3. It is fixed by Fire, and seems changed in its outward Form.
4. Appearing so, in various Parts, it acquires different Degrees of Fixedness.
5. Yet none of these Parts acquired, by so strong and lasting a Fire, the Fixedness of Gold or Silver.
6. The fixating Cause is Fire passing thro’ the Glass; thus changing part of the Mercury, either by its simple Action, or by its uniting itself with the Quicksilver.
7. The Fire so acting, by 511 Distillations, by its Action or Conjunction, could not yet change the smallest Particle of the Mercury into Gold or Silver.
8. But from the Mercury so fixed by Fire, a greater Fire restores true Mercury; or the known Power of Lead makes it vanish out of the Cupell.
9. Therefore it does not appear, by these Experiments, that from Mercury and Fire so conspiring, any known Metal is produced. Those 13 Grains did not run by a Wind-Furnace; they did not persist in the Lead; they were not dissolved with the Mercury into an Amalgama.
10. Therefore Fire, by these Experiments, is not demonstrated to be the Sulphur of the Philosophers that fixes Mercury into Metals.