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bustion by their liquid, and the liquid rendered incapable os bcing
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Separate i stom the essen ce. This the ancients called our sulphur. For after this preparation the essen e is no longer Vegetable or animal, but by the persection os iis heating it hasbeCOme a minerat essen Ce, and is theresore called sulphur ; theessen Ce is nothing but an elementarT fire, and iis liquid, whicli is guarded against combustion, is true elementav air, andi beCauseair is natural ly warm and moiSt, it is called mercury by those jealous ancients. Air Contains in iiself the nature of fire, an delementary fire, again, Contains within iiself the nature of air :thus, by the union of their Common elementS, A true amnigamR-tion Os the two can talae place. Such are the materiai fire and water Which we See. These materiai elements are nothing butan aid to the essen Ces of the elements by whicli they can benatural ly reduced to the highest degree of perfection Θ). This gradation is the only true Alchemy, and there is non e beside.
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elernentary fire was not properly digested by iis liquid.
is no more among the living, I Wili dismiss the subjeci, sornothing but what is favou rabie should be spolien of the dead
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and of the absent. This I Will say, however, that he was a
sublimation and putrefaction. But so me writers have substitu ted for the simple and triae QSsen Ce a Corinin Other OSSCn CC,
with whicli they have deceived the whole worid, and invol Vedmany persons in Considerable losses. Whether their conduct
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mercury and sulphur are the fit si substance of metat s. Those
juggling decet vers have tol l 3 ou so ; but in the Velias of the
must understand the liquid. In a similar lying spirit they have called fire felementary our Sun V and the liquid our MOon Vor the elementary fire foui, and the elementary liquid spirit, be-CRUSC Olementary Substances are invisible. The foui is invisibie fire, and the spirit invisibi e moisture : the out Nard essentiat fi reand water they have called ' hodies,' hecause they are visibi e and palpabie. Nay, they try to malae 3 Ou belleve that these aremetallic hodies, and that 3 ou must dissolve them. But do notiet them deceive 3 Ou. Be on your guard against their dishonest triclis, and Cunning devices; by whicli they set you to eXperiment
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The coction of the animal is almost as imperfeci as that os the vegetable substance : sor iis essen e is eas ity burn ed. Thecoction Os the minerat substances is the most persect os ali, because in them the metallic liquid is more closely uni ted by coction) to iis elementary fi re. Hunce metals a re better able tores ist common fire than the vegetable and animal substances.
hen a metat is placed in the fi re, it cloes not burn with a bright flame like wood ; sor the liquid of wood is not so Completelyjoined by coction) to iis essen ce, as the liquid of metalsis to tu eSSence. The union of the liquid with the essen ceis not metalli C, but vegetable, sor whicli reason the lalter is consumed with a blacla smoke, when, by a higher degree of COCtion, the Vegetabie has been transmuted into a metalli CeSSen Ce, it no longer gives Out a blaCk smolae in common fire. buta Whilo Sm Ohe, RS 3 Ou may See when imperfeci metals are metted in the fire. That is why the Ancients said that 3 ou must first malae the substance blaCk bes ore 3 Ou malae it white, Le., it muStfirst give out a black smolae bos ore it gives out a white. Again they Say Vou must first malae it white besore 3 ou malae it red. To malae red is to malae perfeci, because gold and silver have been rendered perfect by coction, their essen ce being illy uni tedio their liquid, and changed into pure fire. Do not then Suffer 3 oui self to be thrown of your guard by the obscure phraseology of the Ancients. I f you thoroughlystud y the simple fundamentat nature of the metais, 3 ou willi now What their enigmatic expressions mean, and will not, like Some modernS, Conclude from their writings that 3 ou must talaea Certain Substance and dissolve it untii it turias blach, thenagain purisy and calcine it tili the blackness dis appears and it begins to turn whi te and after that, once more in Crease the fi reand calcine and toti untii the substance turns red. Such an interpretation of the langu age of the Ancients Can Only SuggeStitself to persons entiret y ignorant of the nature os metalli CSubStan Ces in deed, the Ancients wrote as they did sol ely inorder to hide their real mean ing froni ali but the close StudentSOs Nature. TO this end they were in the constant habit os emplOying the term s mercury V and sulphur. V And althoughthe metallic essen ce is the true substance whicli, by naturalcoction, must be rat Sed frona the lowest to the highest Stage os
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deVel Opment, and although the mean ing of the Ancients is intelligibie enough to the initialed, yet the ignorant Can gatheri rom their lanauage no more than the faci that the substancemust be talien froni the metals. But where are they to obtam it, and hoW are they to bring it to persection Θ The metallic
being injured : sor is it be separated with fire the liquid musteVaPOrate, and the essen ce vitii iis earth) be Consumed. Nor vili 3 ou be able to separate the essen ce of the imper Ct metal Sby mean S Os aqua fortis, arseni C, aqua Uitae, Or aikali, Without injuring the essen ce and iis liquid by the foret gn mois ture fortite metallic nature Cara bear no fore ign Substance, and is Anys Oreigia moisture Combines Nith the metallic liquid, it loses iis proper quali ty and i S enti rely corrupted. The metallic essen Ce of the perfeci metalS yOu Cannot oblatia in a separate forna : for their liquid and elementary fi reare welded together by so perfeci a proceSS Of Coction, and Sociosely uni ted with their earth, that ne i ther fire nor water Can
undo it Hence, the Ancients Sald that there was no Sulphur in
anything but in the metais, and lience also they called the metallic liquid qui ct silver. But names do not alter facts : thesaci is that the elementary fire must be so uni ted totis element-ary liquid by natural coction that they beco me indivisi ble. Forthe liquid proiecis the fi re against combustion, so that both remalia fixed and unchanged in Common fire. This perfected substance the Ancients have weli called Eli Xir, or fire whicli haS Undergone a procesS os perfeci coction for that whichbel Ore was Crude and raw is cooked. or digested by the process of coctiora. That element whicli, by iis imperfection, causes base metal S to be broken up and dis integraled by fire, has been digested and persected by natural heat. bor thi S reaSOn yoti must not grud ge the labour whicli theproper performance of thi S heating process demandS, seeing thatit includes purification, sublimation, dissolution, and ali the other