6. To make melted Tin hard.
And this Paragraph, by right, ought to have been omitted, for it is not worth Ten R. Dollers, requiring no Art in the making it; and I my self taught it many years since, as well in the [First part of the Mineral Work], as in the [Fourth part of my Furnaces]; and it is made by Regulus of Antimony, of which one part is mix’d with 12 parts of melted Tin, and no more, for otherwise the Tin would be made brittle, and rendered unuseful; rather if one part of Regulus is mingled with twenty parts of melted Tin, it will come out hard enough. And farther, it may as well and rightly be made of Zink, as by Regulus of Antimony, and needing no great matter of Labour, melts sooner than Regulus of Antimony.
7. White Vitrifications.
These Vitrifications also, which he exposes to sale at Ten R. Dollers, are of no moment, for they are prepar’d of Glass of Lead, Tin-Ashes, and Flints, and Wood-ashes.
In Holland this Preparation is very common: whether Farnner is excellent at it or no, I much doubt; How then shall he teach others? And if he does excel, who will be the better for it? For no man studies these Curiosities, or so much as looks after them, or covets them.
But although Glauber, &c.
Here Farnner again vomits at me a mighty heap of his infernal Lyes, which are as noisome as any dead Carcass, as if he intended to infect me with their venom; but these stories do not at all agree with his other; for here he saies, Although he had with a great Sum of Money purchased certain Secrets of Glauber, yet he had made no Examen of them, but he was forc’d to convert them to other uses. In the beginning of his Calumnious Paper, he thus writes: A Specification of those Chemical Secrets which the under-written Farnner learn’d of Glauber, and in the Trial found True.
Here any impartial man may see what to judge of this double:Tongu’d Monster. Here he denies what before he confess’d; he both calls them Glauber’s Secrets, and here affirms, that they never succeeded to his purpose: which if true, Why does he prefix my Name to them, if he never made trial of them? But if they have succeeded, and in the trial he has found ’em true, as he above confesses, Why does he here deny it? Can the same thing be True in one place, and False in another? Certainly I can refute such horrid Lyes no way better than by his own words. For if I should say, See here, there, or in that place thou lyest, he would not care, but answer, He did not lye at all, but spake the truth; and I might represent a Contest between two scolding Women, one whereof calling the other Whore, and the other throwing back upon her the same things; but this will do nothing; wherefore I shall take another method.
In the first Obligation he gave me, he expresly saies, That I had communicated, demonstrated, and shewn him some Secrets: But if they were not for his use, why did he give me a valid Obligation, to keep those secrets from the publick? Not bent to these things, Why did he in all his Letters (which he sent me, and which are kept safe to confirm what I say) confess, and profess, that he, his Wife and Children, were bound to me, and that he wou’d come to me, that with his he might serve me all my Life.
If none of my secrets have succeeded to him, Why did he give me long since a new Obligation to be grateful to me? as I have demonstrated from his obligations and extracts out of his Epistles.