this put a blind Alembick and set it in digestion in Balneo until the Spirit of wine be tinged red which then decant off and powre on fresh and set it againe in digestion untill the spirit be red which also decant off then powre on fresh again and do this so often until the spirit will no more be tinged red which commonly is done at three times Mix these tinged spirits filter them and in Balneo by a glass Alembick with a gentle heat draw them off from the Tincture and a thick juyce will remaine at the bottome of a brounish colour which you must take out whilest it is yet hot and keep it in a clean glass for its uses The Spirit of wine drawn off from the extract may be reserved for the aforesaid same use Now this extract is given from grains 3. 6. 9. 12. to 31. according to the age and person beeng mixed with Sugar it hath not an ungrateful tast and it works gently and safely if it be not given in too great adose And if thou wilt have it in the form of a pill mix with it being yet hot an ounce of cleer Aloes and half an ounce of Diagridium powdered being mixed bring it into a mass for pils and keep it for your use The dose is from grains 1. to a scruple It evacuates all superfluous humors but it is not to be compared with the medicine of Antimony And this extract I put down for the sakes of those that fear minerals and abhor vomits which in my judgment is the best of all vegetable Cathartickes A Diaphoretical Extract TAke the Wood Sassafras Sassaparilla of each six ounces Ginger Galangal Zedoary of each three ounces long Pepper Cardamoms Cububs of each an ounce Cinnamon Mace of each half an ounce English Saffron Nutmeg Cloves of each a dram Let the woods be rasped the roots and spices powdered powr upon them being mixed the spirit of wine and let the tincture be drawn forth in Balneo as hath been above said of the purging Extract evaporate away the spirit to the consistency of honey which keep for your use It is good in the plague feavers scorbute leprosie frenchpox and other diseases proceeding from the impurity of the blood curing them by sweat The dose of this Extract is from a scruple â—o a dram with proper vehicles it provoketh sweat presently driveth away all venenosities from from the heart and mundifies the blood And although it be a most effectual vegetable Diaphoretick yet it may not be compared to those subtile spirits of minerals of which in the second part Also animal diaphoreticks have their commendations as the flesh of vipers the fixed salt of spiders and toads in their peculiar operations where each alone without the mixture of any other thing puts forth and sheweth its operations neither are animal and vegetable diaphoreticks to be compared to the mineral as bezâ—aâ—ticum minerale antimonium diaphoreticum and aurum diaphoreticum A Diuretical Extract TAke the seeds of Saxifrage Caryoway Fennel Parsly Netles of each 3. ounces the root of liquorish the greater bur of each an ounce the powder of woodlice half an ounce Let these being mixed and powdered be extracted with spirit of Juniper according to art then mix these following things with the extracted matter Take the salt of Ambar soot netles of each half a dram purified nitre a dram Let these be powdered and mixed with the extract and this mixture be kept for use The dose is from a scruple to a dram in the water of parsly fennel c. This extract forceth urin opens the ureters purgeth the reines and bladder from all viscous flegme the mother of all tartareous coagulation viz if it be used timely In this case is commended also the solution of flints and crystals made with spirit of salt A greater commendation have salts of nephretick hearbs made by expression and crystallisation without calcination the preparation whereof shall not here but elsewhere be taught A Somniferous Extract TAke of Thebaic opium four ounces of Spirit of Salt two ounces purified Tartar one ounce set them being mixed in maceration in Balneo in a glass vessel for a day and night and the spirit of salt with Tartar will open the body of the opium and prepare it for extraction upon which powre half a pint of the best spirit of wine set it in a gentle Balneo to be extracted Decant off the spirit that is tinged and powre on fresh set it in digestion till the spirit be coloured Then mix the extractions together and put to them in a glass gourd two drams of the best Saffron of oyle of Cloves a dram and draw off the spirit of wine in Balneo and there will remaine a thick black juyce which is to be taken out and kept in a clean glass vessel The dose thereof is from grain one to five or six for those of a mans age but to children the sixth or eighth part of a graine It may be used in all hot distempers without danger It provoketh quiet sleep mitigates pains as well outward as inward it causeth sweat but especially it is a sure remedy for the epilepsie in children that are new born for assoon as it is given to them to the quantity of the eighth part of a graine in wine or womans milk there presently follows rest and
sweat with sleep by which means the malignity is expelled the children are refreshed and desire victuals and the fit returns no more afterward Although haply the like symptomes may be perceived againe yet if the aforesaid dose be administred againe the children are refreshed and cured wholly whereas otherwise they would have dyed c. whereof I have not restored few with this medicine Moreover also there are very effectual anodyne medicines as those volatile spirits of vitriol allome antimony and other minerals with which as also with that narcoticke sulphur precipitated from the volatile spirit of vitriol nothing may be compared A Cordial Extract TAke of red roses four ounces of the lilie of the valley two ounces the flowers of borage rosemary sage of each an ounce cinnamon lignum aloes of each two drams cloves mace nutmeg galangal cardamoms the lesser of each half an ounce the shaving of ivory hartshorn of each an ounce of English saffron a dram of nux vomica a dram Mixe them and reduce them to a fine powder and let the tincture be extracted with spirit of wine in Balneo which is to be drawn off again unto a just consistency Let the extract be kept for use It may be used in almost all faintings and other affects that are not joyned with a preternatural heat The dose thereof is from grains 3. 6. 9. to a scruple with proper vehicles being often administred it refresheth the spirits corroborates the braine and other parts of the body It is made more efficacious by the adding of the essences of minerals especially of gold of which thing see the first part concerning the sweet oyle of gold Of an odoriferous Extract I Need not teach the making of any odoriferous vegetable extract because the manner of drawing forth or distilling oyles of vegetables that have sweet odours hath been shewed a little before as of hearbs flowers and seeds which are the most noble and sweet essences of vegetables by the odour whereof the heart and braine are corroborated which being reduced into balsams are made transportable Better extracts therefore and more excellent cannot in my judgement be made out of vegetables then those aforesaid oyles unless any one would mixe aromatical extracts made with spirit of wine with metallick solutions and being mixed digest them then there will a certain most odoriferous oyl go from the extract not only more efficacious but more excellent then that common distilled oyl by reason of the admixtion of the spiritual metallick vertue especially of gold and silver dissolved in the acid Menstruum communicating its vertues to the Aromatical oyle Moreover any vegetable oyle may be exalted in vertues and odour by the help of spirit of urine or salt Armoniack by the help whereof not only odoriferous oyles are exalted but also the inodorous oyles of vegetables are made odoriferous if they be a while digested in spirit of urine and not this only but every mineral and metallick sulphur although the odour thereof be bound up with most strong bonds is opened by the benefit thereof and is reduced by digestion in a very little time into a most sweet and odoriferous essence Lixivial spirits exalt the odours and colours of sulphurs acid purge sulphurs but change their colours and odours Muske and Civet get the sweetness and excellency of their odour from the subtile urinous spirit of a certain Cat digesting some certain fat and converting it into such a kinde of most odoriferous matter And let this that hath been said suffice concerning Extracts which might have been omitted because many of these kinde of Extracts are found in the writings of other authors in many languages but I was willing to set down these lest this book might seem to contain in it nothing else besides the new way of distilling being furnished also with good medicines Of Baths A Little before hath been given a description of a Tub for a Bath in which any one may sit with his whole body except his head not only to be washed in sweet warm water whether medicinal and mineral but also to sweat in without water where the vessel is heated by warm vapours either of sweet waters or minerals And every one may provide such Baths for himself according to his necessity at home whereby the same diseases are cured as those that are cured by the help of natural Bathes so that he need not for the Baths sake go a great journey but may stay at home with his family and follow his calling without trouble when he hath occasion and need to use them And whereas it cannot be denyed that by the use of the Baths most grievous diseases which cannot be cured by Physitians are happily cured I was willing for the sake of my neighbour to publish this instrument together with the preparation of mineral waters which publishing will not without doubt be without profit and advantage Wherefore I will in brief shew you the preparation of mineral and sweet waters and their use and first Of a Bath of sweet or common water THere is no art to make a Bath of sweet water for you have nothing else to do then to fill your vessel with river or raine water and to make a fire which by the help of the copper globe will heat the water which being sufficiently heated you may sit in it and cover the Tub that the hot vapors evaporate not nor the cold aire enter in and coole the exteriour parts of the body Wherefore also you must apply a clean linnen cloth about your neck lest the warme vapors may evaporate there which being rightly observed you may sit the space of 1. 2. 3. hours or as long as you please or your sickness require You must keep a continual heat as much as is necessary which may be done by the help of that globe If you be thirsty in the mean time you may drink some proper distilled drink according to the nature of your disease of which thing nothing now because I am resolved to write a peculiar book de Balneis and here only to shew the use of that copper globe in heating of Baths And although there be not a perfect instruction of all yet of some Baths and their uses there shall a short instruction be given in this place Of the nature and property of natural Baths KNow that the greatest parts of medicinal waters in Germany and other countries as well hot as cold carry with them from the earth a certaine sulphureous acidity more or less in which acidity consists that medicinal faculty and vertue of this or that water And if those waters lose their odour and tast by the exhalâ—g of their subtile spirits then also they loose their vertues although also there be found some waters which have not only a spiritual sulphur but also are impregnated with a certain mineral or metallick body mixed with Allome or Vitriol which comes not elsewhere then from the common water running through the mines There are
found also other baths the power and vertue whereof consists not in any spiritual sulphur nor in any metallick body mixed with salt but only in a certaine spiritual salt mixed with a certaine subtile fixed earth which waters do not run through metallick mines as others do but rather stones of the mountaines calcined with a subterraneal fire whence also they borrow their subtile acidity with their insipid earth And this no man will deny that hath the knowledge of volatile and fixed salts of minerals and metals that which I am able to demonstrate with very many and most evident reasons if time and occasion would permit but it shall be done sometime or other as hath been said in a peculiar treatise Now therefore I will only teach how by salts minerals and metals artificial Bathes may be made which are not only not inferiour to the natural in vertue but also oftentimes far better and that without much cost or labour which any one may use at home in stead of natural for the expelling of diseases and recovering of health And although I am resolved to set forth a book that shall treat largly of the nature and original of Bathes and of their use yet I am willing now also to say something in brief concerning it and that from the foundation seeing that there are so many different opinions of learned men and those for the most part uncertain As concerning therefore the original of the acidity as well volatile as corporeal as also the heart of Baths though that is not one and the same for else each would have the same properties but daily experience testifies the contrary For it is manifest that some Bathes help some diseases and others are hurtful for them which comes from nothing else but from the difference of the properties of the mineral waters proceeding from a diversity of mines impregnating those waters In a word sweet waters attract their powers and vertues in the caverns of mountaines from some metal and minerals of divers kinds that have naturally a most acid spirit of salt as are divers kinde of marcosites containing copper and iron and sometimes gold and silver also kinds of vitriol and allome called by the ancients Misii Rarii Chalcitis Melanteria and Pyritis whereof some are found white like metals but others dispersed in a fat earth of a round figure in greater or lesser pieces which sulphureous salt mines whilest the water runs through and humectates that spirit of salt is stirred up having got a vehiculum and fals upon the mines by dissolving them in which solution the water waxeth warme as if it had been powred on quick lime or like spirit of vitriol or salt mixed with water and powred on iron and other metals where continually and daily that water running through the mines whose nature and properties it imitates carryes something with it wherefore there are so many and such various kinds of Baths as are the mines by which the water is heated Let him that will not believe take any mineral of the aforesaid quality and wrap it up in a wet linen cloth for a little while and he will see it experimentally that the minerall stone will be heated by the water and so heated as if it were in the fire so as thou canst scarce hold it in thy hand which at length also by a longer action will cleave in sunder and be consumed like quick lime I will publish some time or other God willing more fully and cleerly in a peculiar treatise this my opinion which I have now delivered in very few words Although to the sick it be all one and it matters not them from what cause the baths come and whence they borrow their vertues if so be they may use them this controversie being left to natural Philosophers that will controvert it which none of them can better decide then a skilful Chymist that hath the knowledge of minerals metals and salts And first of sulphureous Bathes that have a subtil acidity IN the second Treatise I have demonstrated the manner of distilling subtile volatile sulphureous spirits viz. of common salt vitriol allome nitre sulphur antimony and other salts of minerals and metals and their vertues and intrinsecal properties now also I will shew their extrinsecal use as they are to be mixed with waters for Baths The vertues therefore of Baths coming not from insipid water but from those most subtile volatile sulphureous and salt spirits but these being of themselves not mixed with water unfit for Baths to be used for recovering of health by reason of their too great heat and subtilty the most high God hath revealed to us unworthy and ungrateful men his fatherly providence shewing to us by nature the use of them and the manner of using of them for the taking away of diseases which nature being never idle works uncessantly and like a handmaid executes the will of God by shewing to us the various kinds of distillations transmutatious and generations From which teacher we must learn all arts and sciences seeking a certain and infallible information as it were out of a book writ with a divine hand and filled with innumerable wonders and secrets And this is a far certainer knowledge then that empty and imaginary Philosophy of those vulgar disputing Philosophers Dost thou think that that true Philosophy can be sold for a hundred Royals How can any one judge of things hid in the earth who is wilfully blind in things exposed to the light of the Sun hating knowledge I wish knowledge were sutable to the name how can any one that is ignorant of the nature of fire know how to work by fire fire discovers many things in which you may as in a glass see things that are hid The fire shewes to us how every thing waters salts minerals and metals together with other innumerable things are generated in the bowels of the earth by the reflexion of that central and astral fire for without the knowledge of fire all nature remaines vailed and occult Fire always had in great esteem by Philosophers is the key for the unlocking of the greatest secrets and to speak in a word he that is ignorant of fire is ignorant of nature with her fruits and he hath nothing but what he hath read or heard which oftentimes is false according to that He easily speakes untruthes that speaks what he hath heard He that is ignorant knows not how to discern betwixt the truth and falshood but takes the one for the other I pray thee thou that art so credulous dost thou think that thy teacher writ his books from experience or from reading other Authors May they not be corrupted and sophisticated by antiquity and frequent description Also dost thou understand the true and genuine sense of them It is better to know then to think for many are seduced by opinions and many are deceived by faith that is without knowledge There are many indeed ambitious of sciences that are
too covetous and idle loathing the blackness of coals and the rust of the tongs who had rather handle the viol and bandore then coals c. And these are deservedly compared to that young man of whom in the 19. Cha. of Mat. it is said he had a desire to learn the truth but was unwilling to follow Christ in poverty and misery From proud Peacockes and pratling Parrots nothing but tedious clamours whereas on the contrary the auditors are refeshed with the voyces of birds Therefore that perverse condition of man is to be bewailed affecting rather the vanities of a proud world then vertues and praise-worthy arts then which nothing is more honest and nothing more profitable after the world of God revealing to us the will of God concerning charity towards our neighbor And thus much for youths sake I was willing to say that they would not spend their tender yeers in vanities but rather would make tryal in the fire without which no man obtaines a true knowledge of natural things which although it seem hard in the beginning yet it is pleasant in old age Now follows the mixture of those subtile mineral sulphureous and salt spirits with water AS concerning the weight of the aforesaid spirits that are to be mixed with sweet water giving it the nature and property of natural bathes I would have thee know that of those which in the second part I shewed to be various and divers being viz. not equal in vertue the same weight cannot alwayes be so accurately observed seeing also there is a consideration to be had of their strength and of the strength of the patient Now you may at the beginning mix one or two pound of the spirits to a sufficient quantity of the water and then by sitting in it make tryal of the strength of the artificial bath which if it be too weak is to be increased by adding a greater quantity of the spirits but if it be stronger then it is to be diminished by abstraction of which more at large in Arte nostra Balneatoria Now this observe that it is best to make Baths in the beginning weak then stronger by little and little by degrees as the nature of the sick is accustomed to them that it be not overcome by the unaccustomed use of them being too strong Wherefore Baths are to be used with discretion and cautiously for which matter I refer the reader to my Artem Balneatoriam in which he shall find plaine and perfect instruction Let it suffice therefore that I have shewed the use of that Copper Globe in heating Baths which let the sick take in good part until more come Now follows the use Of Sulphur Bathes APply the furnace with the Copper globe to the tub after the manner aforesaid and powre in a sufficient quantity of sweet water which make hot with the fire kindled in the furnace by the help of the globe which being sufficiently warmed make the patient sit in it and powre into it so much of the sulphureous spirit as is sufficient which being done cause that the tub be covered all over that the volatile spirit vanish not and as necessity requires continue the heat till the patient come forth Know also that the water is to be changed every time and fresh spirits to be mixed And this is the use of the Copper globe in heating bathes of sweet or medicinal water and that either of vegetable or mineral and this made sulphureous is by art or nature whereby most grievous and otherwise incurable diseases are happily cured Of which enough now in this Treatise The use of the Copper Globe in dry Baths which are more excellent then the moist in many cases I Might have put off this matter unto its proper Treatise where all things shall be handled more largely and cleerly yet by reason of some unthought of impediments for a while procrastinating the edition of the promised Treatise I am resolved to say something of their use after I have made mention of the humid and indeed not only of the use of those subtile sulphureous and dry spirits but also of the use of subtile vegetable and animal spirits which are medicinal because in some diseases dry baths are more commodiously used then moist He therefore that will provoke sweat by a dry bath without water let him provide a wooden box or wooden instrument convenient to sit in standing upon a stoole boared through that you may raise it up more or less according as you please and having boards appoynted for the armes and feet to rest upon This box also besides the great dore must have also a little dore serving for the puting in of a burning lamp with spirit of wine or of any earthen vessel with coals for to heat it The box being well warmed let the patient go in and sit upon a stool let the box be very close shut all about and the furnace with the Copper Globe be fitted thereunto under which let there be a small fire kindled by help whereof the volatile spirit growing warm goeth forth into the box like a most subtile vapour penetrating all about the patient But when this spirit is not sufficient to heat the box set in it a burning lamp with spirit of wine or some earthen pot with coales the best whereof which are made of Juniper or the vine especially of the roots as being such that will endure long and cannot easily be extinguished by the vapours of those spirits that the patient take not cold and the vapours of the spirits may the better penetrate the body of the patient Let the wick for the spirit of wine in the burning lamp be incombustible made of the subtle threads of gold of which thing more in Arte Balneatoria In the mean time that volatile spirit penetrates and heates the whole body and performes its office being this way used better then by being mixed with water When the patient hath sate there long enough let him come forth and go into a warme bed to sweat Now before he go into the box let him take a dose of that volatile spirit which is used outwardly to provoke sweat and accelerate the action And by this means not only those volatile sulphureous spirits of salts minerals and metals are used outwardly without water to procure sweat but also the spirits of many vegetables as of mustard seed garden cresses crude Tartar also of animals as hartshorn urine salt Armoniack c. for the expelling of most grievous and desperate diseases Now the aforesaid spirits have divers properties the volatile spirits of salt minerals and metals have some those of vegetables and animals have others those have a sulphureous and fiery essence these a mercurial and aerial wherefore they serve for different uses In some diseases those sulphureous are preferred but in others vegetable and animal where also a consideration is to be had of the sickness and bath it self that one be not used for the other to
Gold of all others Then take calcin'd Silver left in the gourd sweeten and dry it which done make a little salt of Tartar to melt in a crucible to which by course put a little refined silver with a spoon and it will be presently made a body without any loss You may also boil that Calx as yet moist newly taken out of the gourd with the Ley of Salt of Tartar even to the evaporation of all moisture and melt the dry remnant wherealso nothing is lost Without this medium of Silver the calcination drawn from Aqua Regia is not fusible of it selfe turning into brittle matter like horn that is white or of a middle colour between white and yellow called therefore of Chymists the Horn of the Moon in reducing which many have tried much which reduction we have already taught For want of spirit of salt take Aqua Regia made of Aqua Fortis and salt Armoniack which doth the same but with greater charges This also is to be preferred before other wayes which makes to the separation of any Gold of any degree if so be it exceed Silver in weight which is necessarily required in the solution made with Aqua Fortis But that you may see the prerogative of this separation marke a little when thou separatest by Quarta Aqua fortis you must put just two or three parts of refined Silver to one of course Gold where first the cost and labour of refining the Silver to be melted and grained with Gold are required then a good quantity of Aqua fortis to dissolve precipitate edulcorate dry and melt a great deal of silver Consider then I pray my labours and charges of my separation and the vulgar When thou separatest with Cements there is need of boxes and continuall fire of one degree which labour is tedious for times sake and costly for coals which labor you must twice or thrice take in regard of the mixt dross Now again consider the labour and charges of both separations When thou separatest by Sulphur and Antimony which is the best way without great charges if thou knowest to separate Gold from Antimony without blowing but this is tedious for thrice greater labours then our way tedious indeed for hard and perfect separation of Gold and Silver from Antimoniall dross Think therefore what way of separation you will use to refine Gold speedily surely you will chuse mine This Prerogative also hath this way of separation that it hath no need of refined silver which is done by the benefit of burning but only it's granulation solution or separation by the use of Aqua Fortis where though copper mixt with silver makes wast yet by the help of this salt it is soon precipitated By this means gilt silver is soon separated the gold being dissolved by a nitrous spirit and precipitated with the aforesaid matter precipitating it 's for the separation of gilt silver done by help of fusion none is easier done then what is with Sulphur and Antimony where when the necessary manual ingredients are known a great deal is separated in short time but knowing not to use Antimony and Sulphur for which our Furnace very well befits leave them and use the common way therefore lay not thy fault afterward on me writing for thy good Of separating courser metals THe manner of separating Tin from Lead and Copper from Iron whithout loss of both metals by preserving both which seemes impossible to me for the combustibility of both metals and superfluous for the small profit and saving charges How Gold and Silver may be separated from Tin with which commonly this abounds without any wast hath been long sought to no purpose but a possibility will appeare to a serious considerer and though I never tryed in great quantity content with precipitation made with a little I am yet perswaded this business will succeed in a great quantity and with much profit namely by the help of a Furnace made on purpose where gold and silver precipitated with lead and Halb Kopf by extream heat of fire that tin is extracted to the quantity of the tenth part which remainder you must peculiarly take and keep Which done you must precipitate new tin in the foresaid Furnace and so extract to the remainder of the Regulus which extract again the first receiv'd is to be added and reserved which labor is to be reiterated till thou hast a sufficient quantity of Regulus filling the Furnace which again thou must precipitate for by this means gold and silver are brought together so that they may easily afterward be separated from the superfluous tin By this means I count the separation profitable where but little substance is lost which is turned into ashes and smoke Nor doth adding lead and Halb Kopf hinder because sometime lead is mixt with tin and Halb Kopf separated againe It is good therefore to separate pots and old dishes for the mixture of lead and to precipitate gold and silver from them by the adjection of Halb Kopf only where the residue is no way altered from Halb Kopf therefore thou mayst self it or refine it again which I suppose will be to thy great advantage What is to be held concerning the perfection of Metals THis knot is scarse soluble for so many and divers opinions of so many ages so that most men sleighting the testimonies of true Philosophers will not beleive the truth especially because scarse one of an hundred can be found who is not impoverish't with this art the incredulous therefore is not to be blamed for his doubting no signs of truthappearing yet experience testifies a possibility by art and nature though examples are rare I pray with how great absurdity should one deny heaven and hell never seen But thou sayest we must beleeve this as revealed by God his Prophets and Apostles but so is not this but the Philosophick traditions of heathens I answer though most Philosophers were heathen yet some have been Christians yet their works are not to be despised because not handling our salvation to whom if Christ had preached surely they had beleived him For it appears by their Books that they were pious and honestmen who though not professours of Christ yet they did his will indeed which we though not in words in action deny who if they had been wicked why took they such paines in making bookes for the good and profit of their neighbour about vertue and piety Why spent they not rather their life time in leisure and pleasure as is the custome now adayes with them who are appointed to instruct us Why should they gul posterity with trifles and lyes expecting from thence no profit for most of them were not poore but very rich Kings and Princes Besides these there have been many Christians seriously confirming the truth of the Art men indeed of speciall note namely Bishops Doctors c. Such were Thomas Aquinas Albertus Magnus Lullius Arnoldus Koger Bacon Basill c. Why should very
with aurum fulminans he shall try the certainty from the often fireing of fresh aurum fulminans upon the same plate for he shall see that it is not the colour of the metal and outwardly gilded but deeply tinged Likewise one may try the certainty by a humid spirit if transformed metals are tryed whence the mutual action and passion of subtilized spirits plainly appeares for the power of spirits is very great and incredible to one not exercised and this gradation of inferiour metals Philosophers both ancient and modern doe not onely confirm but also diggers of minerals taught by experience that mineral vapours by penetration change courser and to purer metals Lazarus Ercker being witness that Iron is changed into a good natural copper in green salt waters and that he saw a pit in which iron nailes and other things cast in by the penetration of a cupreous spirit were turned into a good copper I do not deny that metallick dissolutions of some metals do stick precipitated to the plates and to make them of a golden silver oâ— cupreous colour for it is wel known that iron cast into a vitriol water not to be turned into copper but to draw copper out of the water of which thing we treat not here confirming the possibility of metallick transmutations by a tinging and piercing spirit therefore I againe maintain that great power is in metallick spirits look only upon course and oâ—â—ke earth and besides that clear and limpid water with which the clearer and more powerfull air proceeding from the water cometh from the earth Are not whole countries drowned with water sometimes Towns and Cities taken away cannot the aire destroy the strongest houses especially shut up in the earth shake the land for some miles and after ward demolish whole cities and mountaines with the death of men all which things are done naturally Wind artificially raised by Nitre threatens a far greater danger which no man can deny Although that corporeal Elements exercise so great power yet they cannot pierce metals without hurt nor stones and glass and things soon penetrated by fire Therefore not by an occult but a manifest power of Sun and fire which it hath over metals stones and glass which are easily pierc't by them without any impediment and why should not metals compact of a certain metallick subtile and piercing spirit be penetrated by help of fire and changed into another species As is already spoken of Aurum fulminans and aqua gradatoria Therefore there is no doubt of the possibility of the metallick tingent spirit changing courser metals into finer both by a dry and moist way For metals may be purified the same way that Tartar and Vitriol and other salts namely by the benefit of much water For it is manifest that vitriol is purged with iron and copper mixt with it namely dissolved and coagulated in much water so that it waxe as white as allum which purification is but a separation of metal from salt made by benefit of much water debilitating salt so that it cannot longer return mixt metal which is precipitated like some slime not unprofitable because the chiefest part of vitriol from which is the greennesse viz Copper Iron and Sulphur And as by help of separation metals are drawn from vitriol more perfect then salts so also to be taken from metals with the perfecter and better part is separated by help of precipitation as for Tartar it is purified by the addition of water but its better part is not precipitated as in vitriol but the courser part by reason of blackness and faeculency As for example Tartar by the often solution of the vulgar made with a sufficient quantity of water and coagulation made very pure and white because in every solution made with fresh clear water it alwayes becomes purer and not only by this means white Tartar but also red and feculent is reduced into transparent crystals and indeed very speedily by vertue of a certain precipitation whose limosity for obscuration sake of the salt of crystalline Tartar is nothing else but an unsavory thing dead and useless mixt with Tartar in its coagulation in Hogs-heads of wine and separated again by power of solution And these are the examples of the two salts of Vitriol and Tartar not in vain set down because they shew the difference in precipitation for in some metals by force of precipitation the courser part is separated but in other the better and choicer according to the prevalency of this or that part In vitriol the better part copper and iron is the least which is precipitated and separated from the courser and greater part viz. salt But in Tartar the courser and less part is precipitated and separated from the greater and better part clarified the like is in metals Therefore let every one be wary in separating and consider before whether the better or courser part of metal is to be precipitated without which knowledge no man can meddle with this business let also the workman be ware who expects any profit from his labour of corrosive waters as Aqua fortis Aqua Regia spirit of salt vitriol allome vineger c. in the solution from which no good proceeds as utterly destroying and corrupting all and each of them proving the same in these words From Metals by Metals and with Metals metals are made perfect metals are also purified matured and separated from their vitiosioties by Nitre burning up the superfluous sulphur And all the aforesaid perfections of metals are but particular For every particular medicine as well humane as metallick purgeth separateth and perfecteth or amendeth by the taking away the superfluity For universal medicine worketh its perfections and emendations by strengthening and multiplying the radicall moisture as well of animals as metals expelling then by its own natural vertue his enemy But thou sayst excellent examples indeed are delivered by me but not the manner of doing them R. I have delivered more then you think although you don't perceive it for I am sure after my death that my books will be in greater esteem from which iâ— will appear that I have not sought vain glory but the profit of my neighbour to the utmost of my power But doe not seeing my freeness of writing think that you may wrest ma ny things from me For assure your self that although I have written many things for the publick good yet I intend not by this means to trouble my self For I cannot satisfie the desires of all men nor answer their Epistles nor inrich all men who neither am rich my self nor have sought riches For although I have gotten the knowledge of these things by Gods blessing and have tryed the truth of it in small quantity yet have I never made experience in great store for wealth sake contented with Gods blessing Therefore I would advice all illuminated by God that they fall not into this sinne of ingratitude but that they be mindful of the poore as
of it presently feeling heat flew away no signe being left in the crucible like Arsenick And so I was deprived of my gold At length I took the red solution and took the water from the salts and I found the red salt like blood which I put in a clear crucible in the furnace for to try whether any metallick body might thence be extracted but I found the effused salt deprived of all tincture and redness which seems strange to me even to this day that by help of this salt the whole substance of gold viz. the tincture together with the remainder flew away having so great volatility Which labor afterward I would reiterate but it happened not so at all as at the first time there was indeed some alteration of gold made but its volatilization was not so great the cause of which thing I think was the ignorance of the weight of the aforesaid salt cast in at the first time against my will And two reasons chiefly moved me to insert this history first that it may appear how soon one may mistake in a smal thing frustrating the whole process Secondly that the truth of Philosophers may appear writing that gold by art is reducible into a lower degree equal to lead which happened to me in this work and that it is harder to destroy gold and make it like to an imperfect metal then to transmute imperfect metal to gold therefore I am glad in my heart that I saw such experiment of which thing our phantastick Philosophers will hear nothing writing whole volumes against truth stifly affirming gold to be incorruptible which is an arrant lye for I can shew the contrary if need be many wayes I wonder indeed what moves such men to slight a thing unknown I do not use to judge things unknown to me How dare they deny the transmutation of metals knowing not to use coales and tongs truly I confess those rude and circumforaneous Mountebanks not a little to defile and disgrace true Chymistry every where surprizing men by their fraude needy and opprest with penury unless peradventure they finde some credulous rich man giving them food and raiment for the conceived hope of gain and skil of which also some covetous men furnisht with gold go clad like painted Parrots whom I judge to be hated worse then a dogg or a snake but harmless Chymistry is not therefore to be despised Some covetous men besotted with folly and madness laying out their moneys with an uncertain hope of gain who afterward the thing ill succeeding are forced to live in poverty whose case is not to be pityed laying out of covetousness some seek wealth not out of covetousness but rather that they may have wherewith to live and may search nature which are to be excused if they are deceived of knaves yet not to be praised if they spend above their ability Another tincture and medicine of gold DIssolve gold in Aqua Regia precipitate it dissolved in liquor of the salt of flints powre some part of the aforesaid liquor to the precipitated gold then place them in sand to boyle for some hours space and that liquor of flints shall extract the tincture of gold and shall be dyed with a purple colour to which powre in rain water and make it to boyle together with that purple liquor and the flint shall be precipitated the tincture of an excellent colour with salt of Tartar left out of which it is necessary to extract water even to drought and a very fine salt of a purple colour will remaine in the bottome of the glass out of which with the spirit of wine may be drawn in a tincture as red as blood little inferior in strength to potable gold for many things lye hid in this purple salt of which more things might be spoken if occasion permitted therefore let it suffice to shew the way of destroying gold for that golden salt can in a very short time viz. an houre be perfected with small labor and transmuted into miracle of nature confuting the slanders of the noble art of Alchimy for which gift we ought to give immortal thanks to immortal God Of looking glasse I Have made mention in the treatise of potable gold not only of the material heat of fire but also of turning the finest beams of the Sun into a material bodily substance by help of certain instruments by which they are gathered I have also mentioned there the preparation of the hollow glass I will here give it being not known to all men the best that I know as followeth First patternes are to be made of the best mold namely haire and clay of which thing in the fifth part conformable to the glasses in form and figure circularly round for else they cannot gather the Sun beams together and againe put them forth the fault of which thing is to be ascribed only to the pattern for the fusion and polishing of glasses is not an excellent art known even to bel-founders but to melt them very well shap't of the best matter and rightly to polish them this is art and first to cut the patternes round very well shaped by use of a sharp instrument cannot briefly be demonstrated therefore I wil send the Reader to Authors prolixly handling this thing viz. Archimedes Johan Baptist Porta and others though thou wantest those Authors or dost not understand them see thou have a globe exactly turned for making patternes as followeth and first make a mixture of meale and sifted ashes which spread equally between two boards as the manner is to spread paste made of meale and butter for pyes and Tarts answering in thickness to the glass to be shaped then put on a compass and make a measure as you please which cut with a knife and put it on a globe and sprinkle quick lime on it out of a searce or five and put clay well prepared with haire of the thickness of two fingers breadth although it be a great piece you must lay across wires strengthning the pattern lest it be bent or broken Afterward one part hardened with the heate of the Sun or fire take away all that from the round and put it on some hollow on which it may on all sides stand well and also sprinkle quick lime on the ashes of coals on the other side and put upon this the other part of the pattern and again expose it by degrees to be dryed by the heat of Sun or fire lest it crack which done take away the ends making those parts of type or patterne from that inward or middle which ends set one against another to the inward parts the distance at least of a span and put between in the top a few live coales to harden the type all over to which put on other coales and then more and so by degrees even to the top that they may be wel kindled in their lighter parts Although the types are very thick one fire will not suffice and it
write these things to instruct those that erre Let no man therefore perswade himself that a menstruum is so vile and contemptible is of less efficacy then those corrosive spirits I my self did once scarse beleeve that so great vertues could be in so most vile a menstruum untill I had experience of the truth in good earnest And the same thing happens here which happens every where viz. great and costly things are sought after but smal and vile things are neglected contrary to the course of nature doing all her works simply let no man therefore be offended at the vileness of any thing The Jews also were offended at the poverty of Christ who was all things in all These although they did see miracles which no man but the Messias could doe yet did not beleeve being obstinate by reason of the simplicity of his form which if he had not assumed being humane he could not have been our Mediator before God For we were wholly separate from God by that fall of Adam so as that being hardened in sins we became the slaves of death and hell and so should remain for ever by reason of the loosing of the Holy Spirit which we had Now that divine dew or celestial Manna that doth from heaven water our dry hearts refreshing us by his saving Word and bloud shed for us that holy Spirit which otherwise we could never have received was again communicated to us Hence therefore we may see how we were reconciled by a disesteemed man and that necessarily And as formerly the Pharisees and Priests were offended at the poverty of Christ being the son of a Carpenter not acknowledging him for the Messiah so also that universal Menstruum openly named no man doth esteem as being base and found in every dunghill But doe not thou account it as a fault that I have here alleadged the poverty and humiliation of Christ for the discourse doth not tend to his disparagement but to his great honour because he alone amongst the sonnes of men although most contemptible could deliver mankinde from the power of the devil as that universall Mercury the basest of all subjects being overcome by death doth rise again gloriously for the metallick genus Now here may and that not without cause be brought in some similitudes demonstrating our discourse and first of all how two contraries or extreams can without a medium be joined together as for example the subtile spirit of wine as also of urine cannot be reunited to its proper salt viz. separation and purification being once made although they are of one and the same original without a medium that is water which is in stead of a mediator in this reunition So also before the fall God was with Adam afterwards having transgressed the command of God he was thereby deprived of that Divine society and made subject to divers kindes of miseries to an eternal and spiritual death until the incarnation of Christ the Mediator who unless he had partaked of both natures could never have reconciled and reunited us as that most subtile spirit of wine or urine can never again be reunited to its proper fixed salt without water which partakes of both natures And if it were lawfull I could and that easily compare the Philosophical work with the incarnation and nativity of Christ with his life and death as also his resurrection but this is not my worke at this time for it sufficeth to make mention of it at this time I wish it were lawful to compare terrestrial with celestial miracles without doubt the unbeleeving Thomas would have opened his eys But now it is not lawful and although Moses Daniel Josephusâ— and others that were skilled in naturall Philosophy and Magick by the help whereof as well celestial as terrestrial miracles are known made mention of this thing in their writings yet it is taken notice of by very few readers Finally if we might and time would admit we could demonstrate that God doth not alwayes esteeme of great things but rather threaten ruine to them for he is no respector of persons or creatures of which there are extant many examples Now the world judgeth all things amiss esteeming and respecting only glorious things but our care should not be about them for alwayes great things are done even by the smallest and most contemptible I could here adde more things concerning the originall of the universal menstruum which is so contemptible which doth by its wonderful powers and vertues dissolve all metals minerals and stones radically without any noise unites and fixeth them the solution whereof doth not colour the hand the conjunction is inseparable and the fixation incombustible I say I could adde more things concerning it but that divers inconveniences which by this means I might incur as also the envy and hatred of others do deter me For although any one doth think to discover the possibility of Art and Nature yet few would be content therewith being very desirous of all manner of revelation and if we should not gratifie them we should forthwith incur their hatred and envy who would without doubt judge otherwise of the matter if they had but any experience of our labors Be thou therefore curteous reader contented with this discourse that shews thee the possibility of Art and Nature and diligently seek after it in the fear of God and without doubt thy labour shall not be in vain Of the Building of the Furnaces HOw those furnaces of the first and second part are to be built and made of potters clay and stones I need not say much because there be many books extant treating of this matter sufficiently yet this caution is to be observed in the building of the furnaces viz. that those furnaces in which a very strong fire is not kindled need not so strong wals as those in which we distill sublime and melt with a most strong fire And for what belongs to subliming and distilling furnaces you may erect them of those common bricks which are made of the best clay and well burnt compassing them about with very strong wals that they may the longer retain the heat or else you will continually have something to doe in mending them and closing their chinks which hinder the regiment of fire Wherefore they must be compassed about with iron hoops that they may be durable and not gape Now what concerns the melting furnaces the aforesaid bricks are not of use in the building of them because they not being durable melt in the fire wherefore you must make other bricks of a very good earth that is fixed in the fire such as is that of crucibles c. of which afterwards which are to be made in a brazen or wooden mould and to be burnt and it matters not whether they be round or square a regard being had of the furnace that six or eight of them make one course or row But you need not build the whole furnace of those stones for it
and for the sake of these were these glasses invented by the help whereof most subtile spirits are without any loss of their vertues if you please a very long time preserved and kept And because when there is occasion the spirits cannot be poured forth by reason of the Mercury in the brim you must get a drawer like to that by the help whereof wine is taken out of the vessell but lesser having a belly with a little mouth made very accurately This being let downe you may take up as much as you please as is needful the upper orifice whereof being stopped with the finger nothing drops out being put into a lesser glass is thence poured forth for your use Then you must again cover the remainder of the spirit that is in the glass and as oft as is needful take out with that drawer as much as is usefull And this is the best way by which most subtile spirits are retained which also are very well retained in those glasses whose steeples are of glasse smoothed with grinding But this is a more costly way of keeping in spirits and it is done after this manner How glasse stopples are to be smoothed with grinding for the retaining of spirits in their glass vessels FIrst of all order the matter so that you have glass bottles of several sorts some greater some lesser with strong necks and mouths with their glass stopples which being smoothed by grinding shut the orifice of the bottle very close Now they are smoothed thus Put the stopples in the turn being set or fastned in some wood bring it into a round shape then being moistned with Smiris and water mixed together let it be put to the mouth of the bottle so as to be turned round in the mouth of the bottle which you must often take away from the stopples being fastened to the turn for the oftener moistening of it which is with that mixture of prepared Smiris and water with the help of a pencil or feather and that so often and so long untill the stopple stop the mouth of the bottle most closely which being done you wipe off the Smiris with a lint from the stopples and mouth of the the bottle then smeer over the stopple with a liniment made of some fine washed earth and water or oyl and again turn it round in the mouth of the bottle and often smear it over with this fresh mixture untill the stopple be most exactly smoothed which afterward is to be tyed to its proper bottle the same also is to be understood concerning the rest that one may not be taken for an other c. And that you may not need to take away so much from the stopples and bottles get some copper moulds made for the stopples which stopples must be taken whilest they bee yet warm soft and new drawn from the furnace that they may be made of a just roundness as also other copper moulds Which must bee put into the mouths of the bottles whilest they be yet hot and soft for the better making of them round whereby afterwards the stopple may more easily and quickly become fit to stop the mouths of the bottles very close as for example A. is the stopple B. the glass or bottle if thou knowest how to order them rightly they will quickly and easily fit one the other In defect of a turn proceed after the following manner which is slow yet safe because in a turn the glasses oftentimes waxing hot are broken by reason of the over great hast and it is thus make an iron or wooden receptacle fit to receive the glass bottle which being covered about with linen and put in join both parts of the receptacle warily and softly with the help of a screw that the bottle be not broken and because that instrument or receptacle of the bottle being fastened to a form with the help of a screw cannot be moved Afterwards cause that another wooden instrument be made for the stopple as for example A. the stopple with its receptacle B. the bottle with its receptacle that may be separated in the middle and be again reunited with a screw after the putting in of the stopple which being smeered over with the aforesaid mixture of smiris and water take an instrument with both hands and put the stopple round about the neck of the bottle and grind it round upon the other as Wine Coopers are used to doe in smoothing the taps and that so long untill the stopple be fit for the bottle then reiterate the same labour with the earth tripolis untill it bee compleated and it will stop as well as a stopple made by the help of a turn These foresaid ways of stopping are the best by which the breakings of glasses are prevented viz. whilest men are in an errour about the fixing of spirits of salts minerals and metals which although they are fixed with great costs and labours yet doe not satisfie what is promised and expected because those kinds of fixations are violent and forced and by consequence contrary to nature but in the profitable fixation of spirits not so where we must follow Nature and not commit our selves to fortune in our labours For onely fooles are wont to breake their glasses in their supposed tincture but Philosophers not so for every violent thing is an enemy to Nature and all the operations of Nature are spontaneous They erre therefore and never shall come unto their desired end who attempt violent fixations I cannot bee perswaded that bodies dead or halfe dead can be so mixed together as to multiply but I could easily beleeve that the conjunction of male and female of one and the same species sound and nourished with sound and wholesome meats to be naturall and to make a spontaneous propagation and multiplication of their species viz. of those that endure in a good and adverse fortune in life and death but the conjunction of dead things to be dead and barren Doe but consider how many and various instruments both gold silver copper iron tin and lead as also earthen glass stone and other vessels of other materials have been already invented and found out for the fixing of Mercury alone with gold and silver but in vain because they have no mutuall affinity For although Mercury adheres to metals or metals to it yet that is not by reason of any affinity for multiplication or perfection sake for it appeares by experience that Mercury flies away in the fire and leaves the gold silver and other metals Where it is clear that they have no mutuall affinity requisite for the multiplication of metals nor is it ever possible For they that have a mutuall affinity embrace one the other and abide together for ever although volatile yet never leave one the other like gold and Mercury when they are united together with the strongest bond so that they can never be separated although with the strongest fire Wherefore a great care is to be had in
to the raine water that it may the lesse be consumed by the heat of the Sunne Moreover all seed consisting in lixiviall salt and sulphur loves its like from whence it borrowes its nutriment which is observed by a few learned as unlearned Husbandmen may wel be excused of their ignorance because they work onely out of use and custome But others that beare the title of learning not so whose duty it is to render a reason of germination who may deservedly be ashamed of their ignorance being lesse knowing then husbandmen It is manifest that dung makes the earth fruitfull but how and for what reason not so but if it did want nitrous salt it would neither make it fertile nor promote germination For it is not unknowne that Nitre is made out of the excrements of animals The goodnesse therefore of the dung consists only in the lixiviall salt contained in it and not in the straw But you will ask perhaps why doth not any other salt help germination Why is the salt of dung required to germination and no other Wee have already answered that like are helped with like and contraries are destroyed by contraries For experience doth testifie that any seed consists in lixiviall salt and sulphur and not in any acid salt wherefore also it doth desire and embrace its like Let him therefore that will not beleeve it make triall of the distillation of the seed of any vegetable of which let him force over a pound by retort and he shall see by experience that not an acid spirit but a flegme together with plenty of oyle and volatile salt whitening the whole receiver comes over being that which no root or stalk can doe For the chiefest vertu odour and tast of vegetables animals and minerals is found in the seed in which thing provident Nature hath done very well whilest she attributes the chiefest faculties to the seed being more obnoxious to injuries then the rest which is also preserved nourished and cherished by its like Now this discourse which might otherwise have beene omitted was therefore appointed that the cause of the germination of vegetables might bee made the more manifest and that what things have beene spoken of attraction and fixation of all things might the better be understood The germination therefore and multiplication of both minerals vegetables and animals must bee spontaneous and not forced as is that barren and frustraneous of the false Chymists because preternaturall Wherefore when you fix any thing bee cautious in the adding of any thing that should retaine it with which nothing can bee fixed Fire indeed doth alwayes doe its office but it knowes not how to help any preternaturall thing which it doth wholly destroy against which nothing can bee prevalent unlesse it bee rightly ordained according to Nature And thus much bee spoken for instruction sake to thee that intendest to fix any thing lest otherwise thou losest thy labour Of the making of the best crucibles THe best crucibles that are requisite for the fourth furnace not being found in every place I thought it worth while to set down the manner of making them for I am not ignorant how oftentimes many for want of these are constrained to be content with those that are useless and truly with great loss of metals whilest the crucibles are broken in the fire and consequently with a tediousness in drawing them out of the ashes Chymists have been in a great error a long time and not only they but also goldsmiths and they that separate metals as also others that need the help of crucibles who perswade themselves that the best earth that is fit to make the best crucibles is to be found no where but in Hassia and therefore with great charges have caused that Gibsensian crucibles be brought over not considering that almost in every place in Germany such earth is to be found which indeed is a very great folly of men proceeding from the not knowing of good earth which is to be found almost every where I do not deny but that the earth of Hassia is very good for crucibles tyles retorts and other vessels which are to be set in a very great fire for which cause also is commended Gibsensian and Waldburgensian crucibles A few yeers since some have made their crucibles and other vessels that will endure the fire well of earth brought out of England and France into Holland which have retained metals very well in the fire but not salts because they are too porous and not so compact as those of Hassia wherefore those of Hassia are still preferred before others retaining better metals and salts But although this earth be brought from thence to other places yet such strong crucibles could not be made thereof the cause whereof being not the constitution of the aire and place to which some have falsly imputed it but an error in the making and burning of them For in Hassia there is a great abundance of wood of which there is no sparing in the burning the crucibles even to a stony hardness which could not be done by a smal fire of turffes The like errour is committed about stone pots and other vessels which are made at Frechemium and Siburgus and other places neer Colen which are carryed almost through all Europe the goodness whereof is ascribed only to the earth and not to the making But now experience hath taught us that any good earth doth become stony in a violent fire without respect of the place where it is taken Wherefore it is very probable being a thing possible that such vessels are made els where for every earth being burnt retaining a white colour viz. with an indifferent fire makes pots and crucibles porous but with a stronger and with a longer delay compact like glasse especially if common salt be cast in a plentiful manner upon them being burnt with a very strong fire because it addes to them being very well burnt within an external glasses smoothness by which means they will be the better able to retaine spirits in the fire Wherefore let no man doubt concerning the making the foresaid vessels of any other earth that is white in burning with the help of a very strong fire which by how much the greater whiteness it gets in burning by so much the better and excellent pots it makes and seeing there is a great difference of making crucibles to be set in the fire and of stone pots retaining liquid things I shall shew the manner of making both viz. of stone pots belonging to the first and second furnace and of crucibles to the fourth and thus it is He that will try the goodness of white and pure earth viz. whether it grows stony in the fire let him cast a peice of crude earth of the bigness of a hens egge into a very strong fire observing whether it doth quickly or flowly cleave and break in pieces which if it doth not cleave and become powder although it may have some
that is smeered over the moulds and therefore cannot be so well mixed againe and being burnt cleaves for which cause bad crucibles are made Wherefore it is to be kept apart for mending of furnaces that are spoiled with an extraordinary heat of the fire or for cover of crucibles that are to be made by the help of the hands only or of moulds which we cannot want if we would work all things exactly Now for tyles and other vessels that serve for distillation and melting they are made by the help of wooden moulds after this manner Let the mould be made exactly like to tyles and other vessels then cut off leaves from the earth being very well prepared with a copper wier upon two equal tables of wood and then a piece of the earth is to be laid with a knife upon the mould that it may there get some hardness which afterward is to be taken away dryed well and burnt And if any thing further is to be done viz. by cutting off or adding it must be done by earth half dryed or a little hardened For by this means any one may get for himself earthen vessels that are necessary without much cost or paines for certainty sake For those that are sold are negligently made in which oftentimes in the drying cracks which are made are filled up with some earthen liniment before they are burnt which therefore are not durable in the fire but are broken and that oftentimes not without great loss of the metal which is again to be gathered out of the ashes by the help of a tedious washing It is better therefore to work those vessels with ones own hand for certainty sake For not all every crucible can alwayes and every where be made equal and be of a like durableness in the fire though they are made most diligently and therefore a consideration being had of their goodness they may be used for divers uses and the better may be used in the melting of the better metals But let no man perswade himself that all these can indifferently hold in the fire although they be the best of all how many so ever you make for I never yet saw any earth which could hold litharge in the fire and salt of Tartar because the best that ever I saw is not free from penetration of them that which is the greatest impediment of some profitable operations which therefore are omitted And let this which hath been spoken suffice concerning the making of crucibles let every one therefore that hath a care of his business use better diligence for the time to come in the making crucibles for more certainty sake and he will not repent of his labor Now how tests and cuples may be exactly applyed to the aforesaid moulds is not my work at this time to shew because many yeers since it hath been done by others especially by that most ingenious man Lazarus Ercker whose writings concerning the manner of making of tests and cuples I cannot mend to which Authors I refer the reader where he shall finde sufficient instruction and information concerning this matter But there are also other tests of which I shall say nothing in this place but elswhere happily may by the help whereof lead is bettered in tryal if it be sometimes melted againe Of the vitrification of earthen vessels belonging to the first and second furnace IN the defect of glass instruments belonging to our first furnace you may make such as are very useful of the best earth which being well glazed or double glazed are sometimes better then old glasse especially those that are made of earth that do not drink up the spirit such as is found almost every where which becomes stony being burnt now the art of burning hath not hitherto been so well known of which something hath been said already where the earth being burnt with a very strong fire is made so compact as that it becomes hard and solid as a stone The potters furnaces being too weak for this strong burning there is required a peculiar furnace for this work in which the strongest fire for the burning of them may be made But because no body thinks to build such an one onely for some few vessels not worth the spending of costs and labors there is yet another way of vitrifying of any sort of earth red clay only excepted not to be slighted if well done especially if the matter vitrifying when it is cold after the burning is ended doth not cleave and chop and it is not hurt by corrosive spirits as that glass made of lead retaining spirits as well subtile as corrosive as that white vitrification of the Italians and Hollanders you must therefore in defect of a fitting furnace wherein vessels being burnt become stony make them of the best earth and glaze them with the best glass of tin but not of lead and by how much the calx of tin goes into the vitrifying mixture so much the better is it made for tin being reduced into a calx with lead hath no more affinity with corrosive spirits wherefore it is more fit for vitrification But he that will not not be at so much costs let him vitrifie with Venice glass powdered which vitrification also is not to be slighted requiring a very great heat for the burning and therefore flowing with great difficulty in these common potters furnaces wherefore you must mix some borax with the glass that it may flow so much the more easily in the potters furnace Else you must prove upon the earthen vessels being burnt water mixt with glass so that the glass may stick to them every where exactly which afterwards being very well dryed shall be gathered together into one heap artificially lest they take up two great a space like earthen dishes that are to be burnt and afterwards compass them round about every where with burnt bricks a hole being left open above for the casting in of coals yet so that the bricks be distant from the vessels the breadth of a hand whereby the coals being cast in above may the more freely round about go down to the bottome which space being filled with dry coals you must put upon them other living coales that the fire being kindled above may by little and little burn downward and perform its work which being so done the vessels will be out of all danger if so be they are well dryed The fire being kindled and burning you must cover the hole with stones untill the fire of its own accord be extinguisht the coals being spent and the vessels become cold N. B. Now if there be a great heap of vessels you must the first coals being burnt add fresh coals once more for else the vessels being placed in the midle cannot be sufficiently burnt nor the glass sufficiently flow wherefore caution is required in the governing of the fire this manner where if all things are rightly done the vessels are better and more truly burnt and vitrified
verdegrease of which one pound prepared after this manner doth not also exceed the price of halfe a Ryal A compendious and very easie way of distilling a very strong spirit of urine and that without any cost and paines so that twenty or thirty pints shall not exceed the price of one ryal being very excellent in medicine Alchimy and Mechanique affaires by the help whereof a most beautiful blew vitriol may be made out of copper being very profitable in Alchimy and medicine making silver so fusible that by the help thereof glass vessels as basons dishes and candlesticks c. may be so guilded as to be taken for silver A way of distilling the spirit of salt in a great quantity and that with smal costs so that one pound thereof will scarce exceed the price of 6. stivers being very excellent in Alchimy medicine other arts especially for the doing of these following things viz. the separation of gold from silver without hurt to the cups or other things also the solution and separation of gold mixt with copper and silver by the force of precipitation where the menstruum that is preserved may again be used for the same uses which separation is the easiest of all other humid separations whereby gold is reduced to the highest degree The separation of volatile sparkling gold out of sand c. very profitable without which otherwise it could never be separated neither by the helpe of washing nor by Mercury nor by the force of melting An Artificial secret and hitherto unheard of trying of stubborn metals finding out their tenaciousness which otherwise could not be found out for oftentimes there are found golden mines which are stubborn in which nothing is found out by that common way and therefore they are left unlaboured in and sometimes elsewhere where there are not found mines of metals there are found other things as white and red talc that yeeld nothing being tryed the common way or very little all which yet abound with gold and silver which may be separated this way A new and unheard of compendious way of melting mines in great plenty where in the space of one day by the heate of a certaine separating furnace more may be melted then by the common way in the space of eight daies where not onely costs are separed but where also is hope of greater gaine Another way for the better proving of things melted and a new way of separating silver from lead A very speedy way of melting minerals whereby they are melted in great plenty by the help of pit coals in defect of other coales The fixation of minerals sulphureous Arsenical Antimonial and others that are volatile which cannot be retained and melted by the force of fire by the help of a certain peculiar furnace with a grate so that afterwards they may by infusion yeeld gold and silver The melting of gold and silver that sparkles and is rarified out of sand pure clay flints c. by the help of melting The separation of gold lying hid in baser minerals and metals most profitable which cannot be done the common way A very quick Artificial and easie separation of melted gold and silver by the help of fusion so that in the space of one day by the help of one furnace some hundreds of Marks may be separated with far less costs and labour then that common way by cement and Aqua fortis The reduction of elaborated gold of chaines and other ornaments unto the highest degree also the separation of gold from guilded silver by the help of fusion by which means a hundred marks are more easily separated then twenty of the common way A certain way whereby more silver is separated from lead them by copper A separation of good gold from any old iron which although it be not a labour of great gaine yet it is sufficient for those who are contented with a few things A separation of gold and silver from tin or copper according to more or less The maturation of mines so that they may afterwards be able to yeeld more gold and silver then by the common way also the separation of gold and silver out of Antimony Arsenick and Auripigmentum The separation of the external sulphur of Venus that the son Cupid may be born The separation of silver from the cuples into which it enters in the tryal without melting or any other labour or cost The preparation of divers earthen things to be done in any part of the world like to the Porcelane that hold fire and retaine spirits A certain Allome exalting and fixing any colour especially requisit for scarlet and other pretious colours with a certain prepetual cauldron that doth not alter colours and is not costly A making of colours for painters as of purple gum ultramarine not costly and especially of that rich white never before seen like to pearl and Margarites also a peculiar colouring of gold and silver FINIS A Preface to the Reader WHAT moved me to annex an Appendix to those five books of my Philosophical Furnaces you may presently see in the entrance thereof which therefore I accounted superfluous to repeat Moreover my aime was to declare to the world how great and hitherto unknown and most profitable secrets God hath reserved for this age for the sustaining of our life not doubting but to provoke and excite many perverse men to a due thankfulness to God But the contrary fals out For the Appendix which you have seen hath begot great admiration in many as well learned as unlearned that God should reserve so great and hitherto unknown secrets to be revealed to this age who therefore have given God thanks But others and indeed very many have according to their usual manner derided the Appendix and have proclaimed the contents thereof for things impossible and lyes wherof even some that are scornful and slanderous being ignorant of nature and art have broke forth into these words It is a wonder that Glauber doth not teach how to make bread of stones since he hath taught the possibility of making wine out of water that husbandmen for the future may not be at so great labors Such sort of cavillations as these men have such devised in their meetings whereof some would seem learned and wise who by reason of too much wisdome folly know not themselves who indeed are blockish unlearned rude and proud asses although puffed up despising others far more skilful whose ignorance I do so much admire as they do my writings seeing now with open eyes the reasons of many mens silence to whom God hath given a singular knowledge of natural things who left nothing to posterity But it matters not much For it is impossible to please all as experience can witness from the beginning of the world till this day wherefore there is nothing strange But how ever it be yet it is no wonder that any one should take it ill that the ingratitude of wicked men should be a
reward of his labours as also their cavillations and contumelious reporting of mens writings to be false and lyes Why doth not Glauber if he had the knowledge of so great things of which he made mention in the Appendix make himself rich but lives in idleness Therefore they are nothing but vaine dreams Thou dost judge very excellently of colours which thou never sawest to whom I am not constrained to give an account of my idleness of which if thou hadst asked me without doubt I had given thee satisfaction and had prevented thy foolish censure But such kind of men betray their own ignorance of things that are to be performed by fire for he that goes about to catch fishes doth not cast his net upon the mountaines but into the water so he that gets his living in metals must needs be conversant in these places where metals are found Now that I have lived in these places so many yeers with disprofit besides my will hath been a hindrance to my fortune which elswhere where I might have operated perhaps might have happened to me But it is better to possess a few things in peace then many things in the hazardousness of a dreadful war But now I am fully resolved whether that most desired peace of Germany succeed or no to betake my self to such places where I may have opportunity to handle coales and mines which when I have done let cavillers if they will enquire whether I do any thing whereas indeed in this place I was not minded to attempt any thing whereby to be rich by reason of inconveniences For in this place I had enough to do all things being dear to get an honest livelyhood and to search into the secrets of nature for thy good and to make experiment in less things greater being neglected Hence the cause of my slothfulness will appear to thee wherefore do not thou any more judge rashly but minde thine own affaires aud let other men alone And this is the cause of explaining the Appendix which was made not for the general and universal communicating of those secrets the knowledge whereof as you may guess is not so easily to be attained to but for the demonstration of the truth that toyes and and trifles may no more be esteemed by the incredulous and ignorant but the profitable secrets of nature the inventor whereof I can boldly pronounce my self to be prized and received by all and every one Wherefore from the beginning to the end I shall treat of each of them briefly and shall give the explanation of each as far as I may without prejudice that they may be received not for dreams but for natural sciences certaine and most profitable for the confutation sake of cavillers Annotations upon the Appendix of the FIFTH BOOK PARAGRAPH I. A preparation of corn wheat barley oates c. also of pears apples cherries and other tree fruits to be performed by the help of a certain fermentation whereby through the help of distillation they yeeld a very good and most pure spirit very like to that which is made of the lees of wine without great costs where also from the remainders of the corn the burning spirit being drawn off may be made a very good beer or vineger and of the remains of the fruits a very good drink like to wine Whence there is a double benefit so that any one may not only have from thence wherewith to live but also to lay up THis Art hath appeared to many very strange of which no man yet hath made mention Some having knowledge of the common distilling Art have thought that that which is to be distilled having a burning spirit is to be put into a still yeelding all its spirit in the fire nothing thereof being left in the remainders This is to be ascribed to their ignorance they not knowing to give an account of their operations operating only out of use and custome things which they have seen heard not considering with themselves that there may be given a better or nearer way of distilling of spirits with whom I will not contend but only shew in brief which way all kindes of corn and fruits being distilled yeeld more spirits then that common way or at least how the spirit being abstracted something may be made of the residue of the matter being equall in the price to the matter distilled so that by this means the burning spirit may be had almost for nothing and it is done after this following manner It cannot be denyed that all vegetables whatsoever as all kinds of corn and fruits also grass it self being prepared and fermented yeeld a burning spirit more or lesse in quantity and quality viz. a consideration being had of the maturity or immaturity fatness or dryness of them For those things which are fatter and sweeter yeeld more spirits then things which are unripe sowre and dry for by how much more the subjects are dry and less ripe so much the fewer spirits doe they yeeld and that not before fermentation which gives them such a maturity as to make them yeeld their spirit in distillation which otherwise they would not doe Hence therefore it doth necessarily follow that fermentation is the onely cause of the burning spirit and by consequence the onely Medium whereby plenty of spirits are obtained viz. if the things be rightly and well fermented whereby they are so qualified as to be able afterward to yeeld their burning spirits the more easily which by how much the better they are fermented doe yeeld the more But seeing that common fermentation is not sufficient for the totall elevation of the burning spirit it comes to pass that the best part thereof is left in the still which hitherto by reason of ignorance hath been used to no other purpose then to feed hogges which is ill done for the matter that is left ought first to have lost its fatness and that either by distilling of more spirits or by the making of beer or vineger before the reliques be cast to Hogges whence there comes a double profit to the operator But you must not be ignorant that for this operation you must not make choice of any common Cauldron in which fruits are used to contract an Empyreuma viz. an ungratefull tast and smell but another certain instrument of the same Nature which wil hinder and not permit the adustion of the matter which is to be distilled though it be thick by the help whereof there is obtained a very sweet spirit in a great aboundance by the help of our secret fermentation And so thou dost understand the reasons by the help whereof more and sweeter spirits are obtained from corn and fruits whence a double gain viz. by the help of a certain vessel or instrument and of our secret fermentation PARAG. II. The making of wine not unlike to Rhenish French or Spanish that shall endure for the space of many yeares out of corn and fruits IN this Paragraph the
an acid insipid humidity as experience testifies when as yet when fermentation is made feeling heat loseth its burning spirit viz. it s better part the insipid and unprofitable being left behind as you may see in the distilling of wine It follows therefore that new wine assoon as it is pressed forth must before its fermentation be boiled to the consisting of honey but not after that tedious way in a cauldron which gives an ungratefull tast to the new wine but in a certain peculiar secret vessel The humidity being evaporated there remains the eight or tenth part which resembles honey in its form in which all the vertue lies Which juice being thickned and brought into a narrow compass and shut up in a vessell may more easily be transported into other places then those ten parts not inspissated the carrying or transportation whereof is not only far dearer but also oftentimes is suspected of being sophisticated by the wagoners mixing water with the wine That inspissated juice being transported to other places is turned into wine if it be dissolved in a sufficient quantity of water viz. as much as went from it in the decoction or inspissation or in a less quantity if thou desirest a stronger and better wine and being dissolved is put up into the vessels to be fermented Not only one kind but divers kinds of wines may be made out of new wine inspissated viz. according to the different quantity of water that is to be mixed with it and indeed not without great gain so that we need not that tedious costly transporting of outlandish sweet wines out of France Spain and Italy N. B. that the new wine is not to be inspissated in a cauldron by reason of the ungratefull odour and tast which it contracts thence or adustion But there is required a certain peculiar precipitation by the help whereof that yellowness and tast contracted in the decoction of the new wine is separated for clarification sake without which two secrets viz. the secret decoction and precipitation or clarifying in time of fermentation good wine cannot be made He therefore that knows those may within a few yeares get great riches by the making of divers sorts of wines but let the ignorant abstain from this wine-making Thou maist first make tryall in a Cauldron inspissating new wine of a lesser value and thou shalt see by experience that no wine goes from the new juice that which inspissated being left in the bottom of the vessell and to this thou maist again mix a sufficient quantity of water for the dissolving of it and thou shalt have a new wine having the same sweetness of the first except the tast attracted from the Cauldron which dissolution fermentation being made yeelds a wine but ungratefull by reason of the yellowness and tast contracted from the Cauldron But if thou knowest those two aforesaid secrets withous doubt thou shalt make most excellent wines of new wine inspissated PARAG. XIV A very easie preparation of verdygrease out of old copper of which a pound doth not exceed the price of 6 stivers THis indeed is a very good secret whereby after a most easie not tedious or costly way verdy-grease is made in great quantity very usefull for Painters whereby any one may be able to maintain his family honestly PARAG. XV. A new and unheard of distillation of vineger in great quantity of which two runlets of nine gallons exceed not the price of half a ryall with which many excellent things may be done especially the crystallizing of verdy-grease of which one pound doth not exceed the price of half a ryall THis way of distilling hath yet hitherto been altogether unknown and worthy to be mentioned in this place because no body can be without distilled vineger in Chymicall operations and the rather because by the help thereof colours are purged and clarified so as to be sold for a greater price by which means any man may honestly maintaine his family Which otherwise cannot be done in the distilling of vineger in glass vessels which is tedious and costly PARAG. XVI A very easie distillation of the most strong spirit of urine very speedy not costly nor tedious where 20 or 30 pints may be made for a ryall by the help whereof many excellent things may be done in Physick Alchymy and Mechanicall affaires but especially with it vitrioll is made out of copper very beautifull blew and most excellent in Medicine and Alchymy with which silver is made so fusile that by the help thereof glass vessels as cups basons dishes and other vessels may as well inwardly as outwardly be gilded so as to appear like silver IN the second treatise of the Philosophicall Furnaces I made mention at large of the distllling of this spirit and I shewed divers wayes of it but of this way of which here I treat I made none because this distillation hath no affinity with all others that are to be done by instruments whether of earth glass or metall but only by wooden without any fire so that 100 pints require not one pound of coals where not onely 20 30 but even 100 pints may be made for one ryall Which distillation indeed is artificially N. B. After the same manner almost is the distillation of vineger performed Now what I said in the appendix of making 20 or 30 pints for one ryall I did it therefore because it might be more probable then if I had said 100. And because that price of 20 or 30 pints doth not seem probable to the ignorant I say now openly that the price of 100 pounds doth not exceed one ryall let him therefore beleeve it that will it is all one to me whether thou beleevest or not because the truth is certain Although this spirit be most excellent in divers Chymicall operations yet I shall communicate only the medicinall uses thereof for if it be made in a great quantity easily without costs and labour it may be used liberally in medicine but especially in moist and dry baths by the help whereof may grievous and otherwise incurable diseases are oftentimes happily cured For this spirit doth many wonderfull and incredible things so that honours and riches follow it Hence therefore it is manifest that this paragraph is not to be contemned after the manner of detractors I could adde more things concerning the power and vertues thereof but time will not now suffer PARAG. XVII A most easie and not costly way of distilling of the spirit of salt of which one pound may be sold for the price of 6 stivers and it is very profitable in medicine Alchimy and other mechanicall arts but especially for the doing of those things which follow IN the first part of our Philosophical furnaces I shewed an easie way of â—iâ—tilling of spirit of salt in a great quantity But this Paragraph treats of another certain peculiar distillation which I wil not divulge new spirit of salt being necessarily requisite for divers excellent
operations unknown to the vulgar I thought it worth while to speak of the commendation thereof I shall at this time for brevities sake speak onely of the chymicall uses thereof reserving the rest for some other place and time PARAG. XVIII The separation of gold from silver without hurt to the jewels also the solution and separation of gold that containes silver and copper and the precipitation of gold from the water without any hurt to the water so as that it may serve for the same uses again wherefore this is the best way of separations which are done by a humid way reducing gold to the highest degree THe separation of gold from gilt silver by aqua regis is well known to Chymists as also the dissolving and separation of gold containing sylver and copper but it is seldom used for these following reasons viz. because that separation of gold from gilt silver viz. when the silver is not covered thick with gold doth not quit cost by reason of the cost and pains that is required for the making of the aqua regia Now the spirit of salt that is made this way is with costs Secondly although the gold be dissolved in aqua regia yet it is hardly separated again Some have precipitated gold that is dissolved in aqua regia with lixivium of salt of Tartar and being precipitated have edulcorated it and with borax have reduced it and because this calx when it feels this heat of the fire is kindled with a great noise they have mixed it with common sulphur and being mixed have calcined it to take away the cracking and kindling of it viz. before they have reduced it with borax This operation requires a great deal of diligence great labours and not small costs if thou wouldst not lose any of the gold wherefore it is not the best way Others have by the help of distillation separated the aqua regia from the dissolved gold but besides their labours and stenches as also the danger of breaking their glass have lost some of the Gold by means of the aqua regia Wherefore this way of separation also is not to be esteemed as good Some have precipitate the dissolved gold from the aqua regia with the solution of vitrioll and allome into a black powder which in the melting have been found mixed with iron and copper attracted from the vitrioll wherefore this also is an unprofitable way of separation But in our separation there are not such obstacles for the gold being dissolved in the spirit of salt there is presently put a certain precipitating thing to it and the solution being in a copper vessell where there is no danger of breaking vessels is set upon the fire to boil in the interim whereof a most fine gold is separated and precipitated the copper being left in the spirit of salt which you must decant off from the gold which you must edulcorate dry and melt afterwards and keep for your use By which means all things are done without loss or costs Which indeed of all humid separations is the best and most profitable whereby gold that contains copper and silver is dissolved Of which thing more in the fourth part of Furnaces PARAG. XIX The separation of gold from pure fat clay argilla sand flints and other mines which is sparkling spongeous and light which otherwise could not be separated either by the help of washing or with Mercury or by melting viz. by a certain easie way of elixation not without much gain THis Paragraph treats of a certain operation to be performed with spirit of salt whereby any one may in any part of the world where mountains rocks stones sand or pure fat clay are easily get an honest livelyhood more then that For in every part of the world may be found potters clay sand or flints that have subtile gold in them viz. invisible in clay and sand but visible sometimes in flints and stones when they are broken which if they be too hard must be heated red hot and quenched in cold water that they may clear and be brought to a powder by grinding or pounding by which means the gold is made more manifest in them There are sometimes found whole mountains full of those stones which have such a spirituall or subtile gold in them which is so subtile light and thin that it will not quit cost to melt them But by this way it is easily drawn forth with spirit of salt so that any one may privately honestly and plentifully get his maintenance Nâ—w you must have a knowledge of these stones of all which flints are best known in which being made red hot quenched and broken in water if there be gold it appears every where in all and each part thereof of a resplendent yellow and red colour which if it be ground to powder appears with a red colour which flints had not before they were made red hot in the fire these kinds of stones have also in them iron which yet is no prejudice to this business because only the gold is precipitated from the spirit of salt the iron being left in the water This is a very excellent and easie labour which in a great quantity of the matter may be practised with a great deal of gain so that by this means thousands of men may get their livelyhood without any prejudice to their neighbour Now this secret consists in two things viz. in a plentiful and most easie preparation of spirit of salt and a due precipitation PARAG. X. X. A new and unheard of proving of tough and stubborn minerals viz. of all and each whereby their nature and form is found out that which cannot be done otherwise by any vulgar way And this secret is especially for those places where there are abundance of mines For oftentimes there is found a stubborn mine of gold which if examined yeelds nothing but is left unlaboured in c. Sometimes there are found other things where there are not found mines of metals as white and red talc c. which being tryed after the common way yeeld little or nothing yet abound with gold and silver occult in them which cannot after any other way be separated with advantage THis trying or proving is far different from that vulgar made in tests and cuples especially being ordained for those tough and stubborn minerals that will not mix with lead of which if they will not be mixed with lead how shall we know their form and nature This secret therefore is very profitable and excellent for those especially which seek their fortunes in mountaines in the earth mines and stones For by this means their form although it be never so litle is easily found out which being known you may also know whether such things as clay sands stones c. may be operated in with gaine or disprofit Now this secret consists chiefly in the joyning of lead therewith For it is impossible to finde out the form of minerals and
much priviledge I pray you have others with less danger and labour to deport from thence treasures Did not he deserve praise being a finder out of a most rich country although he did not demonstrate with his finger to every one Did not many follow his direction and transport from thence through the wide ocean most vast riches What now if thou shouldest betake thy self to some labour for this secret sake by the help whereof gold and silver might be obtained without the danger of Navigation But thou wilt say with the Fox Foot steps make me afraid I have seen many lose their labour and costs and spend their houses and lands I answer I confess it but the fault is not the arts but the Artists But I do not doubt but that these my writings will illustrate the whole body of Alchymie and recal many from their errors But know thou that there is another Saturne with which wonderful things are done in Alchymie where that vulgar is not used viz. that which Paracelsus doth so much commend in his Coelum Philosophicum Now in this separation that common lead which is known to all is used being no way inferiour to that of the Philosophers its brother which being washed and spiritualized dares no less then the other enter into the kings closet for to receive its preferment PARAG. XXIII How minerals in defect of coales made of wood may be melted by the help of pit coales after a most easie and profitable manner NEither is this labour performed with bellows but by the flame of the fire of coals whether they be made of wood or are pit coals compassing the minerals as if they were compassed about with a crucible Now this way is only for metals that are soft and easily fusible where there is not so much loss of the minerals as in the other way PARAG. XXIIII The fixation of sulphureous arsenical antimonial cobolts and other volatile poysonous minerals which otherwise by reason of their volatility cannot be retained and melted in the fire viz. by the help of any cementing furnace or such that hath a grate that go d and silver may the better be drawn from thencâ— IT is not unknown to the diggers of minerals that sometimes there are immature minerals found which have neither gold nor silver in them which being a little while exposed to the aire and then being tryed yeeld gold and silver as wel in a greater as in a lesser proofe such are Bismuth Coboltum Auripigmentum and other Antimonial and Arsenical minerals The aire therefore causing this maturation viz. exciting the active and maturative salt of the minerals why may not such minerals be perfected and maturated by such kinde of fixing salts certainly it may be done by art and nature although it cannot be conceived by a dull wit What advise therefore is to be given Is this secret to be revealed to the incredulous ignorant By no means let them seek it as others did and they that shall finde it out are predestinated of God so to do or else they shall not although they should be informed more of this thing But be not thou ignorant that the gold and silver that was drawn forth out of those immature minerals after maturation did not lye in them corporally for then they might be separated by that artificial separation but spiritually like an infant in its mothers wombe compassed about with many coverings As Paracelsus cals such minerals sulphura embryonata wanting nothing but maturation of which they are deprived by being taken too untimely out of the mines by the miners Now which way they are fixed is not to be taught in this place yet this I will say that every volatile immature sulphur hath not affinity with corporeal fixed gold and therefore scarce to be mixed with it as it appears by the separation of metals by the help of fusion where some metals are melted together viz. fixed and unfixed for in the adjection of common sulphur which being mixed with the unfixed being next to it converts them into dross but the fixed viz. the gold and silver especially the gold will not mix with it but reject it and separate themselves naturally from that mixture and falling to the bottome are turned into a regulus especially the gold which being purged from all dross refuseth to be againe polluted with impurities by reason of the antipathy which is betwixt sulphur fixed and unfixed N. B. Now common sulphur fixed is easier mixt with gold then with other imperfect metals that which is wonderful in the eyes of the ignorant in which there lyes a great secret worthy to be taken notice of Arsenicall minerals and Kobalta also are fixed so as that afterward they being united with silver will remaine with it But Antimony and Auripigmentum partake of both natures viz. golden and silver in which in part they may be fixed Now I must confess that this is a very dangerous labour where it is to be handled cautiously and not but in our fourth furnace As for my part I profess that Arsenical fumes never hurt me who never used any other preservative then that I never entered upon those operations fasting wherefore let him that sets upon such operations eat first a piece of bread with butter and drink a draught of wormwood beer and avoyd the fume as much as he can PARAG. XXV A certaine profitable separation of sparkling and spongious and thin gold and silver from sand pure clay and flints c. I Said above in the 19. Paragraph of such gold that it could be separated from sand neither by the help of washing or amalgamation because being lighter then the sand cannot be reduced a part into a straight place yet it may be separated with profit by elixation with spirit of salt but here it is said that it may be separated by the help of fusion that which will seem incredible to many by reason of that small quantity of gold that is mixed with a great quantity of sand viz. how that little quantity of gold may with profit be separated from that great quantity of sand or clay To whom I answer that it cannot be separated by the help of flowing or addition of any thing though never so vile I say with profit by the force of liquefaction because the melted gold will not quit cost It must therefore be done another way There are some lesser metals which being to be destroyed and perfected by art require the addition of sand or flints without which their destruction or perfection cannot be done in the place of which if such flints and sand be added then their gold which otherwise cannot be melted is produced into 〈…〉 that which the destroyed and amended metals yeeld and that with greater profit PARAG. XXVI A certain profitable and secret melting of gold contained in baser metals and minerals which canâ—ot be done in any other common way THis Paragraph treats of the same business as the foregoing
found by his own experience or disclosed to him by some friend which for poverty he cannot effect and therefore hath need to crave the help of others for not alwayes wealth and skill meet together which deservedly are helpt by the rich trusting to Gods blessing But this caution is to be taken lest there be a half-penny-worth of profit in time of harvest from a crowns worth of corn both of wealth and credit Who is so blind though but with one eye who doth not observe the trifles of such like covetous boasters although the Sun by Gods mercy doth shine on both good and bad yet it was never heard that ever any true Philosopher handling secrets secretly was a prating trifler And it is much to be wondered at that the learned of this age have been so blinded that they would be gulled by such vagabond knaves The fourth kind of seekers are men of a different condition not seeking wealth and honour but Gods glory and their neighbours profit contented with mean food and apparell not proud and vain-glorious but pious and honest handling coals in stead of gold rings not the companions of many men silent knowers of naturall secrets seeking and finding by Gods assisting grace not trusting to the writings of the Ancient Philosophers but to God the prime teacher of all things whose mercy is the same now as it was in the time of those Philosophers which obtained their Art with earnest prayers from God Unto these came Arts beyond hope and expectation and the use and method of using them Therefore all that undertake this Art let them diligently examine themselves for none of this last number will be furthered by their wealth and conceited learning because this skill is the gift of God alone and not man Therefore the proprieties of a true Chymist reaping the fruit of the Golden tree being known I will now begin the preparation of the tincture of Gold by the hand of a skilfull and excercised workman and will shew the difference of the true and false tincture and the physicall use of the true gold to expell many diseases as follows â„ž of living gold one part and three parts of quick Mercury not of the vulgar but the Philosophicall every where to be found without charges and labour thou maist also adde living silver of equall weight with the gold and indeed better then only gold for the greater variety of colours proceeding from the mixture of male and female but one perswaded that better tincture proceeds from gold alone may mixe gold only not so one skilfull of metals who knoweth the power of the cordiall union of gold and silver dissolved in one and the same menstruum put them mixt in a Philosophicall vessell to dissolve and in the space of one quarter of an houre those mixt metals will be radically dissolved by Mercury and will give a purple colour after encrease the fire by degrees and it will be changed into a very fine green to which taken out poure the water of dew to dissolve which may be done in half an houre filtre the solution and abstract the water through a glass alembick in B. which poure out again fresh and abstract which doe three times in the mean time that greenness will be turned into a black colour like ink stinking like a carkase and therefore odious and it behoves sometimes to take away the water reaffused and digested and that blackness and stink will depart in the space of forty houres and will produce a pure milky whiteness which appearing take away all the moisture till it be dry which will be a white mass and in few houres of a pleasant colour divers colours first appearing it is turned into a fine greenness better then the former to which you must affuse the spirit of wine well rectified to the depth of two or three fingers and that green gold dissolved will draw that spirit of wine for the great amity like a dry spunge drawing waterâ— and will communicate to it a quintessence as red as bloud by which meanes the greenness is deprived of its quickning tincture the superfluous ashy body being left You must decant and filtrate the tinged spirit and in a B. by a glass alembick abstract it from the red tincture attracting the fiery essence of spirit of wine so that they may be very close and inseparably conjoined for which an unsavoury water only distills the vertue of the spirit of wine left with the tincture of gold like a red fiery salt fusile and volatile of which graine 1. can tinge â„¥ i. of spirit of wine or any other liquor with a bloud red colour for it is soluble in any moisture and therefore may be kept in a liquid form for the Panacea of most desperate diseases Now I will communicate the proprieties of the true tincture by which true potable gold is known This tincture next the stone is the best of all medicines betweene which and that there is but this difference the soule of gold is volatile nor hath entrance into imperfect metals therefore cannot transmute into pure fine gold which vertue is attributed to the Philosophers Stone The soul of gold though it be the best part yet it is not fixt in fire but volatile but the Philosophers Stone is fixt in fire and remains by reason of a longer digestion But whether that soul or volatile tincture and red Lion may be fixt by help of fire may be turned into the Universal medicine and tinging stone that I know not because hitherto I have not tryed c. therefore he may who extracts the soul of gold make further tryall whether he can finde any thing better For this work treateth of nothing but the best medicine of gold but other things I know not Therefore the deceit of the Distillers of wine and other vegetable waters selling potable gold is not unknowne being not ashamed to sell any water colored yellow or red to the ignorant for a great price And the errour of others dissolving the body of gold in aqua Regia or spirit of salt which again they abstract to a dry remainder to which for extraction they affuse the spirit of wine which is not an extraction but some particular solution of gold made by help of corrosive spirits left in the gold tinging the spirit of wine with a yellow colour which so coloured they call their potable gold which notwithstanding is reduced into gold the spirit of wine abstracted which can doe more then any other Calx of gold which the Archeus cannot digest but separates being indigested with the excrements And also it is the error of others ignorantly deceiving themselves and others extracting the calx of gold with peculiar menstruums and spirits knowing not that the menstruum affused to gold to be red of it self by a long digestion which decanted they administer instead of potable gold who if they weighed the remaining calx would by experience see that nothing departed from
the description is given in the 1 part of the Philosophical Furnaces and hereafter there shall be given a better if nothing hinder in the mean while use and enjoy these And if it happen so that thou canst not rightly perform all things of the aforesaid tractate blush not to learn the manual Operations which cannot be so exactly described from those that are experienced lest you hereafter unprofitably spend your labour and costs As for those stones know that very many of them are found in several places chiefly in those that are sandy and mountainous but in some more better than in others for there is seldom seen sand without flints and oft-times the sand it selfe though very little doth not want Gold But they are very likely to be found on the shoars of Rivers where the water washing away the sand from the flints they are found in great aboundance though they are not so easily known by their outside as those which were found clean in the sand because they are covered with slime Wherefore they must be broken with a hammer that that may be seen which is in them what may better appear if they be burnt and quencht in cold water For the stone retaining its whiteness where it is burnt and quencht doth contain nothing but acquiring a redness it shews there is something in it and the more red it is the better token it is N. B. But this is not to be understood of sandy stones waxing red in some part in the fire containing no gold but of flints out of which by a mutual percussion fire is brought forth which the more pure they are the purer gold do yeeld There are also flints out of which fire is forced by percussion being red in the fire which contain no gold but Iron which you may know by that clear redness before the burning which being burnt is changed into an obscure redness not shining and crude but the flints containing Gold being burnt doe acquire fair golden yellowness or reddish colour as if they were covered gold and that through the whole substance if they be broken in pieces And these give a pure gold but those other yeeld a red extraction like bloud yeelding not gold but the purest and malleable iron good in Chymick uses but chiefly for silver to be cemented and exalted for gold is seldome to be found in them that which is well to be observed lest thou draw out iron in stead of gold and so loose thy labour Also the best stones containing gold are those which are white and shining here and there throughout having in the whole substance green spots and lines red yellow skie-colored and brown There are also black flints out of which fire is forced by percussion having gold and iron which may be separated with profit yeelding sometimes plenty of ironish Gold which may in like manner be separated of which afterward They are very good flints also which being burnt retain a whiteness with veins green skie-coloured and such like neither are they dis-esteemed which burnt have black spots and not veins But the stones Quartzen and Hornstein although they in burning are not altered yet if there be seen before gold volatile and spiritual they by separation of themselves yeeld gold Gross and subtle sand having light and yellow gold yeelds in the burning a skie-coloured smoak and is exalted in color viz. brownish but that hath nothing which is not altered Subtle earth yellow or red passing through sand or a mountain like a vein contains also gold which is for the most part volatile and not mature flying away in reduction having ingress into silver and other metals and therefore for this reason conservable For thy better knowledge thou maist prove the stones with white fusile glass which thing is treated of in the fourth part of the Philosophical Furnaces that thou mayst not have cause to impute the fault of thy errour to me therefore I would have thee understand viz. that all stones containe not gold neither in all is it separable by the spirit of salt they are therefore to be known before they be applyed to the work Now follows the preparation of flints and the extraction of the gold contained in them by the spirit of salt FIrst the flints being made red hot in the fire they must be quencht in cold water after taken out and cooled be finely powdered N. B. When they are broken in a Mortar the better parts may easily be separated from the baser for while they are finely powdered alwayes the best part goes into red powder first the worser part thicker and harder containing little or nothing being left And if they be coursly powdered and sifted through a fine sieve the more subtle part like red powder goes through the sieve the unuseful part being left in the sieve like white dust which may be cast away and if yet some redness appeares it must again be powdered in a Mortar and the better part shal go into a red powder the baser part being left in the sieve hard and white which is to be cast away but you must observe that not all every of these flints are thus separable by powdering for some being beaten doe every where retain the same colour without any separation of the better parts which you must finely powder and extract in the whole substance But they viz. those separable are more easily extracted because all the gold contained in one pound for the most part may be gathered out of 3 or 4 ounces finely powdered and separated in the aforesaid manner so that it is not need to extract the whole stone nor to spend so much spirit of salt But sand and clay need not such a preparation but without a preparation being made before are extracted by the affusion of the spirit of salt â„ž then of the flints as aforesaid prepared and separated 2 3 4 6 pound to which being put into a cucurbit of glass whole undivided powre of the spiâ—it of Salt to the depth of 3 or 4 fingers breadth and place it in hot sand or Balneo that there the spirit of salt may be hot and may extract the Gold and so let it continue for 5 6 or more howres space untill the spirit tinged with a deep redness can extract no more And perchance at the first time though seldome it may not be tinged with so great a rednesse then must you decant that same imperfectly tinged spirit and powre to other flints after the manner expressed prepared in another cucurbit and place it with the flints in a moderate heat for to extract the gold which done poure it off again and poure it to fresh flints and doe so often untill it hath drawn to it a sufficient quantity of gold which afterward thou must keep untill thou hast gotten a greater quantity and all the Gold may bee separated at one time from it as afterward shall be said Which done poure to the reserved flints in
the first cucurbit a fresh spirit of salt and leave that so long in heat untill it be colored and extract the gold that is left in the flints and was not at the first time extracted which spirit being afterward decanted pour it to the flints reserved in the second third cucurbit to extract the residue of the gold which was left at the first time and so consequently to the others reserved untill the spirit be sufficiently coloured and can attract no more which afterward poure off and put it to the first which was reserved You must also poure a fresh spirit to the remainder of the extraction for the extracting of all the gold At length pour to it also common water to wash away the tinged spirit of gold remaining in the flints that none of the Gold may be lost And this labour is so long and often to be repeated till there remain neither flints nor spirits in the meane while you should cast away the flints extracted and washed that the cucurbits may be filled with fresh flints and so continue the work and if there be no more spirit left to continue the extraction you may then separate the extracted gold from the spirit which is done as followeth but first you must have plenty of glass vessels or retorts of the best earth which may retain the spirits which you may so far fil with the impregnated spirit that the spirit in the abstraction run not over which done it is to be extracted in a dry Balneo by little and little from the Gold which spirit ye may use again in the aforesaid work And the Gold which is left in the bottom of the vessels is to be separated from the vessels with a crooked iron wier and kept being very like to red earth for its use untill thou hast gotten a good quantity viz. so much as sufficeth for separation and purgation of which afterward to be made by Antimony N. B. But when thou shalt extract red Talc with spirit of salt red or black granates Smiris or Lapis Calaminaris and other Fossiles which beside fixt Gold contain much immature and volatile Gold you must in the abstraction cast in a little iron viz. to the solution which retains fixes the gold which otherwise flyes away in fusion Wherefore those solutions and extractions of Talc and other things containing volatile gold are better extracted out of iron Cucurbits by earthen alembicks than out of glass and earthen retorts because then that volatile gold doth attract only somuch thence as is sufficient for its fixation which iron is aster easily separated by the Antimony from the gold as shall after be taught And this is to be noted that not the whole granate is soluble in the spirit of salt although it be long left in digestion always retaining its former colour wherefore there is a difference to be made or a preparation to be learned requisite for the solution of the gold contained in them And you must extract Talc not with too much or excessive heat lest its substance be totally dissolved in the spirit and be a hinderance to the work because there is little profit then for it is therefore appointed that a little gold dispersed in a great quantity of Talc may be reduced into a little compass that it need not that all the quantity of Talc be made fusile because it will thereby procure losse But there is no danger in flints because the spirit of salt doth not dissolve them as it doth T lc but only extracts gold from thence the stony body being lâ—fâ— The lapis calaminaris may also otherwise be handled in the extraction and fixation than granates flints and Talc because it is almost wholly soluble in the spirit of salt which work is not here to be handled because the extraction and fixation is taught in a p culiar way in another place neither doe I mean to treat of it here but only of the extraction of gold out of flints every where to be found And this is the way of extraction of Gold out of flints and sand in heat by the spirit of salt to be done in glass vessels But there is another way too which is done in cold without glass vessels which I thought worth the setting down that in the aforesaid work you may choose which you please this or that and it is done as followeth We must have in this way store of earthen funnels well burnt and not sucking up the spirits for want of which we must have such as be of strong glass there must also be a form with many holes in it to receive the aforesaid funnels under which must be placed glass dishes or basons to receive the strained spirit Here follows the work to be performed by Funnels FUnnels being put in the holes of the form you must first put a big peice of flint in the straighter part of the funnel to which after put lesser peices and on these again less viz. as much as serveth to fill the straight part of the Funnel of which the larger part is after to be filled with powdred flints but so that there be left a depth of three or four fingers bredth for the spirit of salt By this means those greater peices in the lower part will hinder the passage of the fine powder in the affusion of the spirit of salt Which being done as it ought pour to the flints contained in the funnels the spirit of salt to two or three fingers breadth in deepness which forthwith shall work on the flints and attract their gold and then run into the dish or bason set underneath and because for the most part at the first time some of the powder passeth through with the spirit you must so often poure the same spirit on the flints untill there be a stoppage and the spirit come clear afterward poure this spirit into the second funnel with flints and then into the third and so consequently until it be strained through the flints of every funnel or til the spirit be sufficiently colored which you must keep untill you have gotten a sufficient quantity to be distilled by retort for the separating the spirit from the gold Then that first spirit being strained through the flints of each funnel according to order and coloured pour a fresh spirit to the flints of al the funnels according to order beginning at the first till you come to the last untill that be sufficiently coloured which being done poure a fresh spirit of salt to the flints according to their order contained in every funnel And when you see the strained spirit not to receive a tincture it 's a sign that all the gold is extracted and then poure on no more spirit but common water that it may be strained and the water will attract the spirit of-salt lest in the flints that none shall be lost which acidish water save by it self to the same and the like uses which being done take
out the extracted flints and fill the funnels with fresh as before viz. to be extracted and doe this so long as you have flints and spirit But you must not poure a spirit not sufficiently tinged into the spirits that are well coloured and impregnated with gold but keep it a part and poure it still to fresh prepared flints according to order contained in divers funnels viz. untill it bee sufficiently coloured and being coloured separate it by the glass retorts with the rest extracting it from the gold by abstraction and being abstracted again use it to a new worke like the former And by this means with 100 pound of spirit of salt may be extracted some thousand pounds of flints prepared and separate the gold contained in them which otherwise by fusion cannot be done But the chief point consisteth in the extraction the spirit of salt being well and rightly first administred viz. that the spirit may not be wasted whereby many stones may be abstracted with a very little spirit But this caution is to be observed in this extraction which is done in cold that it requireth a stronger spirit of salt than that which is done in heat by the cucurbits or else the businesse goes on slower but with a stronger spirit by this the cold way they are extracted sooner and easier than by that which is done in heat and neither so dangerous laborious or costly this extraction then viz. the cold requires a stronger spirit of salt which is worth nothing than the hot And this is that way by which those golden flints and other golden fossiles are prepared and with the spirit of salt are extracted and by which it is again separated from them Now shall follow the manner of purification viz. of the Gold left in the Retort N. B. The pure gold being extracted out of the flints not the iron-like there needs no great businesse of purification for thou mayst purifie it by fusion with borace or with the flux made with the equall weight of Nitre and Tartar but if the gold extracted out of the flints be mixt with iron as for the most part it is then you must not fuse it with flux because it is not thereby purified or rendred malleable Gold but separate it by lead by which way it is purged and made malleable And if such gold have any sulphureous impurities mixt besides it is not to be separated with lead because it is then partly turned to dross and other impurities by the Iron with losse wherefore it is to be purged with three parts of Antimony and separated by which means nothing is lost which is the best way of separation and purification of Gold viz. the ferreous without which it cannot otherwise be separated without losse How impure Gold may be separated and purged by Antimony THis work is necessary to be known if you think to have any benefit by the aforesaid extraction of flints by the spirit of Salt which without this separation and reduction is of no moment and what profit I pray is there by the extraction of immature Gold which by the common way cannot be purged requiring the industry of the Artist in fusion whereby it may be separated from its sulphureous faeces and fixed For it is easie to conjecture that such spirituall and volatile gold mixed with Iron by that common flux is not reducible into a body but rather into dross for experience testifies that gold dissolved with the spirit of salt also iron or any other sulphureous thing the spirit of salt being abstracted cannot be reduced whole by thâ—â—ulgar flux made of Nitre and Tartar going into dross which if it happen to corporeall pure and fixt gold how shall it be otherwise with that which is incorporeall unclean and volatile for the Gold being ironish commonly which is extracted out of stones and iron having great affinity with gold by reason of which being neerly united it is difficulty separated so that it easier goes with iron into drosse than parted from it you must of necessity make a flux not only attracting that impure gold but also purifying and cleansing it that which antimony alone doth which with its combustible fusible Sulphur works upon that ferreous Gold or iron easily mixt But by its Mercury it attracteth the pure corporeall gold and cleanseth it and separates it from all dross without any losse wherefore there cannot be a better flux but requiring industry or an ingenious separation of the Antimony from the gold without wasting the gold which is done as follows And first your ferreous gold that is left in the abstraction of the spirit of salt must be finely powdered in iron retors or pots mingled with it two or three parts of Antimony powdred and mixt in a very strong crucible filled and covered then fused in our fourth furnace until that flow like water which soon appearing poure them together in a heated Cone smeered within with wax and when they be cold separate from the drosse the Regulus having most of the gold with a hammer and keep it by it selfe Which done you must again melt the drossie Antimony as yet containing much gold that was left in the crucible and adde to it a little filing of iron mixing them with a crooked wier and that antimoniall combustible sulphnr will be mortified by addiug iron and will yeeld a Regulus containing the rest of the gold which as a regard is had to the quantity of iron added will be more or less and for the most part will answer weight to the weight of iron then cast the mass well flowing into a Cone heated and smeered on the inside with wax which being cold separate again the Regulus from the drosse with a hammer which also is to be kept by it self melt the drosse again as before and precipitate it with iron and extract the Regulus thence which keep by its self for it contains gold and silver mixt For the best gold is precipitated the first time but afterward the baser sort and at last only silver Wherefore every Regulus is to be kept by it self that the purest gold may be a part and the silvered gold by it self N. B. And if the antimony by the the addition of iron doe loose its fusibility and therefore can yeeld no Regulus it 's required that you at every time when precipitation is made by adding iron that you doe also cast in some Misy to make the mass to melt in the crucible and precipitate the Regulus All the gold and silver being reduced into three or four Regulus's you must keep the drossie parts by themselves that were left of which we shall speak hereafter Now follows the way of separating gold silver from Antimony THe aforesaid antimoniall Regulus's may many wayes be purged and first by help of bellows on a plain earthen test as the custome is with Goldsmiths when they make gold fusile by antimony which labour is tedious and dangerous which cannot be
Balneum to digest 24 houres space till it be red and doe this the third time or so often till the spirit be no more coloured for then no more is to be poured on and that which is coloured is to be filtred with Cap-paper The rest of the flowers after the extraction as not requisite to this businesse are to be either kept by themselves or thrown away But the tinged spirit is to be abstracted out of a glasse cucurbit by an alembick to the half from the tincture which distilled spirit may again be used in the same work but the tincture left in the cucurbit is the medicine of which mention has beene made Now mention being made also of tartarised spirit of wine that I may satisfie the doubtfull concerning that I will here also give its description which is as followeth â„ž of tartar 20 or 30 pound put it in a large coated retort and place it in sand and distill the spirit off with a soft heat N. B. This work may better and sooner be performed by that instrument of our second Furnace and because it requires great and large receivers as being very penetrative thou maist first apply a tin or copper serpent to the neck of the retort instead of a receiver which is placed in a tub filled with cold water that the spirits being thereby cooled may be retained which afterward you must abstract to the halfe out of a glasse cucurbit by an alembick for the other half with black oil is unprofitable in this work and therefore to be taken away After that mingle the more subtile part distilled with half of the Caput Mortuum of the aforesaid spirit calcined to a whiteness and abstract it half again in a gentle Balneum out of a glasse cucurbit by an alembick the joints whereof are every where to be well closed and the calcined Tartar shall receive with it selfe the stench together with the phlegm only the purer part of the spirit and more subtle distilling forth which is again to be mingled with the other halfe of the Tartar calcined to a whitenesse and to be rectified by another alembick the Caput Mortuum may again be calcined to take away the fetidnesse that it may be used again And this is that tartarised spirit of wine with which the aforesaid tincture and essence is extracted and truly not only this but of all other metals which no other can doe And if it were lawfull I would write something more of its wonderfull force and vertue which it hath in purifying baser metals with which it hath a great affinity for it can separate the pure from the impure of which more in another place But when it is to bee used in mending of metals it needs not so much rectification as is required in the extraction of metallick medicines where you may draw it in plenty out of the dry lees of wine But there is also another tartarised spirit of wine which may also be used in this same work which is made after the following way Dissolve in a pound of the spirit of wine six ounces of crystall of Tartar which solution use in the aforesaid extraction in the same manner An Admonition I Desire thee not to be offended at the plainnesse of the preparation viz. of this medicine made out of a very meane thing and without much acutenesse of understanding say not to thy self if this be true that such a famous and excellent medicine can be gotten by such easie meanes what neede we so many various decoctions both pretious and nauseous bee prepared why is not this substituted in their places Certainly this should rather be used But who is so audacious as to dare to displease the multitude defending those kinds of decoction Surely none and there are few who are able to turn from their old custom An ancient custom therefore whatsoever need it hath of being amended yet prevails Would to God the time would come when Physitians would practise not out of avarice but out of charity which we owe to our neighbour which is desired by and full of comfort to the sick But for the vertue of so great a medicine I shall open to those that are younger and lesse skilful than my self not it to those who in yeers and learning doe goe before me but let every man enjoy his own judgement Of the vertues of this Medicine THis antimoniall tincture doth above all other medicines evacuate vitious humours insensibly purgeth impure bloud opens any obstructions of the liver Spleen Reins and the other vessels attracting to it all malignities and leaving no impurities behinde it And because it cleanseth the bloud it cures the Leprosie French pox and itch and other diseases proceeding from the impurity of the bloud By its penetrative and attenuative vertue it resolves all tartareous humours and evacuateth them viz. which ingâ—nder the gout the Stone of the Bladder and Reins but not the Stone perfectly coagulated onely it mitigateth its pain and hinders its increase but being not hardened or coagulated it attracteth and evacuateth it totally and fundamentally out of all parts it takes away also all Feavers and other diseases comming from the superfluity of humours It gently evacuateth the water between the skin by siege and urine In brief it strengthens and purges the principall parts and preserves them from all preternaturall accidents It is a most excellent preservative in the time of Pestilence and other contagious diseases and of them being caught it is a most absolute remedy expelling the disease suddenly from the heart and evacuating it In few words 't is of all others a most excellent Universall Medicine very profitable to both old and young and also very safe but warily to be ministred by reason of its strength with which it is endued which is most powerfull for it is as a great fire which extinguisheth the lesser Truly a better Medicine cannot be desired than this which is extracted of a very mean thing in a short space of time and with very small cost and pains I ingenuously confesse I never saw its like which I doubt not to be the best in the world Wherefore then do we seek any other but this viz. which excels in those things which are desired from the reall medicine But as it is most excellent yet I am certain that many deluded people will bee offended at it being prepared out of Antimony a mean and despised thing and after a plain way But 't is no matter For the world will be deceived looking after gay things disrespecting and despising mean things when all good things yea even when God himself doth rejoice in simplicity for which by wicked and proud men he is not sought unto But this is the effect of sinne by which man is so blinded that though he know not good when set before his eyes yet he is studious of evill Of the use and dose of this Medicine SEEing of all Medicines it is the most powerfull it had
by this meanes nothing can be gotten wherefore the work is to be done warily and with wisdome and industry You must have a care you burne not the Regulus of lead with too much fire when you reduce it into drosse for fear of attracting the gold from the iron and turning it into drosse And although this may by art be prevented yet we must not presently create every one Master of Arts it requiring diligence and daily exercise besides the reading of Bookes But this secret shall other where be communicated This admonition then I give that thou doe not impute thy errour if thou dost erre to me but to thy selfe for what I have written is true and doe not thence infer an impossibility of attracting gold by iron out of lead and of turning it into drosse which is no wonder to me though it may so seem to thee Which he who hath the knowledg of metals wil himself easily perceive But that thou maist be certain try the certainty after the following manner take two hundred lib. of lead of the lesser weight of the refiners put it on a test under a tyle adde eight or ten lotons of pure gold of tin two or three l. six or eight of iron viz. of the lesser weight make them flow together an houre to make drosse as examiners use to doe then poure it out and separate the lead from the dross viz. to cupell that which is eparated then weigh the grains of gold left and thou shalt finde half of it consumed by the drosse If this happen to corporeall gold and fixt how will it be with that which is newly extracted out of an imperfect metall therefore you must diligently search out the natures of metals and then such cases shall not seem incredible From hence then and other examples mentioned it appeares that that separation which is done by tests and cupels is not true and legitimate and consequently that another profitable separation of metals is to be sought because by this the greater part of gold and silver burns into drosse witnesse experience for which cause the former example was alleadged whither belongs the proof viz. how much gold the drosse hath attracted which is done as followeth â„ž the remaining black drosse to which adde a double weight of salt of tartar put in it a crucible filled but to the half for fear of boiling out and covered that nothing fall in under a tyle or among live coals one or two hours space to digest and a new Regulus of lead shall be precipitated which separated from the dross you may cupel and you shall finde new graines of gold attracted by the iron to the dross but now separated by the salt of tartar overcoming the rage of the iron And so you have heard from two examples how in the coction of the separation gold may be drawn out of the lead by tin and iron and that therefore there is need that gold be separated by the Antimonial Regulus out of the aforesaid metals and not by lead if you would extract the true substance with gaine N. B. Gold may likewise be separated out of the glass of lead being first dissolved with the ashes of tin with coal dust adding it in the flux and stirring it with an iron wier and also with common sulphur by burning it on it but the aforesaid way with iron is to be preferred before those two which spoyle the gold c. wherefore the remaining dross is to be gathered which by some abstracting furnace by other means may be tryed for to recover the spoyled or lost gold and silver And all these are alleadged to demonstrate that the gold in tin and iron is to be separated by the Antimonial Regulus and not by lead But how this separation may be perfected you shall here in that third part where we will treat of lead explained by Paracelsus in his book called Caelum Philosopherum and other artificial Chymical labors wherefore here we omit it being superfluous to handle one thing in diverse places In the mean while exercise thy self in lesser things that thou maist be more fit for greater when they shall be set forth But wonder not at my liberality in publishing so great secrets for I have reasons for it Such a burden is too much for me alone neither doth it profit the covetous to sell his goods to them which keep not their words nor pay the mony after they have obtained their art which hath happened to me Wherefore I have determined to communicate some secrets to all the world indifferently that the poor may receive some profit by them knowing that though I write plainly yet that al wil not at the first view obtaine their desires For some are so dull that they cannot imitate a work though often seen For some have often visited me to see my new maner of distilling which though it was sufficiently demonstrated to the eye yet they could not imitate it till with often perusals at length they have found the right path Others have left it as too hard a work when it would not presently succeed which if it happened to those who had an occular demonstration how much more difficult will it be and hard to them who have nothing but what they have heard or read Wherefore I am certain that though I should publish every one of my secrets yet could they not be performed by all men my coals and materials being left sufficing for my necessity Wherefore I fear not to publish the next opportunity offered diverse profitable and exeellent secrets viz. in favor of all and every one As for that spirit of salt necessary to this work you may finde it in the first part of my Philosophical Furnaces corrected and amended but the way of separation in the fourth part And so I finde this work published in favor of those who by war though honest men are reduced to poverty But what things are deficient in this little tract shall God willing be delivered in the next which shall follow in a short time largely and cleerly without fraud FINIS The Contents of the first Part. OF the structure of the first Furnace 1 Of the receiver 2 The manner of distilling 4 How the spirit of salt is to be distilled 9 Of the use of the spirit of salt 12 A distillation of vegetable oyles whereby a greater quantity is acquired then by that common way by a gourd still 13 The cleare oyle of Mastick and Frankincense 15 The quintessence of vegetables 18 The quintessence of metals and minerals ibid. A sweet and red oyle of metals and minerals 19 The oyle or liquor of gold ibid. Oyle of Mars 20 Oyle of Venus 21 Oyle of Jupiter and Saturne ibid. Oyle of Mercury 22 Oyle of Antimony ibid. The flowers of Antimony white and voltill 24 The flowers of Antimony diaphoretical 25 Of the external use of the corrosive oyl of Antimony ibid. The oyle of Arsenick and Auripigmentum 26 Oyle of lapis
best sweetest odoriferous and durable not giving place for goodness clearness c. to those that are made in Germany France Italy and Spaine 352 A certaine secret by the help whereof wines are easily tranâ—ported from mountainous places remote from rivers and distitute of other conveniences of carriage so that the carrying of ten vessels is of a cheaper price then otherwise the carrying of one 353 A very easie preparation of verdygrease out of copper of which a pound doth not exceed the price of six stivers 355 A new and unheard of distillation of vinegar of which two runlets of nine gallons exceed not the price of half a royal with which many excellent things may be done especially the crystallizing of verdygrease of which one pound doth not exceed the price of half a royal 355 A very easie distillation of the most strong spirit of urine very speedy not costly nor tedious where twenty or thirty pints maybe made for a royal whereby many excellent things may be done in physick alchymie and mechanical affaires but especially with it vitriol is made out of copper very beautiful blue and most excellent in medicine and alchymy with which silver is made so fusile that by the help thereof glass vessels may as well inwardly as outwardly be gilded so as to appear like silver 356 Amost easie not costly way of the distilling of the spirit of salt of which one pound may be sold for six stivers and it is very profitable in medicine alchymie c. 357 The separation of gold from silver without hurt to the jewels also the solution and separation of gold that containes silver and copper and the precipitation of gold from the water without any hurt to the water so as that it may serve for the same uses againe c. The separation of gold from pure fat clay sand flints c. which other wayes could not be separated either by the help of â— ashing or white Mercury or by melting 359 A new and unheard of proving of tough and stubborn minerals viz. of all and each whereby their nature and and form is found out the which cannot be done otherwise by any vulgar way 366 A new compendious way whereby minerals are speedily in a great quantity melted and that not without great profit 367 A better way to separate things melted A better separation of silver from lead 362 How minerals in defect of coals made of wood may be melted by the help of pit coals 364 The fixations of sulphureous Arsenical Antimonial and other volatile poysonous minerals 365 A profitable separation of sparkling spongious and thin gold and silver from sand pure clay and flints c. 366 A profitable and secret melting of gold contained in baser metals and minerals which cannot be done by any common way 367 A speedy separation of gold and silver by the help of fusion with less cost and labor then by Aqua fortis or cements 368 A speedy reduction of wrought gold to the higbest degree also an easie separtion of gold from gilt silver ibid. The separation of silver in a greater quantity out of lead then by the use of cuâ—les 369 The melting of good gold out of old iron 370 A separation of gold and silver from any tin or copper 373 A maturation of mines that they may give more gold and silver in the fusion 375 A separation of gold and silver out of Arsenick Auripigmentum and Antimony 377 A separation of extrinsecal sulphur of Venus for the production of her son Cupid ibid. The separation of silver from the tests which entered into them in time of trying without melting and without labour and costs 379 A cheape making of fine earthen vessels like to the porccelane retaining spiritâ— resisting the fire and to be made in any place of the world ibid. A confection of allome exalting and fixing any colours especially requisite for scarlet and other pretious colours as also a preparation of a cauldron that shall be cheap and not alter colour 380 A cheap preparation of colours for painting as of purple c. but especially of a most fine white never yet seen most like the finest pearls also of a silver and golden colour 381 The conclusion 383 To the Malitious 389 Of Avrum potabile 393 Of the medicinal use of this gold medicine 403 The Contents of the first part of the Mineral Work A Preface to the Reader 409 A most profitable separation of gold out of flints sand clay red and black talck and other fossiles containing very subtle gold thin spongious which otherwise cannot be separated either for its scarcity or the obstinency of the mineral by the reason of the great cost to be bestowed viz. very easily with the spirit of salt 411 The preparation of flints and the extraction of the gold contained in them by the spirit of salt 417 The work to be performed by funels 420 How impure gold may be separated and purged by Antimony 422 The way of separating gold and silver from Antimony 424 The use of Antimonial Flowers 425 The preparation ibid. An admonition 427 Of the vertues of this medicine 429 Of the use and dose of this medicine 431 Now followeth the vertues which it manifesteth in metallicks 439 How the Regulus of the flowers and dross of Antimony is to be used in the bettering of course metals 442 Its use 445 The flux requisite to this work 448 FINIS REader Impute the multiplicity of Errata's partly to my absence whilest this â—reatise was under the press considering also that the second part thereof was translated by a German who though otherwise very learned yet might not haply be exactly skilled in all the proprieties of our English tongue whence sometimes the singular number is put for the plural his for its he for it and on the contrary and such like petty mistakes considering also that the fourth part was translated by another who might not be acquainted sufficiently with tearms of art and a smooth English stile besides the Printers aptness sometimes to mistake the copy being writ with diversity of hands and some bad If thou please with thy pen to correct what here I have observed thou will hardly meet with any more that may pervert thy judgement or occasion thy mistake unless in a cursory survey I might omit some few for the mending of which thy ingenury and candor which is craved will be sufficient PAge 1. line 3. p. 2. l. 1. l. 9. l. 18. p. 4. l. 19 p. 5. l. 25. p. 6. l. 31. l. 37. p. 7. l. 22. l. 33. p 36. l. 30. for water read matter Page 1. l. 12. r. neerness p 2. l. 5. r. furnace l. 7. r. by which l. 26. r. luteing p 3. l. 33. r. neck p. 5. l. 22. r humidity l. 23. r. metals p. 7. l. 15. r luteing p. 8 l. 3. r. repeate p. 9. l. 19. r. in a p. 20. l. 6. r. humors l. 34. r. humours p. 28. l. 24. r.
to be warmed by the Copper Globe A wooden Box for a dry Bath to provoke sweat with volatile spirits THE THIRD PART OF PHILOSOPHICAL FURNACES Of Wooden Instruments of that are to be used instead of Stills Baths and Cauldrons IN the first place I shall speak of wooden vessels that are to be used instead of Copper stils in the distilling of burning spirits out of wine beer lees malt wheat meal roots hearbs flowers seeds and other vegetables as also oyles of vegetables See that thou hast an oaken barrel like to those wherein wine and beere are kept of a just bigness viz. answerable to the bigness of the globe as is sufficient for the coction For a barrel that is too big will make the coction slow and tedious A greater globe may be fitted to a lesser barrel but not on the contrary a great barrel to a little globe For by how much bigger the globe is and the less the barrel so much the sooner is the work hastned Now seeing that this Art was invented for the saving of costs which otherwise would have bin expended in providing of stils cauldrons furnaces c. it is best not to have too great a globe which requires a greater furnace and is more hardly to be carryed because it is to be covered within with lute or a wall for it is sufficient if it be big enough for the coction Wherefore I wil give you a just and due proportion of both viz. of the globe and vessel which in distillations and other operations the curteous reader may imitate A globe of the bigness of a mans head containing three or foure cannes whereof each containing four pints is sufficient for the heating of a barrell of 30 40 50 60 and 100 gallons which by how much the more remote from 100 and neerer to 30 so much the sooner is it heated and the coction furthered and on the contrary by how much the neerer it is to 100 and more remote from 30 so much the slower is the coction I do not therefore advise that a huge barrell be chosen for a small globe by reason of a long and tedious operation And if all and every thing be not so accurately observed to a hair yet it matters not much because it sufficeth to do the same thing by the help of any small copper instrument which otherwise is done by divers copper instruments of divers forms For in this way of distilling wooden vessels that are requisite to the distilling of spirits and boiling of Beer and for baths are more easily provided then so many copper vessels in the common way For by this means not only costs are spared but also it is in stead of building of furnaces because when any barrell hath been used you may remove it and set another in the place of it for another operation the which cannot be done with stils and cauldrons fastened into a furnace And this invention is for those that want Artificers as Coppersmiths c. because wooden instruments are more easily provided also by the help of this globe may most secret operations be performed For the furnace with the copper globe may be built in one place and in another place the Balneum viz. places divided with a wall so that he that looks to the fire may not know what is done in the Elaboratory for oftentimes the care of the fire is committed to heedlesse servants that breake glasse instruments by their carelesseness by which means oftentimes a most pretious medicine is lost which danger this invention is without Wherefore this copper globe with its wooden vessels is more convenient then those copper stils and cauldrons But this I would have thee know that this new invented distillation is slower then the common way which is performed by stills and consequently requires a long fire I desire therefore the rich that dwell in large and spacious houses that they would use the old way of distilling but the poor who have but little houshold conveniences and the covetous that they would use this little copper globe with its wooden vessels for although there be a longer fire required yet these are not to be compared to those costs which are otherwise expended upon so many copper vessels of so many divers formes Let him therefore keep to his copper vessels who cannot understand me for it concernes not me Without doubt there are some whom this my new invented way of distilling will please before other being communicated for the sake of the poor labouring house-keepers that cannot boil Beer and distill burning spirits for lack of vessels for a globe of five or four pound is more easily provided then other copper vessels of 60 80 100 pound also those wooden vessels are more easily provided then furnaces which some for want of place only cannot build Choose therefore which way thou wilt for these things which I have wrote I have wrote for the poores sake rather then of the rich Certainly rich men that have spacious Elaborateries need not be ashamed to follow this way for it is free for every man to goe a shorter way unless they had rather prefer the old and true way before a new and compendious whom I cannot help being contented with a publication which is made for the sake of my neighbour whether it be taken well or ill with a good minde certainly knowing that more profit then disprofit may be obtained by the help thereof It shall not therefore repent him of his labour who knows rightly to prepare and use copper and wooden vessels There follows now the preparation of the vessel THE vessel being made is to be placed with one bottome upon a stool that is fitted for it which being done make a hole with a wimble neer the bottome for the receiving of the neck of the copper globe which is to be covered over with a linnen cloth make also about the lower bottome another hole for a tap by the help whereof the remainder of the distillation is drawn forth also you must make a large hole in the upper bottome the diameter whereof must be one span for to poure in the water to be distilled with a funnell Also there must be made a hole neer the upper bottome of two or three fingers breadth into which is to be sent a copper pipe of a span long which is to be fastened closely therein and to this pipe another oaken vessell with a copper worm and cold water like to other refrigeratories must be applyed Also the joints of the aforesaid short pipe viz. of the first barrell and of the second barrell viz. the refrigeratory must be straightly and closely united together which afterward may be the better joined together with a fit lute for the distilling And this is the form and fashion of the wooden vessell that is to be used in the place of copper vessels in the distilling of burning spirits and oiles But thou wilt object that these kinde of wooden vessels are
porous and drink up great part of the spirit and oyls I answer none of the spirits seeketh a violent passage out in case the wayes be open There is no danger therefore when there is passage enough given them by a pipe that is wide enough Neither doth oil stick to them in distillation for whatsoever is by force of the boiling water to be separated from the spirit and seeds that also is sublimable by the force of the seething water so as to distill in the refrigeratory no more is lost then in the stils Distillation being made the aforesaid spirits may be rectified in these wooden vessels being first washed as well as in the copper stils The making of a wooden vessell for a Balneum which is to be used in stead of copper and leaden Cauldrons for digestion and distillation by glasse vessels MAke an oaken vessel as big or as little as you please according to the greatnesse or littlenesse multitude or formes of the vessels of two or three spans high a little narrower above then below and so fashioned above that a cover of wood copper or lead may most closely be joined to it the cover must have holes greater or lesser according to the glasses as is wont to be in the making of a Balneum as you may see by the annexed figure This vessel also must be placed upon a stool of the height of an el or such height as is required for the joining of the copper globe with the Balneum which must have a hole neer the lower bottom for the receiving of the neck of the aforesaid globe In defect of such a vessell which yet you may provide easily enough take a wine or beer vessell divided in the middle and make a hole neer the bottome for the neck of the globe make also a wooden cover with holes c. He that will be curious may provide all things according to the best Art A wooden vessell serving for boiling of beere metheglin vinegar c. as well as copper Iron and tin vessels MAke a wooden vessel which shall be more high then broad a little under above then below as you please or take a wine or beer barrel divided in the middle and neer the bottome make a hole for the neck of the globe which is to be covered with boards which serves as wel for the boyling of beer c. as those of copper A wooden vessel for a bath for sweet or minerall water which may be according as you please kept warm for the preserving of health MAke a long wooden tub convenient to sit in which is to be set upon a stool of a just height viz. that the bottome of the vessel may answer the neck of the globe which is put into the furnace you may also have a cover that may cover the whole tub which may be divided and united in that place where the head goes forth as appeates by the annexed figure or you may cover it with a cloth laying it upon small crooked sticks fastned in the tub yet so that the head may have its liberty especially in a vaporous bath of common sweet or medicinall water or make a high wooden cover shutting very close for a dry sweat where it is no matter whether the head be shut in or no. Of the use of wooden vessels in distilling boyling bathing c. And first of the distilling vessel HE that will distill any burning spirit by help of the distilling vessel out of wine metheglin beer barley wheat meal apples pears cherries figs c. also out of flowers seeds and other vegetables hath need so to prepare his materials that they may yeeld their spirit Where I thought it convenient and indeed necessary to say something of the preparation of each vegetable for better information sake or else a profitable distillation is not to be expected but labour in vain to be feared And first of the preparation of the lees of wine beer hydromel and other drinkes THe lees of wine beer hydromel c. have no need to be prepared because they doe easily enough of themselves yeeld their spirit unless haply having lost all their humidity they be dryed which you may make moist again by the admixtion of common water lâ—ft they be burnt in distilling and stick to the vessel of which thing more in the distillation it selfe Now flowers roots hearbs seeds fruites apples pears cannot be distilled without a foregoing preparation You must therefore first prepare them as followeth Of the preparation of all kind of corn as wheat Oats Barly c. which must goe before the distilling of the spirit ANd first of all a malt must be made of the corn as it is wont to be in the making of beer Now the manner of making of malt is known almost to all wherefore I need not speak much of that because in all places that have no wine there is scarse any house found in which Malt and Beer is not made as well in the country as cities But however there is a great deal of difference of making of it for a long knife doth not make a good Cook nor all drinkers of wine are good planters For many have perswaded themselves that if they follow the footsteps of their fathers they have done well although they have been in an errour and being scornfull refuse instruction Wherefore something is to be said of the difference of malting Although I never exercised the Art of making Beer yet I am certain I doe in that excell all other distillers and Brewers For I often saw and indeed with admiration the simplicity of many in their operations although common and dayly to whom though an age should be granted yet they would never bee more thrifty being content with their ancient customes Good God! How perverse is the world where no body labours to find out any good neither is there any one that thinks of perfecting and amending things already found out Where all things run to ruine and all manner of vice increase for now almost every one seeks only after riches by right or wrong for it is all one with them if they have them not thinking that things ill gotten shall perish and that the third heir shall not injoy them and that unjust riches shall devoure hose that have been honestly gotten with danger also of eternall damnation I pray you if our Ancestors had been so negligent and had left nothing to us I pray you I say what Arts and Sciences should wee have had now It is come to this pass now that vertues decrease and vices increase Of the difference of malting THe difference of malt by reason whereof it yeelds better or worse beer and spirit consists for the most part in the preparation thereof for being made after the vulgar way it retaines its tast wherefore it cannot yeeld good spirit nor good beer which is observed of very few wherefore they could not draw forth good spirit out of corn
calaminaris ibid. The use of the oyle of lapis calaminaris 27 Of the extrinsecal use of the spirit of salt in the Kitchen 29 How an acid spirit or vinegar may be distilled out of all vegetables as hearbs roots woods seeds c. 31 The spirit of paper and linen cloaths 32 The spirit of silk 33 The spirit of mans haire and of other animals and also of horns ibid. The spirit of vinegar honey and sugar ibid. How the spirits may be made out of the salt of tartar vitriolatedtartar the spirit of salt tart arised and of other such like fixed salts 34 Lac virginis and the Philosophic al sanguis draconis 35 The spirits flowers and salts of minerals and stones 36 How minerals and metals may be reduced into flowers and their vertues 36 Of gold and silver 37 Flowers of iron and copper 38 Flowers of lead and tin 39 Flowers of Mercury ibid. Flowers of Zinck ibid. The use 40 Flowers of Antimony 41 The Contents of the second Part. THe structure of the second furnace 51 The way or the manner to perform the distillation 52 How to make the acid oyle the volatile spirit of vitriol 55 Of Vitriol ibid. The use and dose of the narcotick sulphur of vitriol 57 Of the use and vertue of the volatil spirit of vitriol 58 Of the vertue and oyle of the corrosive oyle of vitriol 59 How to make the vitriol of Mars and Venus ibid. The way to make a faire blue vitriol out of Luna that is silver 60 Of the sweet oyle of vitriol 67 The preparation of the sweet oyle of vitriol 70 The use and the dose of the sweet oyle of vitriol 72 Of the sulphurous volatile and acid spirit of common salt and of Allome 74 The manner of preparing 74 Of the sulphurious volatile spirit of minerals of their preparation 75 The preparation of the volatile spirit of metals 75 The preparation of the volatile spirit of minerals ibid. Another way ibid The spirit of Zinck 76 The volatile spirit of the dross of Regulus Martis ibid. How to make a white acid and red volatile spirit out of salt nitre ibid. Of the use of the red volatile spirit 77 The use of the white acid spirit of salt nitre ibid Aqua Regis 78 The preparation of Aurum Fulminans ibid. The use of Aurum Fulminans 83 The use of the tincture of gold 85 Of the flowers of silver and of its medicine 86 Of the use of the crystals of silver 87 How to sublime the crystals of silver into flowers and then to make a good medicine of the flowers 88 How to make a green oyle out of silver 89 The use of the green oyle in Alchymie and for Mechanical uses 90 A medicine out of copper externally to be used 91 A medicine out of iron or steel 92 Of tin or lead ibid. The use of the crystals of lead and tin ibid. Of Mercury 93 Of Aqua fortis 96 Of the sulphurised spirit of salt nitre 98 Of the Clissus ibid. Of the tartarised spirit of nitre 99 Of the tartarised spirit of Antimony 100 Of stone coales 101 Of the sulphurious spirit of salt nitre or Aqua fortis 101 Of the nitrous spirit of Arsenick 102 To make a spirit of sulphurous crude tartar and salt nitre ibid. To make a spirit out of salt of tartar sulphur and salt nitre ibid. How to make a spirit of saw dust sulphur and salt nitre 103 To make metallical spirits and flores by the help of salt nitre and linnen cloth 104 Of gunpowder ibid. How to make a spirit of gunpowder 107 Of the use of the medicine or tincture made of gunpowder 109 To make spirits and flowers of nitre and coales 110 To make flowers and spirits of flints crystal or sand by adding of coales and spirit of salt nitre to them 110 To make a spirit and oyle out of talck and salt nitre 111 To make a spirit flowers and an oyl out of tin 112 To make a spirit flowers and a liquor out of Zinck ibid. To make a spirit flowers and a oyle of lapis calaminaris 113 To make spirit of salt nitre sulphur and common salt 114 To make a spirit flowers and oyl out of salt nitre and Regulus Martis 114 To distil Butyrum out of Antimony salt and vitriol like unto that which is made out of Antimony and Mercury sublimate 118 To distil butyrum of Arsenick and orpiment ibid. To make a rare spirit of vitriol 119 To make a subtle spirit and pleasant oyle of Zinck 120 To distil a spirit and oyle out of lead 121 To distil a subtle spirit and oyle out of crude tartar 122 The preparation and use of the spirit of tartar 123 How to make pretious spirits and oyles out of tartar joyned with some minerals and metals 126 The use of the metallised spirit and tartar ibid. The other way to make a metallised spirit of tartar 130 To distil the spirit and oyle of lead and tin How to make a tartarised spirit and oyl out of iron steel or copper 133 How to make a tartarised spirit of Mercury 137 How to make a tartarised spirit of gold and silver ibid. To make a tartarised spirit of antimony 139 How to make good spirits and oyles out of pearls corals and crabs eyes and other light soluble stones of beasts and fishes 146 To distil a spirit out of salt of tartar and crude tartar 147 How to get a powerful spirit out of the salt of tartar by the help of sand or peble stones ibid. How to extract a blood red tincture with spirit of wine out of peble stones 150 The use of the tincture of pebles or flints in physick 151 How by the help of this liquor out of gold its red colour may be extracted so that it remaines white 153 Another way to extract a tincture out of gold by the help of the liquor of sand or pebles 159 What further may be done with the liquor of pebles 160 How by the help of this liquor to make trees to grow out of metals with their colours ibid. Of the spirit of urine and of the vo latile spirit of salt Armoniack 162 The process or manner of making it is this 163 Of the use or vertue of the spirit of salt Armoniack 166 To distil a blood red oyle of vitriol by the help of the spirit of urine 167 The tincture of vegetables 168 Vitriol of copper ibid. The tincture of crude tartar ibid. To make the oyles or liquors of salts ibid. To precipitate all metals with it ibid. The oyle and vitriol of silver 169 To extract a red oyle on t of Antimony or common sulphur ibid. How to ripen Antimony and common sulphur so that several sorts of such like smâ—ls as vegetables have arise from thence 171 Of the spirit and oyle of harts-home 171 To make the spirit of mans haire an excellent medicine 172 Of the oyle of Ambar 173 Of the oyle of soot