Dissolve as much Sal-Gem, sea salt, or salt made out of the salt fountains, or common salt which is frequently used in boiling of meats, or salt made of Wood ashes, or of the stones of Calx-vive, in Aq. fortis, as much as the water will assume to its self, or be able to dissolve, and let it again cool; then the salt does not concrete or shoot granularly, any more but into longish Cones like salt-petre. Pour off the Aq. fortis, or Salt-petre water, and dissolve it, viz. the salt, again in a Lixivium of Lime, and cristallize it, so shall you have therefrom a Natural, or Genuine Salt-petre, and no less combustible than any other Salt-petre that is digged out of the stables where Cattle have stood. Then again may there be, by the said Salt-petre water, more salt prepared, either common salt, or salt out of Herbs, or Wood, and be dissolved and crystallized, from whence results a new salt-petre, and this operation may be so long repeated, until all the salt-petre water be turned together with the salt, into salt-petre.
This transmutation of salt-petre is perfected in some hours, and from hence may a worthy reward for your pains be reaped, could it be otherwise performed than in Glasses; and indeed, out of one pound of salt-petre, would there come an hundred pounds of petre, if a part of the transmuted salt be still distilled anew into water, and more new salt be by it again transmuted. But there is no such need of setting about a work so laborious, seeing there is at hand a far speedier, or more dexterous way of doing the same, if viz. those salts shall be animated by the air, by the circulation that I have contrived, and so be turned into salt-petre in great quantity: which animation, or hatching as ’twere, may be done in vast quantity by easie labour, and little costs, the air (as we use to say) turning or making both sides of the Leaf: For one portion continually kindles and animates another, no otherwise than as a little Leaven doth a great Mass of Dough, and as a little Fœces, or Yeast, yea, as little as will lie in a Spoon, serves to ferment a whole Vessel of Ale; the same is done here. And indeed, common salt-petre may be implanted into other salts, even as a Vegetable Seed is sown in the Earth, so as thence to get in a short space of time a great encrease, even an hundred, or a thousand-fold.
But the sluggish Companions who had rather fatten themselves with eating, drinking, and sleeping, and wholly give themselves to laziness, who is able to wait so long in the expectation of this thing? Alass for ye, ye sloathful, lazy, and devouring Gluttons, with what face dare ye so manifestly to betray your laziness? I pray, if you put out your Money to Use, and have 5 or 6 per C. as we use to say, a Year, must you not expect the years revolution afore ye receive it? And besides, you run here a hazard too, least your Debtor breaks, and defraud you of the very Principal it self: If you lay out your Moneys on building Houses, so to make a great gain thereby, may not your Tenant be reduced to such wants as not to have wherewithal to pay you, unless haply, out of the very Stubble, or Litter of his poverty? May not your Ships which float about in the Sea, be cast away by Storms and Tempests, or be taken by Pirates? Why are ye not as Patient in your expectation as the Husbandman is, who after he hath sown his Grain, must wait a whole year afore he reaps with advantage what he hath sown. Nay, yet more, if he be pretty fortunate, he scarce gains 6 in the 100, the costs and pains being reckoned; and in the mean time he is in fear, lest the Corn should be blited by the cold, or being near ripe, should by a bad season be spoiled and corrupted in the field. If there happens a year that is droughty, then the Corn cannot grow up high, or ’tis eaten by the Mice; but now in the preparation of Salt-petre all those Cares are saved, and 100 Dollars may yearly yield thee 2, 3, 4, or more gains, and that without any wronging thy Conscience, and without endamaging any other, and without Extortion; for if thou hast much Salt-petre, thou maist promise thy self much gold and silver also, for there will alwaies be such as buy it up; and if thou attentively heedest, thou hast so much delivered thee in my Writings, as that thou thy self maist spend it all on the melioration and Separation of Metals: Nor needest thou, if thou thinkest it good, sell any of the same. Nor is there any reason that thou should be asham’d or repent of such a Work, because one man is sufficient, without any others help, to manage the greatest operation: nor need there great expence, save only a little to build a Small Cottage, wherein the Salt-petre may be kept dry. If you have huge Woods at hand, you may make your Salt-petre out of wood; if you want wood, then out of the dung of Horses, Oxen, or other Beasts, and Sheep, or else out of even common Salt, which we use in seasoning our Meats, out of wood-ashes, and out of Lime: Whatever it be prepared from, it will not cost much, for 1 l. of Salt will yield thee 1 l. of Salt-petre.
But haply some or other may be in the mind to think or demand, why Glauber himself sets not about this work, and reserve the whole Gain to himself? To these I answer, that I am not of Such a greedy desire, as to wish for all to my self; nor will it at all be unacceptable to me, if another hath likewise somewhat; nor will it be at all less lawful for me to do for my self so much as seemeth me good, as for any other to take his liberty, and to do to himself as seemeth him good. Besides too, I am not of the mind to make the thing so very common, but will see whom I communicate ought unto, that so it may be applied to good uses, and not come into the hands of the Unworthy.
The first ten years however Salt-petre will not be of so vile a price, but that it may be made and sold to profit; Who knows whether or no he shall live so long? And if at the utmost it should after 20 or 30 years be of so mean a price, because of this Invention of mine, yet in the interim they may all that while enjoy the profit of the same; and it may be expected from the hands of God, that He will, for the time to come, provide for them some other waies: But never will it be so vile, as to be worth nothing; and if it were so, that you could not make any Money of it, (tho’ it is impossible that it should ever be such a drug) yet (by that manuduction which I have afore given in the 1, 2, and 4th. Parts of my Furnaces; as also in [The Explication of Miraculum Mundi]; in the 2d. & 3d. Part of my Pharmac. Spagyr. and in This Second, and shall be in the following Third and Fourth Parts of the Prosperity of Germany;) it may be improved about many eminent uses, and so Gain be thereof made; for Salt-petre is such a Subject, as you can never have too much of, and is therefore worth our labouring after, and our endeavouring how to prepare it in good quantity, and withal, of finding out what benefit it is naturally able to afford us; for it is even a wonder to consider how great things may be done by the help thereof: It is the greatest Poison and yet may a most excellent Medicine be thereout of prepared: Colder it is than Ice, and yet hotter than any fire. It is the Generator of all things, and also their Corrupter; it vivifies and kills all things; it is heavier than gold, and yet lighter than the Wind; it is also Fire and Water, Air and Earth, Male and Female; it impregnateth and suffereth it self to be impregnated; it is light, and is also darkness; it is black and white: There are in it as many Colours as the world affords; it is fixt and volatile, corporeal and spiritual; it kindles and burns all things, and doth also quench all burnings; it is the Beginning of all things, and yet it causeth the End of all things; that which is Soft, it makes to be congealed and become stiff; and again, that which is stiff or hard, it makes soft.
O Thou Creator of all things, How great a vastness is there of thy wonderful Works? and what a fewness is there of those who understand, or know, or labour to know it! O thou eternal Light! illuminate the dark breasts of the lost Sons of the World; O thou vivifying fire, mollifie, enkindle, heat the stubborn hearts of sluggish Mankind, that are oppressed with sleep, and frozen with cold, that so they may seek thee, and know thee, and learn to fear thee in true Humility, and to honour & worship thee without Hypocrisie. Amen.
An Admonition, and short Repetition of those things which are treated of in this Treatise.
That the Friendly Reader may make this Book yet of more use and benefit to himself, I thought it worth while by way of an Overplus, again to set here afore his eyes those Secrets which have been herein mentioned, what ’tis that the use of them doth consist properly in.
First of all, it hath been shown, how by the means of Salt-petre, all Volatile, and immature Minerals are to be brought to a ripeness both in the moist way and in the dry way, that so they may yield forth out of themselves in the melting, good durable Gold and Silver. Then I taught by what way the Volatile, Arsenical, Coboltick, and Antimonial, Auriferous, and Argentiferous Minerals, may by an easy labour, be by an artificial fusion, and extraction, and also by a precipitation into Regulus’s, and by the purification or cupellation of the said Regulus’s, by the help of Salt-petre, converted or brought into use in the dry way, and the Gold and Silver hidden in them be drawn forth. Thirdly, I have shown the extraction of Gold and Silver out of all the barren, or poorer sort of Minerals or Ores, which are not worth the charges of excocting, or the usual way of proceeding, and of the drawing them out by a singular Art, with the water of Salt-petre, and of rightly working them; which way is to be preferred far afore any usual excoction of those poorer kinds of Minerals, not only because such an extraction is performed without a melting fire, and a Furnace; but also, because in this extraction there is more obtained than is by excoction or forcing out: And yet farther, that which was Volatile in them is fixed together, and retained, by that Water of Salt-petre which would otherwise in a melting Fire fly away in fume. And more than this too, Gold and Silver may by this moist way and that with very easie Labour be extracted and in a due manner perfected, and that commodiously and with no small profit, out of any, the vilest Fossiles (or things dig’d out of the Earth) as out of disesteemed Earths, Dusts, Sands, and Flints, from whence, otherwise you cannot extract any thing neither by Excoction nor by Mercury: So that in all places of the World what coast soever, so it be somewhat a dryish soil, is to be found such kind of Earth, Clay (or Marle) Sand, Flints, and such like which contain in them a thin or sparing kind of Gold and Silver, and from which they may profitably be extracted. Verily it is a dainty Art which may be used in all parts of the World, nor is it at all burdensom to carry, but may be excellently (well, or safely) preferred till need requires. But this is to be noted that the fatter Earth or Clay must first be made red hot and burnt afore it be moistned with the Water of Salt-petre. For without so doing, the Earth would always remain thick (or clammy,) would drink up much water, and it would not easily be separated, but being burned, it suffers it self to be extracted no other than as if it were Sand. So neither do the Ore or Fossiles of Iron which are auriferous and abound with Iron, suffer the Gold to be extracted and precipitated out of them as readily as other Minera’s or Ores do. But the iron, (if then be overmuch of it) makes the Water thick and pappy like Mud. And therefore you must put into that solution a part of common Water, to make it the thinner, that so the Gold and Silver may be the easilier precipitated thencefrom. The auriferous Coppery Ores are to be burnt first, if they are sulphureous, if not, they may then be extracted, though not burnt. The sandy, stony, brittle, and pebblish, Fossiles need no other preparation but to be burnt and ground.