You must know this that all salts, if they shall shoot into great crystals, there must be a great quantity of them, for of little there comes but little. And if you will make great and fair white crystals of tartar, which will be no better than the former, but only pleasant to the eye, then you must proceed in this manner.
Take of white tartar made into powder about ten or thirty ℔. pour so much water upon it, as is needful for to dissolve it, and boyl it by a strong fire in a tinned kettle, until all the tartar be dissolved, which you may know by stirring in it with a wooden ladle, and skim off diligently all the filth rising on the water; and you must take heed, that you take neither too much nor too little water to it; for if you take too little, part of the tartar will remain undissolved, and so will be cast away and lost among the slime: but if you take too much of it, then the tartar is too much disspersed in the water, and cannot shoot well, and so will likewise be lost, being cast away afterwards with the water. For I have heard many a one complain, that they could get but little of a pound, and therefore supposed the tartar to have been naught, whereas the fault was not in the tartar, but in the workman, that managed not well his work, pouring away one half which did not shoot with the water: but if you proceed well, then four pound of common tartar will yield ℔ iij. of pure white crystals. The solution being well made, and no skim more rising at the top, cover the kettle, and let it cool without removing from the warm place it stands in, which will be done within three or four dayes, if the kettle be bigg. But the fire must be taken away from under the kettle, and so let it stand for the time mentioned. In the mean while the Tartar will crystallise to the sides of the kettle, which crystals after the time is expired, and the water poured off, are to be taken out and washed and boyled again with fresh water, and so skimmed and crystallised; and this proceeding must be still reiterated, untill (which is done the third or fourth time) the crystals are white enough: then take them out, dry and keep them for use; whereof from ʒ j. to ℥ j. made into powder, and taken in wine, beer, warm broth or other liquor, will give some gentle stooles, and serveth for those, which cannot endure strong physick. This tartar may be sharpned with Diagridium or any other purging drug, that so you need not take it in so great a quantity at once, but a lesser dose may serve turn. But if you do not look for great crystals, but only for Tartar well purified, then you may use this following manual, and you will get exceeding fair and glistering little crystals, which need no beating into powder, but by the working come to be so pure and fine, as if they had been ground upon a stone, and looking not like a dead powder, but having a gloss, like unto small glistering snow that fell in very cold weather, and it is done thus: when the crystals are come to be pure enough by often dissolving and coagulating, then dissolve them once again in pure water, and pour the solution into a clean vessel of wood, copper, or earth being glased; and let it not stand still (as above taught with the crystals) but as soon as it is powred in, with a clean wooden stick stirr about continually without ceasing, till all be cold, which will be done in half an houre. In this stirring the Tartar hath no time to shoot into crystals, but doth coagulate into the smallest glistering powder, pleasant to behold, and like unto frozen snow settleth at the bottom of the vessel; then pour off the water, and dry the powder, and keep it for use. The waters which you poured off, in regard that they contain yet some Tartar, ought not to be cast away (as others do) but evaporated, and the Tartar contained in them will be saved, and so nothing will be lost, and in this manner not only white Tartar may be reduced into clear crystals, but also the red being several times dissolved and crystallized, loseth its redness, and turneth white and clear. Besides the abovesaid, there is another way to reduce the Tartar into great white crystals at once by precipitation; but these being good enough for our purpose, viz. to make good medicines out of metals, I hold it needless to loose more time by the relation of it, and so I will acquiesce.
Another way to make a metallised spirit of Tartar.
Take of purified Tartar dissolved and coagulated but once, as much as you please, pour so much rain or other sweet water to it as will serve to dissolve it; in which solution you must boyl plates of metals, until the Tartar have dissolved enough of it, so that it will dissolve no more; the sign whereof is, when the solution is deep coloured of the metal, and during your boyling you must often supply the evaporated water with pouring on of other, lest the Tartar come to be too dry and burn; and this solution may be done best of all in a metallical vessel; as when you will make the solution of iron, you may do it in an iron pot; and for copper you may take a copper kettle, and so forth for other metals, a vessel made of the same is to be taken. But you must know that gold, silver, and crude Mercury, unless they be first prepared cannot be dissolved like iron and copper, but when they are prepared first for the purpose, then they will also be dissolved. In like manner some minerals also must be first prepared, before they can be dissolved with Tartar and water. But if you can have good glasses or glazed vessels of earth, you may use them for all metals and minerals for to dissolve them therein, and the solution you may not only use of it self for a medicine, but also distill it, and make a very effectual spirit and oyl of it as followeth.
To distill the spirit and oyl of Lead and Tin.
Take the filings of Lead and Tin, and boyl them with the water or solution of Tartar in a leaden or tin vessel, untill the Tartar be sweetned by the water, so that it will dissolve no more, to which pass it will be brought within twenty four hours, for both these metals will be dissolved but slowly, but if you would perform this solution sooner, then you must reduce the metals first into a soluble calx, and then they may be dissolved in less time than an hour. The solution being done, you must filtre it, and in B. abstract all the moisture to the thickness or consistency of honey, and there will remain a pleasant sweet liquor, which of it self with out any further preparation may safely be used inwardly for all such diseases, for which other medicaments, made of these metals are useful. Especially the sweet liquor of lead and tin doeth much good in the Plague, not only by driving the poyson from the heart by sweating, but also by breaking or allaying the intolerable heat, so that a happy cure doth follow upon it: but externally the liquor of lead may be used succesfully in all inflammations, and it healeth very suddenly, not only fresh wounds, but also old ulcers turned to fistulaes; for the Tartar cleanseth, and lead consolidates.
The liquor of tin is better for inward use than for outward whose operation is not so fully known yet, as that of lead. But if you will distil a spirit thereof, then cast it in with a ladle by little and little, as above in other distillations oftentimes was mentioned, and there will come over a subtle spirit of tartar, carrying along the vertue and best essence of the metal, and therefore doth also prove much more effectual than the common spirit of tartar, which is made alone by it self, and this spirit as well that which is made of tin, as that of lead, if it be well dephlegmed first, may be used and held for a great treasure in all obstructions, especially of the Spleen; and few other medicines will go beyond them; but besides there must not be neglected the use of good purging medicines, if need require them. With the spirit there cometh over also an oyl, which is of a quick operation, especially in wounds and sores of the eye, where other oyntments and plaisters may not so fitly be used, for it doth not only allay the heat and inflammation, a common symptome of the eye wounds, but also doth hinder and keep back all other symptomes which few other medicaments, are able to do; and for the residue, if it be driven further by the strongest fire, then there will come over a sublimate, which, in the air dissolveth into oyl, which is also of a powerful operation, not only in physick, but also in Alchymy.
And the Lead runeth together into a fair white Regulus, which is much whiter, purer and fairer than other common lead: but the tartar retaines the blackness, and raiseth it self to the top as a fusible dross, which is impregnated with the sulphur of lead, wherewith you may colour hair, bones, feathers and the like, and make them to be, and remain brown and black.
I made tryal once of such a distillation in an iron vessel, whereby the same in the inside was so whitened by the purified lead, that it was like unto fine silver in brightness: which afterwards trying again, it would not fall so fair as at first; whereat none ought to wonder, for I could write something more (if it were fit) of tartar, knowing well what may be effected with it, if I did not stand in fear of scoffers, which vilify all what they do not understand. I durst presume to call tartar the Sope of the Philosophers; for in the cleansing of some metals, by long experience I found it of admirable vertue; though I would not be understood thus, as if I did count it to be the true Azoth universalis Philosophorum, whereby they wash their Laton: but I cannot deny, but that it is of particular use for the washing and cleansing of several metals; for it is indued with admirable vertues for the use of metals, whereof in other places more shall be said hereafter.