First, Because they will give you for one Sack full of the Shavings of Horns, half an Imperial, which is as much as will buy four or five such sacks full of Cow, or Sheeps dung.
Secondly, They will give the Tanners, or Curriers, above an Imperial for one Cart-load of the Shavings of the Hides, whereas with the same Money they may buy three or four Load of dung. Rags are sold for a quarter of an Imperial. Were they not virtuous or effectual, why should they be so dear? This here spoken, we have proved so to be, by the customary practice of the common men only, as Husbandmen and Gardiners. Were it lawful for me to reveal somewhat to the purpose, I could teach how to extract out of every hundred weight of Bones, in Beasts, Birds, and Fishes, ten pound of Salt-petre. But this is not to be divulged.
Now it remains in the next place, to confirm, that Nitre does not only lie hidden most plenteously in the Vegetable and Animal Subjects, but that it may be digged, or gotten out, and prepar’d of Stones, Rocks, Cliffs, Hollows of Mountains, and out of the plain Field in a very many other places; and this is undeniable, for ’tis evidently known, and if need were, I could, for witness sake, make mention of many such Testimonies. He that is desirous of knowing more, as touching this salt of the Earth, let him peruse the ancient Philosophers. But forasmuch, as every one hath not those Books at hand, and that many Men cannot understand them, I will for Amplifications sake add yet one demonstration, to shew whence that Nitre ariseth, which sticks on to, or swells out of those moist and old Walls of Houses. Comes it not from the Mortar, with which the Bricks are joined together? Not only all Stones are fit for making Calx, or Lime of, but also all kinds of Stones, which break, or grow in the Waters, like Drops, or Pebbles: Likewise, those stony things which grow in the Sea, as Coral, the Pearl shells, or Mother of Pearl, and Shell fish of all sorts, which being burnt, moulder in the Air, have in them plenty of Nitre, and will easily yield it forth to those who have the way of extracting it disclosed unto them. But this is not the place to mention it in, because I have determined to treat here, of only expressing the Juices of the Vegetables, concentrating them, and making them gainful or profitable.
Forasmuch as we have hitherto understood (or shewn) that Nitre or Salt-petre may be had from all things, viz. from Herbs, Wood, fourfooted Beasts and creeping Things, from Birds in the Air, and Fishes in the Water, yea from the very Elements themselves, as Earth, Water, Air, and Fire; It must needs follow that it is that so much spoken of Universal Spirit without which nothing can either be or live: It is the begetter and destroyer of all things; in which all things are, as I have demonstrated in my Miraculum Mundi, out of the most ancient Philosopher Hermes. I therefore hope, that no body will any more doubt thereof or oppose himself with a perverse stubbornness against a truth so manifestly known. Were not the shortness of time an impediment unto me I could most easily produce more arguments and those too more pregnant. If any one is minded firmly to cleave to his own stubborn perverseness, even Hermes himself should he arise from the dead, would lose his Labour in teaching him; and therefore let them keep their contumacy to themselves.
We have sufficiently confirmed and that by arguments enough, that Salt-petre is an universal Subject, and every where to be found. Hence it may be easily believed that it may also be met with in woods, and that more strong, more powerful, more corporal, palpable, and visible than in any other Subject: Upon this account therefore is it to be also sought for, and drawn forth out of them too. But forasmuch as such an Extraction cannot be made afore that the Juices are prest out of the Wood, out of which Juices the Nitre is to be drawn forth, the whole Art consists in Squeezing out these Juices, but yet by another kind of way than is done with Herbs. Therefore the due Presses being fitted ready, I shall be able to shew him who requesteth it at my hands (so as he does not endamage me) the way of squeezing them. For to prostrate a work of such great moment to every ones view, whereby those that are unworthy, should partake of such great Secrets, and by which a thing of so much value should be obnoxious to a common Abuse, is not verily, either necessary, profitable, or laudable. Let not any one therefore take it amiss, that I have so careful a regard of things so considerable. Let it suffice, that I have detected the thing, wherein such great Treasures have hidden themselves, which hitherto are profitable to no body, but are easily acquirable, or to be had. Do but look a little upon those most vast Woods of Germany, which are stored with such mighty abundance of Trees, that wood is of no account. There hath been none as yet that has converted them unto their use, save a few, who in some places make Pot-ashes of the wood they burn; and yet they have but small gains therefrom, because they can’t have vent sufficient for as much as they could make by their burning the wood, nor do any use them, but Soap-boilers, and Dyers.
Besides, I never as yet saw the Man that duly attempted that Artifice, and so administred it as to get therefrom a greater gain. For sometimes they gather scarce an hundred weight of Pot-ashes out of the burning of ten or twenty great Trees, and they can hardly have above five or six Imperials for it. And now consider but the great Labour and Sweat in burning so much Wood into Ashes, and of boiling the Ashes into a black Salt, and then of making this Salt red hot in peculiar Furnaces, that it may become white, green, or blueish; all this consider’d, ’twould make a Man admire what ’tis that could stir up those that follow this work, or order it to be done, to suffer such a quantity of Trees to be burnt up, for so very little profit. But what need many words? They have the wood for nothing, and (as the Proverb runs) The half White of the Egg, is better than the empty shell. Haply if they knew how to make any thing better, or more profitable out of their Wood, they would not omit so to do.
How many hundred weight of wood, are they to burn afore they have one hundred of Pot-ashes? But now if the Juices that are squeez’d out of them were boiled into Salt-petre, they would get ten times the profit with far less trouble.
Let us compute the case, and suppose that out of an hundred pounds of Wood, there are squeezed forth twenty pounds of Juice, and that from these twenty pounds of Juice, you have some 4 or 5 pounds of Nitre, and that a midling Oak or Beach will load, when cleft, some ten Carts, and each load hold twenty hundred weight. Now then, one hundred yielding five pound of Nitre, a load of twenty hundred, yields an hundred pound of Nitre; the Tree that is about ten load, yields a thousand weight.
Now we’ll put case that a hundred weight of Nitre yields twenty Imperials, which being ten times multiplyed, makes two hundred Imperials for ten loads, or for that one Tree divided into ten loads.
But to wave so accurate a computation, and not to extend it too far, we will suppose a hundred of Wood to hold only three pound of Nitre, and a load to be about twenty hundred of Wood; this load will yield Sixty pounds of Niter, and the Tree ten loads, So there will be Six hundred pounds of Niter. If now one hundred (of Nitre) will cost ten Imperials, that Tree will yield sixty Imperials for the six hundred pounds of Nitre. The smallness of the cost (in making it) makes the labour the more profitable; nay, if by this invention of mine, the price of Nitre should fall down, even to ten Imperials (which notwithstanding, will not so easily come to pass) yet would the gain thereby be great, yea ten times more than that which comes from the Pot-ashes. But he that knows how to use this Nitre, for the concentrating of Metals, (concerning which the three following parts of this Book shall treat) will not have any cause of fear, that this Nitre will lie on his hands and yield him no profit.