The same Aqua Regis doth separate also fine gold from gilded plate. For if that be washed over with it, the Gold will be separated from it, &c.
By the degree of Reverberation.
Moreover also with cement by the degree of Reverberation two Metalls mixed together may be separated the one from the other, but especially if they are not in the like degree of Fixation, as Iron and Copper. For that Metall, which is but little fixed, as Tin, and Lead, is all of it consumed by the degree of Reverberation in cement. For by how much the more a Metall is fixed, so much the lesse is it consumed by cement.
You must know therefore that fine Gold is the most fixt, and perfect Metall, which can bee destroyed, or consumed by no cement. Next to this is fine Silver. If then Gold, and Silver be mixed together in one body, which is wont to bee called part with part, or if Silver contain Gold, or Gold Silver: I say these being thus mixt if they bee reverberated into cement, then the Gold remains entire, and not at all injured, but the Silver is consumed by the cement, and so is extracted from fine Gold: so also is Copper from Silver, and Iron, and Tinne from Copper, and Iron, or Lead from Tinne, and so forth.
Of the Separation of Mineralls.
After that wee have explained (as hitherto wee have done) the separation of Metalls from their Earth, and matter, as also of one Metall from another, and how it is done having passed through it with as much brevity as might be: it will in the next place bee necessary that wee treat also of those things out of which Metalls grow, and are generated, as are the three Principles. Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt, as also all Mineralls, in which the first being of Metalls, i.e. the spirit of Metalls is found, as is manifest in Marcasites, Granats, Cachymies, red Talke, the Azure stone, and the like, in which the first being of Gold is found by the degree of Sublimation. So in white Marcasite, white Talke, Auripigmentum, Arsenick, Litharge, &c. the first being of Silver is found: In Cobaltus, Zinetus, &c. the first being of Iron: In Zinetus, Vitriall, Verdegrease, &c. the first being of Copper: In Zinetus, Bisemutus, &c. the first being of Tin: In Antimony, Minium, &c. the first being of Lead: In Cinnabar, the first being of Quicksilver is found.
Concerning this first beginning you must know, that it is a volatile spirit, as yet consisting in volatility, as an infant lies in the wombe of its Mother, which sometimes is made like to Liquor, sometimes to Alcool.
Whosoever therefore desires to busie himselfe about the getting of the first being of any such body, or to separate it, must of necessity have much experience, and knowledge in the Art of Alchymie.