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

by Johann Rudolf Glauber

Thus far this Learned Philosopher: To which I shall only add this, That if when he wrote those Essays, Chymists were able to contribute so much to the Necessities and Conveniences of Mankind, when Chymistry was but young in England, and but few Chymists who were accurate in their Operations, and perhaps, fewer who had any competency of Learning, or so much as lightly Tincted with the Hermetick Philosophy; if, I say, that it discovered so great a light when it had but newly ascended our Horizon, and was, as I may say, but in its Infancy, what assistance may now be had from it, when (notwithstanding all the Obstacles, and unkind usage it hath met withal) it is grown to a more virile Age and Vigour: But although Chymistry be much enlarged, and advanced in England, in respect of the Numbers, and Qualifications of the Lovers, and professors of it; yet are not Chymists free from pressing Disadvantages, not having the freedom of administring their own Medicines, how powerful and salutiferous soever, and otherwise adapted to the Necessities of the Sick, than the common Apparatus of Physick. So, that as the Case now stands, the help and Succour which the Sick and Diseased receive from Chymical Physick, is but very small to what they might have, if knowing Chymists had the freedom of exercising that Art in all its parts, which with much Industry, Labour, and Costs, they have been sollicitous to attain. But when this disincouragement of ingenuity and Obstacle of the publick good, shall become more apparent to those in whose power it is to redress it, I do not doubt but it will meet with a Remedy.

But now, to give some account of my present undertaking. I have at length (by God’s help, and the assistance of my Subscribers) finished my Translation of Glauber’s Works, and here present it to the Reader, in the English Tongue. How well I have performed it, I must submit to the judgments of others: I could have been very glad to have seen it done by some abler hand; but when I have heretofore proposed the doing but of some parts of it to those whom I knew might easily have accommodated English Artists therein; telling them that I wondered so Excellent an Author, should be so long extant, and that none should unveil him of his Latin and German Coverings, and put him into an English Dress. I have had for answer, That this Age was not worthy of it; so that it seems to me, that the Providence of God had reserved it for fitter times, although to be done by one of the meanest of the Sons of Pyrotechny. But this I can say, that I have acquitted my self in this matter, as well as the slenderness of my Parts, weakness of Body, and the necessary Affairs of my Laboratory would permit me; but

———Ubi desint Vires, acceptanda est Voluntas.

I desire the Lovers of Chymistry to accept my Labours, with the same good will that I have undergone them, having no other end but to serve my Country. And I hereby return thanks to all those generous spirited Gentlemen and others, who have Subscribed to, and promoted this Work, without whose assistance (the Charge being very great, as well as the labour (to me) almost insupportable) it must yet have remained hid and unserviceable to the English Reader. But I am in an especial manner obliged to that publick spirited Gentleman (whom I ought to name, were it lawful to do it without his leave) who freely offered me and put into my hands a not inconsiderable part of the Materials for this Work, which part also had been more considerable than it was, had not the Spirit of some, (who unjustly hinder’d it) been as Mean and Sordid, as his was Generous. But that Loss was, in part, made up to me, by a well-minded Artist, to whom I also return Thanks.

I have Printed this Book upon far better and larger Paper than I proposed to do it in; for at the time of setting forth my first Proposals, I had not the German Pieces, but when they came to my hands, upon a more accurate computation of the matter, I found that if I should go on to do the Work upon the Paper I had proposed, the Book would swell to too great a thickness for its breadth and length, and not be only ill shaped, but inconvenient to be read. By this means my Subscribers have a much better Book than I promised them, although the Charge hath also been Considerably greater to me, than I at first expected.

The Reader hath all here in one Volumn which Glauber ever Printed, as far as I can find upon diligent Enquiry at Amsterdam, where all his Writings were Printed, and where I purchased the Original Copper Plates belonging to them. But whereas, as ’tis said in the [Explication of Miraculum Mundi], [page 177]. That the Cut there described was not Printed in the Latin Copies, nor to be found among the Original Plates; yet notwithstanding, I was unwilling that the Work should go without the Figure of so useful a Furnace as that is, for the Torrefying, or Calcining of Ores, and separating, and depurating their Metals, for which reason I have caused it to be Delineated and Printed with others before the [Continuation of Miraculum Mundi], after [page 188]. I have also procured from the hand of another Friend, who is a Lover of Art, the Draught of the Refrigeratory, Furnace, or Instrument, which serves for the making the Mercury of Wine, purifying, and fixing of Argent-vive, Antimony, Sulphur, &c. and many other uses which an Ingenious Artist will find out. This Furnace the Author always endeavoured to conceal, but describes it in some part in the beginning of the sixth part of the Spagyrical Dispensatory, to which Description I have added the Figure. The Figures of the several Vessels and Instruments belonging to the Fifth Part of the Furnaces, are referr’d to at the beginning of the Fourth Part, but since, for the better orders sake I have placed them before the said Fifth Part.

These Twelve following Treatises were never Printed in Latin, but in the German Tongue only, viz. The Third, Fourth, and Fifth Centuries; the Second and Third Appendixes to the Seventh Part of the Spagyrical Dispensatory. The Book of Fires. Proserpine. Elias the Artist. The three Fire-stones. The Purgatory of Philosophers. De Lapide Animali. The Secret Fire of Philosophers. All which I have caused to be Translated (my self being ignorant of the German Tongue) by a person well skill’d both in the High Dutch, and also in Chymistry, whereby I hope this Book will not be altogether unserviceable nor unacceptable even to the Learned; besides, all the Works of this Author that are in Latin are very difficultly (if at all) to be met with at any Book-sellers Shop in London, and those that are, at a dear rate: For when I had entered upon this Translation, I was forced to send to Amsterdam to have all the Latin pieces compleat.

The Author in many places refers to his Opus Saturni, Opus Vegetabile, and the Concentration of Heaven and Earth, which Treatises, I am assured, were never printed (at least under those Titles) which also seems to be manifest from his Epistle to the First Century, or General Appendix, wherein he inculcates, that for want of time, he had inserted the sum of them all in that Treatise. He also mentions a Seventh part of the Prosperity of Germany, in the Preface to the Second Part of Pharmacopœia Spagyrica, which was never Printed under that Title, but I am induced to believe it is the Novum Lumen Chymicum, as partly appears by comparing it with the foresaid Preface. And it is evident that in some parts of his Writings he hath mentioned a Treatise by one Name, and afterwards Printed it by another, as, The Testimonium Veritatis, which was afterwards Printed by the Name of Explicatio Miraculi Mundi. As for the Opus Saturni, I have heard that there are some Manuscript Copies of it, and had hopes of obtaining it from two several hands, but both failed me. I have been also informed, that there are Five Centuries in Manuscript more than I have Printed, but could never understand in what hands they were, except one of them, viz. the sixth, the proprietor of which would not be so kind as to let me have it to print.

I have (by the advice of an Honourable Person) left out the Author’s Religious and Moral Digressions, where I could do it without prejudice to the matter; as also his Apologetical Writings, except his Apology against Farnner, which I have printed, for as much as it is intermixt with many profitable Secrets, which perhaps, he would not have published, at least not at that time if they had not been, as it were, extorted from him by the ill Treatment of that Ungrateful Man.

I could not place the several Treatises in that order which the Author published them, without breaking the order of the several parts, as of the Miraculum Mundi, Spagyrical Pharmacopœa, and Prosperity of Germany; for being many years in publishing, they were done promiscuously, but how they succeeded one another so far as the Nature of Salts, the Reader may satisfie himself in the Preface to that Treatise. And as his Writings were published by piecemeal, so are the principal Secrets he teacheth, scattered up and down in divers parts of them, in one place he treateth of a thing obscurely, or but in part; in another place of the same thing openly in that part which he had veiled in the other. Sometimes he declares a Process very openly, omitting only some small Circumstances, or Manual Operation, which would seem to many either impertinent, or not necessary to be done, when notwithstanding, the business will not succeed without it. An instance of this may be given in his Sal Mirabilis, whose preparation he teacheth obscurely in the Nature of Salts, but more openly in the Second Part of Miraculum Mundi. In the Nature of Salts, and in the Sixth Part of the Pharmacopœia Spagyrica, he teacheth how to Dissolve Gold therewith, and thence to make a kind of Aurum Potabile, but wholly omits the adding of a certain Vegetable Sulphur, without which, the work will not answer the Description; this Defect he supplys in the Second Century, after a twofold manner, the one not obvious to every Man’s Apprehension, I mean the intent of the Author, viz. in those Processes where he shews the making of a Vegetable Sulphur; but the other sheweth the necessary Manual Operation in plain and open words. And this he hath done with all his Secrets on set purpose, that they should be found out by none but the Industrious.