23. Gold and Silver.
This Art Lazarus Eicher has described, but because his way is too hard, I have shewn an easier in the explication of the wonder of the world, and there the following melting Furnaces are also described, and therefore I need not say any thing of them here.
All these inventions which Farnner braggs off as his own, are mine; for my unfaithful Servant taught Farnner those Furnaces which he learn’d of me.
And at length,
I have nothing to say to these four last paragraphs, because they don’t concern me as the former doe, and Farnner himself exposes them as speculations and not as experiments, as I also believe that they are only fancies and foolish imaginations: yet there is one thing which I must answer, which he mentions in his third paragraph, that the time will come when Glauber’s Alkahest must be forc’d to hide, altho it is not wholly to be rejected. But if it be so unprofitable that it must hide, why does he expose this to sale at fifty R. Dollers, and the Panacæa which is prepar’d with it, at thirty? and he has already got sufficiently by it: if it be so improffitable, why then does he offer to Sell it to others knowingly and willingly at a price? If Farnner has rightly term’d my Alkahest unuseful and must be forc’d to hide, he has surely deceiv’d many. But I confidently assert, that my Alkahest will never hide, but defend it self in all places: Perfidious calumniators, thieves and their accomplices shall hide, but not my Alkahest. If he has found out better things than I, let him publish them as I have done, that every man may judge whether they be true or false: Why this boasting and wicked vanity in despising others? For truth needs few words and less braging. In his writing in which he sets down the value of every Secret contain’d in the last paragraphs, namely, from the twenty first to the twenty eighth, he promises to teach other men for no certain price, but on courtesy, those secrets which yet are the best, if he cou’d know them. But if he can effect those things and teach ’em to others, he wou’d not certainly teach them gratis, for ’tis impossible for him to build those Furnaces requisite to the making of those things in half a years time.
From which it sufficiently appears how ignorant he is of what he writes: Certainly if his wares which he had of me gratis, should find Chapmen, no doubt but in one year he would get some thousands of ducats.
I thought fit to answer you these things now, that I might shut your foul mouth which was so wide open to lyes, but if after this you don’t cease your lyes and calumnies, you will compel me to use other means to bridle your malice. In the mean while I doubt not, but all good men in this short Apology (in which I have not refuted thy lying calumnies with indecent or contentions words, but from thy own obligations and hand writing) will plainly see how wickedly and perfidiously thou hast behaved thy self towards me. This damage which thou hast done me, neither you nor all yours both present and future faculties, nor all thy servants can ever repair: It remains therefore, that I say with Job, God gave, and God has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. But I don’t believe you will escape divine punishment, to which I commit my cause at this time. It is certain that every thing has its time, which I also patiently expecting your downfal (when God shall take upon him the patronage of a just cause,) perhaps with these my eyes shall sooner see than hope. Indeed I wanted not matter to dispute these things more largely, but that for a reason known to my self, I was hinder’d in doing it at this time. But as soon as I can, God assisting me, I shall not be wanting to propose to all impartial men in the world, questions to be resolv’d, from which every ingenious and good man may see, animadvert and give judgment, how ungrateful, perfidious, unjust and inhumane thou hast been to me.
Miraculum Mundi;
Or, A Plain and Perfect Description of the admirable Nature and Property of that most powerful Subject, called by the Antients,
The Universal Menstruum,
OR,
The MERCURY of PHILOSOPHERS.
By which Vegetables, Animals, and Minerals may easily be Transmuted into most Salubrious Medicines, and the Imperfect Metals into Perfect and Permanent.