But that I so abruptly break off this discourse, it is not without Reason, for I am confident I have writ plain enough to him whom GOD favours.
Note: If to your Hermes Seal, you add such Sand or Flints, as per se abound with the first Ens of Gold, you will acquire the more noble Tinctures.
CHAP. XXII.
How to prepare a famous Universal Medicine of Gold.
Recipe three or four Ounces of the coagulated and irreducible Bloud of the Lion; of which the little Book of Dialogues treats. Dissolve them, in the dry way, by the help of Sal-mirabile, into a Red Stone; from which reduced to Powder, extract its Tincture, by the help of Alcolizate Spirit of Wine. This Tincture is a famous Aurum Potabile against many Diseases. Also it coagulates living Mercury into Sol. I purposed to have prepared no small quantity of this Aurum Potabile, that I might therewith help and succour the Distress of the Diseased. But I was hindred for two years, so as I could not attend this Operation. Now I have found an easier Method of preparing it, and by help of that, do hope hereafter I shall do more than I could doe before. Touching its salutary use in Medicine, and its Coagulation of Mercury, shall (if GOD will) be treated of hereafter, before it be long. Here the Description of that would be too tedious.
CHAP. XXIII.
How a Medicinal Water may be Distilled from Jupiter and Mercury, by the benefit of Fulmination, or a sudden Flaming Fire.
Make an Amalgama of Tin and Mercury in equal weights: Mix this Amalgama with Sulphur, Tartar and Nitre mixt in equal parts, and Grind them exactly upon a Stone, and then your Matter, with its Fulmen, is fit for Distillation. Therefore, when you purpose to distill a Medicinal Water from Jupiter and Mercury, begin your Operation thus.
Against some Wall, set up five or six Glass Cucurbits, [or Subliming-Pots of Earth glazed within] one above another, so as they may exactly shut in one into another, and let the Junctures be firmly closed with Paper and Starch, as I taught to be done in preparing Spirit of Salt. The lowest Glass must have an Orifice in the side, into which the neck of the Distillatory Vessel may be inserted. Which Vessel must be made in form of a Box or Cabinet round, a span broad and high; in the upper part thereof, which is to be filled with Sand, the Cover may be included in such wise, as I taught in the Second Part of my Philosophical Furnaces; yet below it must not be round, but plain; so as standing out from some Bench it may be fitted to the Receivers. When all Junctures of the Receivers shall be closed exactly, your Furnace is compleat. Then, at one time put in no more of the Mixture into a Crucible set in that Furnace, than one Ounce. From this (when you have kindled it with a live Coal, and nimbly put on the Cover again) will be excited a Fulmination, and flame suddenly penetrating, and with great noise separating the Mercury from the Tin; in which separation, part of the Jupiter and Mercury ascends in the form of a sowerish Water, but another part in the Species of a subtile yellow Powder. When this Fulmination ceaseth to fume, take out that Crucible, and put another in his place: set fire of the Mixture in that, and let it burn as before; and continue the same labour, taking out and putting in, as long as any of the Mixture is left. Then take the Water distilled, together with the Flores, out of the Recipients. That Water (when digested with gentle heat for a sufficient time) is coagulated into a Medicinal Red Salt. The Flores must be dried and fixed with fresh fulminating Matter, and as before sublimed. Then again will ascend Water and Flores. All the other Flores remain fixed in the Crucibles, which (reduced by force of Fire and diligent Fusion) produce an hard Tin, which may be cupellated by the help of Saturn, but vulgar Tin cannot bear this Examen. This leaves somewhat behind it in the Crucible; yet not so much Gold as covetous Men desire; but so much as renders the Medicinal Red Salt acquirable without charge.
Ancient Poets, fabulizing touching this Work, have writ, that Jupiter and Mercury sought entertainment of Philemon and his Wife Baucis, as Persons contented with little, that from them they might receive Meat and Drink liberally. Let him, who desires a more ample Information of these things, peruse such Philosophers, that he may see how highly this Work was esteemed by them. For, as we now said, Jupiter and Mercury turn not into rich and proud Men, (who regard not Art, but thirst after heaps of Gold, by which they may long continue their Pride of life) but to the Lovers of Frugality onely, and into their House bring their own Blessing with them.