The works of the highly experienced and famous chymist, John Rudolph Glauber

by Johann Rudolf Glauber

But to pass this by, let any one make but this Experiment: Fill some Vessel with Bulls or Ox-blood, and put it in a warm place till it putrefie and be turned as it were into Earth; then extract a Lye out of this Earth, and boil it so long, till a little skin appear on the top, then lay it by in a cold place, to shoot into Crystals, or little Stones, and these will be true Nitre.

NB. There is another and more compendious way of extracting Salt-petre out of the blood of Animals, which belongs not to this place to treat of; let us but compute the account a little. If there are yearly kill’d in some great City some ten thousand Oxen, besides Calves, Hogs, Sheep, and Goats, and the blood be cast away as unprofitable, [now an hundred weight of blood yields some 5, 6, 7, or 8 pound, or more, of Nitre.] the question is, How many Hundreds of Salt-petre is lost? That this may be the more clearly evidenced, viz. That there is much Salt-petre in all Beasts, Fishes, and Birds, take another Experiment: Let a Beast, Bird, or Fish be laid in some warm place, where no Rain comes, to putrefie, out of the Carcass there will come Worms; of these Worms or Maggots take about one pound, more or less, put them in a Glass with a narrow neck, stop the glass with Paper only, and set it at the Sun, but not too hot, and in a few daies the worms or maggots will be turned into water; then pour out this water into a Copper Vessel tinn’d over, clarify it with the whites of Eggs, as Vegetable juices are wont to be clarified; then evaporate the clarified Juice, by little and little, by decoction, till it be covered over with a skin; as we have taught you in the Vegetable Juices; then set it by in a cold Cellar, and there will shoot good and natural Nitre, but especially if that Liquor shall have stood a while afore in the air.

The self-same Experiment may any one make with other Vermin that arise from Flesh or Cheese, and he shall find that even living Creatures have Salt-petre in them: so then there is nothing to be found, wherein that Universal salt of the World is not seen to be; but in some the salt doth sooner put on a Salt-petre nature, and in others it is already made Salt-petre by Nature.

Let this serve as an example, viz. The Essential or Universal salt of Vegetables, Animals, & Minerals, is indeed in its own nature nitrous, but it does not conceive any flame afore it has attracted life and flame from the Air. Further, one salt attracts that Life sooner and willinglier than another does, according as it is by Nature framed. By how much the more volatile and urinous the salts are, so much the sooner do they change themselves into Nitre; and by how much the more biting and more corrosive, so much the more difficultly and slowly do they put on the nature of Salt-petre. But because Nitre is a salt that partakes of both natures, viz. of a Urinous and Corrosive Nature, and is compounded as it were of both a Urinous and a Corrosive Salt, therefore by the help thereof one skill’d in Nature may easily help the salts, and make of them whatsoever he pleaseth. Nor is there in the nature of things any salt, but may by the help of Art be turned into Nitre; but especially those salts which are sublimed by fire, and are elevated by the force thereof; as likewise those that are in the Urine and Excrements of all Animals; yea more, Animals, Vegetables, and Minerals themselves do easily assume the nature of Nitre: This now is the first degree of salts. Another degree of salts are those that are somewhat fixer, (as the Sons of Art call them) and are such as are left in the fire, from Vegetables, Animals, and Minerals: These do more hardly pass into the nature of Nitre; but the hardest of all, are those salts which are in the third degree, as common salt, Sea-salt, Mountain or Fossile salt, Alume and Vitriol; for by Art are even these brought to that state, as to pass into true Nitre, but harder than the former, for they need a longer time for transmutation, than the abovenamed flying, volatile, and urinous salts. And therefore I would not have any of you to opinionate, that when I say in my Writings, that this or that salt may be converted into Salt-petre, assoon as ever it is extracted out of the Lixivium, or by barely calcining with fire, that (I say) it should presently be true burning Salt-petre; no, there is a yet farther time thereto required, whereto it may attract its life and soul out of the Air, and become burning or inflamable.

Every common Barber and mean-pated fellow, knows that the most Salt-petre hitherto made, hath been boiled out of a Lee, drawn out of the Earth taken out of old stables, wherein Sheep and other beasts have stood. And why, I pray, out of the old standing places of Sheep, Oxen, and the like Cattel, and not likewise out of the new? It is on this account, because old Stables do not only in long Process of time imbibe more salt out of the Excrements and Urine, and consequently yield more Salt-petre; but also those very salts (that come from the Excrements of the beasts) and which is the main thing, have in long process of time received their soul or life from the air, which new salts have not as yet attained unto: For let any one boil, and try his conclusions on the fresh Dung and Urine of Animals, as much as he list, they will never become Nitre, unless they draw their Life out of the Air. Let any one take some good Salt-petre, and mix it with Earth, and destil off the Spirit in a Retort, there will come over into the Receiver such a sharp and corroding water, as will dissolve Metals, Stones, and all other even the hardest Mercurial Bodies, and yet the Salt-petre was not corrosive before, but it hath gotten that degree of corrosivity from the fire’s operation. Contrariwise, let some good Salt Nitre be taken, and be calcined in a Crucible, with burning Coals or such-like other matters as will burn or calcine it: By this operation it will be changed into a very fiery and fixt Salt, but not so corrosive, and thus it will dissolve all Fat, Oils, Greases, and sulphureous Bodies, which thing the former corrosive Spirit will not do; for such bodies as are dissolveable by this fixt and urinous Salt, the former acid Spirit leaves them untouch’d; and on the other hand, it will dissolve those bodies which cannot be dissolved by the fixt Salt, and yet are they both extracted out of one and the same Subject, by the help of the fire. Hence may it easily be conjectured, that this is an Hermaphroditical Salt, and partakes of both natures, seeing it puts on both (or either) of them; for the Philosophical Maxim witnesseth, that every thing hath its Original out of that into which it can be changed and resolved.

Now when I pour the acid Spirit that destilled over into the Receiver on that fixt Salt again, they are both of them divested of their nature and property; the Spirit loseth his sharpness and acidity, and the fixt salt puts off its fiery nature, and so they both become again an Hermaphroditical Salt, but yet not presently, but ’tis necessary to allow them some time of standing together in the Air, whereby they may receive that life and that burning nature which the Fire hath deprived them of. But yet notwithstanding, this comes sooner to pass in this, than in other contrary subjects, because these two Contraries have heretofore already been one Salt-petre; for such as never have been Nitre, but are hereafter to be so, require a longer abode in the Air. These instructions we give to those that might haply think that Salts may be animated without the help of the Air.

And now, that I may perfectly demonstrate that Salts do get their life out of the air, without any encreasing in weight thereby, and not from elsewhere, I will give you this following example. Take 1 l. of Honey or Sugar, and let it be dissolved in ten pounds of Water, and let this Water be set for some weeks in a warm air, the Honey or Sugar will be as a magnet to this Water, and will by attracting a life out of the air turn it into sharp Vinegar, and that without any thing at all encreasing the weight of the same. By this means Water, by the addition of Honey, Sugar, Malt, or any other Vegetable Juice, will, by the operation of the hidden and attracting essential Salt, pass together with it into excellent Vinegar. But now some or other may imagine that the Honey, or the juice of the Fruit and Corn, have in them an hidden acidity, which by the help of the warm encompassing air, hath revealed it self, and so did not attract its birth out of the air: But I will shew you the contrary, as follows: Take a pound of Honey, Sugar, or some other Vegetable Juice, and force it over in a Retort into a Receiver, and you will find that there will destil over 10 or 12 lots (or half ounces) of insipid Water, and so many of acid water; the remainder is a dead ashes, and have nothing in them; the Vinegar and Phlegm that ascended, will not yield one pound of Liquor, and the Vinegar it self, with its acidity, will scarce be so strong in taste as those ten pounds of water that are turned into Vinegar by the air.

This now demonstrates, that there was not in the Honey any more acidity than what was thence drawn out by the help of destillation, for the remaining ashes have not any taste at all. But put case that the acidity which is driven out of the Retort into the Receiver by the force of Fire, should be as sharp as Aq. fortis, (when as tho’ it is scarce as sowre as Vinegar) yet would it hardly make ten pounds of Water so acid as to be compared with the other which is made by the essential Salt and the Air; so that it is evident that the acidity (as being a life) is drawn by the Magnetick Virtue of the Honey out of the air.

But as touching this Essential Salt of Vegetables, its being a Magnet, to extract an acetous spirit out of the air, and communicate it to the dead water. You are here well to observe, that the universal spirit or soul of the World may be drawn out of the Air many and sundry waies. In the aforementioned Example of Vinegar is a spirit extracted, which is fit for the converting of Vegetable Liquors into Vinegar. In Hermaphroditical salts, the Universal Nitrous spirit becomes burning, as in Wine, Ale, and Metheglin. All these are so made by the means of air, without which no Wine or Ale can ferment, and without fermentation it is impossible for a burning spirit to be generated; which said spirit is easily afterwards turned into Vinegar, and this Vinegar into Nitre, and this Nitre again into a burning Spirit or Vinegar; for every Life is of one and the same original, and may by the benefit of Art be changed out of one nature or property into another.

So likewise the same is to be understood in the generation of Salt-petre, all Salts of Animals, Vegetables, and Minerals are dead, afore they get themselves a life after a magnetical manner out of the Air, and be made into Salt-petre; for amongst all salts, none deserve to be called a Live Salt, but that one of Salt-petre, which by the Philosophers is called the Watchful Dragon, which likewise at the beginning was dead, but hath got himself a Life out of the air. By all which it is most clearly manifest, that the life of all things ariseth out of the air, and that those Creatures which come not into the air want Life and that such things as already have life, are choak’d and die if the air be taken from them. Hence comes the death of all things, by a suppressing or taking away of air, (in which air the Life of all things consists) what way soever it be done by, as the aforesaid example of the Vinegar teacheth; for if Honey or Sugar were not made thin with Water, there would never have hapned that changing into Vinegar. So likewise Grapes, Apples, Pears, Barley, Oats, Wheat, were they not moistened with water, but remained dry, they never would get the nature and property of Vinegar, and that for this reason, because the air could never infuse its life into a dry and shut up body.