"As the best means of gaining these ends, M. Hellot contrived to adapt to the neck of his retort a receiver with two necks, the lowermost of which was inserted into a large ballon. Receivers applied to each other in this manner are called Adopters.
"It is no easy matter to get this Icy Oil out of the ballon: for as soon as the air touches it such a thick cloud of sulphureous fumes arises, that it is absolutely necessary to place the vessel on some shelf over head, because a man cannot stand exposed thereto for a single minute without being suffocated."
This Icy Acid must be shut up with all possible expedition in a crystal bottle accurately closed with a glass stopple, which should be ground with emery in its neck so as to fit it exactly: for it attracts moisture so powerfully, that, unless exceeding great care be taken to prevent all communication with the external air, it will soon dissolve into a fluid.
"The Icy Oil is black; because the acid vapours carry over with them something of a greasy matter, from which Vitriol is seldom free, and which always appears, after repeated solutions and crystallizations of this Salt, in the mother-water which will shoot no more. Now the smallest portion of inflammable matter presently blackens the most highly rectified Oil of Vitriol, which is perfectly clear.
"The Vitriolic Acid, when forced over by a violent heat, carries along with it some ferruginous particles also, that want nothing but to be united with a phlogiston to become true iron. They are easily discovered, either in the common black Oil of Vitriol, or in the blackish crystals of the Icy Oil, by only dissolving them in a large quantity of distilled water: for after seven or eight days digestion a light powder or downy sediment precipitates, which being calcined in a violent fire is partly attracted by the magnet; and being again calcined with bees-wax becomes almost entirely iron."
The Caput mortuum of this distillation of Vitriol is the ferruginous earth of this Salt, and is called Colcothar. When this Colcothar hath undergone a violent fire, as in the experiment now related, scarce any Acid remains therein. Out of six pounds of Vitriol that M. Hellot used, he could recover no more, by lixiviating what was left in the retort, than two ounces of a Vitriolic Salt; and even that was very earthy.
If Vitriol be exposed to a fire neither so violent nor so long continued, its Colcothar will yield a greater quantity of Vitriol that hath not been decomposed. A white crystalline salt is also obtained from it, and called Salt of Colcothar; which is no other than the small portion of Alum usually contained in Vitriol, and not so easily decomposed by the the action of fire.
PROCESS V.
To decompose Sulphur, and extract its Acid, by burning it.
Take any quantity of the purest Sulphur: fill therewith a crucible or other earthen dish: heat it till it melts; then set it on fire, and, when its whole surface is lighted, place it under a large glass head, taking care that the flame of the Sulphur do not touch either its sides or bottom; that the air have free access, in order to make the Sulphur burn clear; and that the head incline a little toward the side on which its beak is, that, as the vapours condense therein, the liquor may run off with ease. To the beak of this vessel fit a receiver: the fumes of the lighted sulphur will be condensed, and gather into drops in the head, out of which they will run into the receiver. There, when the Sulphur has done burning, you will find an Acid liquor, which is the Spirit of Sulphur.