The Hermetic museum, restored and enlarged : most faithfully instructing all disciples of the sopho-spagyric art how that greatest and truest medicine of the philosopher's stone may be found and held. Now first done into English from the Latin origin

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gold net ther in colour nor in substance. That whicli is extracted frona it is the red and white tincture. V The philosopher's go id

but the philosopher's go id is the qui Chening sermoni iiseis. V Aga in 'in the Sevenili Stes of the I adder of the Philosophers V : Their

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and this body is the centre of knowledge, the concentrationthereos, and the habitation f tinctures. V Once more There fore Hercules says Solve the body of magnesia whicli hasbecome whi te and like the leaves of the bramble.' This is thebody ; the foui is the esssen ce whicli is called the philosopher'sgold. V For with water the spirit ascend s in to the upper air.

persect gold, their regenerate gold, and by many Other nameSbesi deS. lf any one cloes not perceive their mean ing at the firStglance, he must blame his own ignorance, not their j ea lota Sy. The reader now knows that the substance of our Stone isnei ther animal nor vegetabie, and that it cloes not be long to theminerat S Or the base meta is, but that it must be extracted Domgo id and silvor, and that our go id and silver are in Ot the vulgar,

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greatest arcanum os ali, and the root os the matter. A solutiontakeS place Ivlien we transform a dry thing into a liquid. a hard thing into a sost, a hidden thing into One that i S manis St, I. e. , heia a solid is changed into water not, hONeVer, the Vulgar ater as Parmenides and Agadmon in The Crowd teach us : When so me persons hear of the liquefaction, they thin k a changetakeS place in to the water of the clouds. But is they had readand undet stood our books, they would know that our water is permanent), but in to the water os the SageS, et e., the elementarySUbStan Ce, as Arnold Ros. I., cp. i X.) says : 'The object of the Sages is to dissolve the Stone into iis mercury. Or elementarymatter V And Avicenna says Thou whO would est alta in Our object must first ei cloavour to dissolve and sublime the tvvoluminaries, whicli is the first stage of the e X periment, that theymay beco me qui ct silver.' There re Arnold Ros. II., Cp. ii.)describes the solution as a resolving of bodies, and a preparationos the first Matter or Nature. And Richard the Englis liman Cp. Xviii.) writes thus : First the Stone must be resolved into iis elementary substance seeing that it is an union of body and Spirit . that the two may beco me one mercuriat water. V But Ovenas this first solution is the most vitai part of Our process, SO i S italso the most difficuli, as Eobold Vogelius testifics when hesays How hard this achi evement is can be amrmed by thoseu ho have perii med it. V Bernard os Trevisan, in his book ad dressed to Thomas of Bononia, says He who knows thesecret os the solution is acquainted with the arcanum os the Art, whicli is, to mingle kinds, and effectu alty to e Ytraci elementSsrom elements whicli lie hid in them. V The solution must notbe made with aqua sortis : sor aqua sortis Corrodes and deStroyS

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it always lay hid in them) may appear by the mediation Of the sat d

s me Episti e he writes The Solution Ahould be permanent. sothat Dom both elemenis, Vig., the male and fernale Seed, a ne SpecieS may reSUlt. Amen, I Say unto YOu that no naturalwater Cara dissolve metais, eXcept that whicli is always in them substantialty and formally, and whicli the metals themselves, being dissolved, may again Consolidate. V Thus Morso leus, in

The Crowd V says Every body is dissolved with the spirit thalis j oined to it, and doubiless also hecomes spirituat. An devery spirit is modi fied and coloured by bodies, to whicli spiritis thus added a tinging colour Whicli stands the test of fire. Hence the student of our art must diligently enquire u hatthat water is. For the knowledge of the menstruum,' SaySRaymond Comp. An ., p. i. is a thing without whicli nothing canbe done in the magistery of this Art. Nothing preserves the metal Swhile it dissolves them, but our menstruum,' which, as he furtherstates in his Codicil ,' is the water by whicli the metal S aresolved, while ali their essentiat properties are Conserved. V Thoughthis is the Great Arcanum whicli Our Sages have always hept

we will put 3 ou on the right tracti by two quotations. The first is found in the abi id ged Rosary, and runs as Milou A Thefirst preparation and Mundation of this Art, is the Solution fr.e., reduction of the body into water, Le., into quic silver, and this they Cali the Solution, when they say : Let the gold be dissolved whicli is hid in the body of magnesia, that it may be reduced totis First Matter, that thoiace it may become Sulphur and quicksiluer, and not be again liquefied into water. The object os our solution is to malae it liquid, and resolve it in to the Substance os qui ct silver that the saltia ess of iis sulphur may be diminishod, whicli divine sulphur is prepared by eXtraction frona two Sulphurs, when the Spirit meets the bOdy. The second quota-

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These things take to heart. This Stone, I dare to teli thee, is theseo erit essen ce of the metal, and thou must be cares ut how thoudost oblatia it. For this solvent is invisibie, although with the Secondary philosophic water it may, by the Separation Os elemenis, become visibie in the forna of pure water. O ut of this Solvent, and with it, thou mayst obta in the Sulphur of Nature, isit be natural ly turn ed into a pure spirit. Theia thou maySt withit dissolve thy fundamentat mass fi. e. gOld and Sit Ver . In these two quotations the whole mystery of the solution is revealed. Is you wili consider the properties and po verS Os Nature, and compare them with these wOrds, and anni hi late all

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For by the revelation of the great and good God) Ι have attained this Art only by persevering application. Vigil S, and

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dissiculi and clangerous descent. Then I was forta that I had