37. How the Silver (wherewith the Gold has been separated out of the Aq. Regia) is to be gotten [or reduced] out of its Calx.
After that the Solution of the Silver being poured into the Aqua Regia, hath extracted the greatest part of the Gold; the Aqua Regia is to be poured off clear from the Silver remaining in the bottom, and is to be used about new Extractions. But if so be it should yet contain Iron in it, it must be concentrated by Lead-ashes. The white Calx of Silver is to be put upon some Cloth over a glass or stone Vessel, and so is to be freed from the remaining Aqua Regia, which will drop from it; and by pouring on of warm water, it must be altogether rid of the Aqua Regia, which as yet adheres thereunto. This done, your Linnen-cloth being strong and three double, the Common water is to be squeezed strongly thereout of, and the Calx it self laid by, to dry; which may afterwards be reduced in the Secret Crucible, or be used about a Cementation of Lapis Calaminaris into Gold and Silver.
38. How the said Calx of Silver is to be reduced without any loss of its weight, and without any Detriment.
Forasmuch as this white Calx of Silver is made so very volatile by the Salts, as that it cannot be reduced at all in the common melting Pots or Crucibles without great Detriment, there is no way of preventing that loss more commodiously than this which follows.
Mix this silvery Calx with an equal weight of a Sal Alkali, and cast it into the secret red hot Crucible, wider at bottom and narrower at the top, the which you must cover with its Cover made of the Lute of Wisedom. By this means will the Calx melt, nor will it lose any thing by fume, nor will it penetrate into the melting Pot or Crucible: and so the Silver impregnated with the Gold will be conserved without hurt, which being granulated the Gold may be separated by Aq. Fortis: Now this very Solution of the Silver by the Aq. Fortis, may be again used to gather [or separate] more new extracted Gold, and so will afterwards produce the Silver to be reduced the same way we instructed thee, and so give thee a perpetual Separatory Operation of Gold and Silver, which may every where be exercised with a great deal of profit.
39. Another way teaching to reduce fugacious Silver with greater profit.
Put upon the Rudder of thy Silvery Ship, the little Fish called Remora, that so it may be freed from its speedy flight, and abide quiet. Melt thy said Ship together with the Remora that fits on the Rudder in the secret four-square melting Pot, in which melting together, there is not onely recovered all the Silver without any Detriment, but it doth also get an increase of its weight, out of the white Bristles or Fins of the little Fish, and becomes enriched with Gold by its Bloud: so that this Additament yields (in the Reduction) a greater quantity of better Silver than other Additaments do. But as concerning other Commodities or Benefits that this fugacious Silver bestows, it shall (God willing) be taught afterwards.
Thus much was I willing at present to teach and reveal, concerning the extracting of volatile Gold out of Stones and the poorer Oars, and of a successive graduating of Silver into Gold. There shall be more taught elsewhere.
40. A gainfull extraction out of the poor Oars or Minera’s of Silver and Copper, by the moist way.
These Minerals or Oars are to be dealt with after the same way as we showed above about the Minera’s of Gold, viz. they are to be heated red hot, quenched, and ground with Mill-stones and be moistned with Aqua Fortis, and to be extracted after the like manner as the Oars or Minera’s of Gold are, all the difference being onely in the Waters; for Aqua Regis is to be used to extract the Gold with, and Aqua Fortis for the extraction of the Silver. If therefore there be the Minera’s of Gold and Silver at hand, the Gold is to be extracted by Aqua Regis, and the Silver by Aqua Fortis; and both the Solutions are to be mixt together, in which mixion the Silver precipitates to the bottom in the Aqua Regis, and withall fisheth out the Gold out of the Aqua Regis.