CHEMICAL TESTS

On the Radical Dissolution of Bodies
Especially Metals

Chimische Versuche über die Radikalauflösung der Körper,
besonders der Metalle


Karl von Eckhartshausen

Munich, 1798

Translation, preface and notes by André Savoret



Followed by

The most recent Discoveries on Light, Heat and Fire, for lovers of Physics and Chemistry,

By Karl von Eckhartshausen (Translated from the German by Bernard Husson)


(Access the version with paragraph numbering)

*
Preface to Eckartshausen's "Chemical Essays"
By André Savoret


A few words about this edition.

Les ESSAIS CHIMIQUES was published, for the first time in French, by Éditions de Psyché, in 1938. It is this same text that we will find here, followed by the summary of a booklet that D'Eckartshausen had published in Munich, in 1798. The two texts, brought together here, complement and shed light on each other. The CHEMICAL TESTS are in a way the practical adaptation of the theoretical data exposed in the Memoir which follows it, although chronologically earlier, and whose title, a little long, is: The most recent Discoveries on Light, Heat and Fire, for Amateurs of Physics and Chemistry .

Under the exterior of a rather translucent “chemical” terminology, this last booklet condenses what can be given of Rosicrucian Alchemy. The enigmatic Rosicrucians have caused a lot of ink to flow and many erudite pens to creak. Between those who trace the creation of their Fraternity to the earliest times of the world and those who utter the word mystification about it, there is room for a number of more nuanced opinions, if not more convincing!

The only ones really qualified to shed light on our lantern keep silent, let things be said and written, and smile silently whenever, here or there, often with the sound of a trumpet, some group is founded which takes their former title as a sign. I will not take it upon myself to situate D'Eckartshausen in the Rosicrucian or para-Rosicrucian hierarchy. It is enough for me, among other things, to read it to know that there was rank.

The following pages differ from most hermetic writings published for two or three centuries in that they are not centered particularly on practical work, in the laboratory, but give a very broad place to the principles which command and justify it. Speculative data dominate in the Memoir of 1798, the operative technique in CHEMICAL TESTS. Because, as the author says “When a substance is really present, it must be shown and certified by experience. »

Another originality of the "manner" of D'Eckartshausen is to make only rare borrowings from the classical vocabulary of the hermetists. Our author speaks a simple language. And this simplicity is one of the major difficulties of his work. Even more than the chemists, alchemists and prompters of his time, we are complicated, cerebral, full of abstractions. And we struggle to extricate ourselves from the grip of our stereotyped formulas, technical or philosophical, and our familiar terminologies. It seems to me that D'Eckartshausen writes less for those who know or think they know than for "amateurs" worthy of knowing, whatever their training, learned or ignorant depending on the world.

Disconcerted, I admitted, at first reading, it took me a lot of time to realize the perfect mastery of the author in the two Ways of the Work, both equally legitimate in his eyes, and to situate his technique, traditional in outline, original in certain innovations. And that is why I have ventured on a few brief comments. CHEMICAL TESTS provide the Called with a thin but solid Ariadne's Thread. However, to him the honor and the danger of facing the Minotaur, with the help of Heaven, which will not fail the modest, sincere and prudent seeker. I will do my best to bring him to the threshold of the Labyrinth. To go further would be to go too far.

A. SAVORET.

*
Excerpt from André Savoret's notes on Phosphorus...
Phosphorus is the living Azoth, the universal Mercury or Fire-Water. Throughout the book, the author speaks of it in various ways, considering it in itself, in one of its elements, or under the species of the sensitive support which virtually encloses it (Note by André Savoret).

*


CHEMICAL TESTS

Karl von Eckhartshausen

AUTHOR'S FOREWORD
There was a time when metallic transmutation was considered possible only under the condition of the radical dissolution of the noble metals: only, as this dissolution was held to be impossible, transmutation was also held to be impossible.
But experience proves that man should not prejudge too soon things of which he has no practical notion, and the humble say only: " According to the present knowledge of chemistry, it does not seem possible..., perhaps we lack a higher knowledge".
So I thought. And this meditation led me to the reality of the dissolution of metals, in which the possibility is proved to satiety; for experience is the best syllogism.
What if someone asked me, "So can you make gold?" » ; I would answer him: “To analyze metals, then to synthesize them is still far from producing them”. We know, for example, how to separate the elements of different bodies and then reassemble them, without however being able to artificially produce similar bodies.
If someone asks me: “Is the artificial production of gold possible? » ; then I answer: “I deny nothing as long as I am not convinced of the absolute impossibility; but I believe that demonstrating the impossibility of the practical production of gold is, precisely, as difficult as making gold. »
Among other things, I flatter myself that my experiments have rendered a service to chemistry, because it thus leads us more towards the knowledge of nature. The gold I seek is Truth!
To Gentlemen Alchemists, I write the following:
“Alchemists and lotto players have almost the same fate; each of the former hopes in vain for his universal in each operation, just like the latter, at each draw of the "quine".
I want to tell you my opinion on alchemy: it seems to me that he who seeks gold does not find it; but he who seeks God, as the primordial Force of all forces, he may well find everything in God. It also seems to me that it is not written without reason: Seek above all the Kingdom of God, the rest will be given to you in addition. This truth leads to another: if you do not first seek the Kingdom of God, the rest, in the divine order, will not be given to you.
But what is the kingdom of God? The perfect possession of Jesus Christ in our heart, reigning in him as in his temple, with Wisdom and Love, and illuminating by his Spirit our reason, from within outward, so that we can perceive the exterior of nature.
When we are in possession of this Universal Spirit (ie, the Spirit of Christ within us), then we may perhaps, by His Grace, come to know the exterior of the universal spirit of nature better than ordinary philosophy knows.
As long as man does not intimately possess the art of inner separation (Scheidekunst) of the sacred and the profane, of the pure and the impure, neither can I, externally, separate the blessing from the curse; for the outward blessing is exactly proportionate to the inward. To this Science, which I hold to be the highest, mere science is insufficient; to this must also be added practice and, for practice, power, and for power, the force which comes from Above and which no man can share with another.
Anyone who thinks otherwise on this matter is in deep error. He deceives himself or is deceived by others since he does not know the connection of the inner laws of Divinity with the outer laws of nature. I know well that some say: “Nature follows immutable laws; sulfur and mercury always engender cinnabar; arsenic and sulphur, always the well-known orpiment; twice two is always four, whether these numbers are expressed by a good man or a bad man. Hence it is the same with the highest chemistry. When we finally know matter, if we know its composition, if we have observed it or learned it from others, we can do things as well as anyone else; nature cannot steal her treasures from us, when we constrain it by its own laws.»
Thus reason those who want to enter the sanctuary by climbing the roof. In doing so, they forget that some were, at the door, summoned to restore his property to the Master of the house.
It is true that there is a plane which, at first glance, seems unanswerable and which has so many exterior colors that it has already won over many men of high intelligence. Only he who knows how close God and nature are, how constantly and infallibly God directs his mechanism; he who conceives this great truth of which Saint Paul speaks: in ipso vivimus, i moveimur et sumus, he easily understands that God never lets the reins fall from his sacred hands and that he will never entrust them to anyone who is not deeply united to him. This nature would not be the work of an infinite Wisdom, if its author had not taken care, at the same time, that its power, its secrets, its hidden springs could never be found within the reach of hands other than those of which it is certain that they will never lead the reins of nature except in accordance with its great plan, its holy intentions, its immutable decisions.
Besides, it would be a presumption, bordering on blasphemy, to want to attribute to the highest Being the capacity to abandon the purest, the most sacred and the highest of physical nature to profane hands. I consider, therefore, it is true temerity to want to attain the holiness of nature (which is known to very few and will always be the prerogative of the few), without having first endeavored to attain the holiness of the Grace within.
He who, searching the Bible with a discerning eye, would follow the school of the Prophets, he would find that gold would be an inferior production, if it did not give us knowledge of the primordial physical essence of things, to which are connected forces of nature far higher and more astonishing.
Who can lay claim to the primordial essence of physical forces? Is this really the work of the fighter and the researcher? Or is it not, rather, a work of Grace and pity?
What I say here is not bigotry (Frömmelei), but unshakable and pure truth. And, precisely, this truth has always been kept away from all those who indulged in alchemy, sold its secrets, or claimed to teach them. I have heard much of it, but I have found pure understanding in very few.
I do not deny that the desire to get rich has led some to new and useful discoveries, nor that ordinary chemistry owes much to alchemy. But, as far as the supra- universal is concerned, it seems to me that only the supra-universal can distribute it; that it is reserved for a great purpose of which God alone is master and before which we must bow in humility, without wanting to penetrate it, however that which must happen will be accomplished.
The gold I seek is Truth; my money is Wisdom, and my philosopher's stone is the knowledge of my nothingness - and of the omnipotence of God in the depths of nature.

Presentation of the general conceptions that we have on fire, heat and light
The objective cause of the impression known as light is the luminous substance .
The objective cause of the impression known as heat is only heat matter.
The objective cause of the phenomenon known as fire is never fire matter.
These three causes of the three phenomena of Light, Heat and Fire can be considered either in their concrete manifestation or in their static state.
In the first case, this production is designated by the name of sensible light, sensible heat, sensible fire, or, with other words manifested or developed light (entwickeltes Licht), manifested heat, manifested fire.
In the second state: latent light, latent heat or latent fire. Or again, unmanifest light, unmanifest heat, unmanifest fire.
We understand under the name of absolute luminous substance, any body which, independent of sensible or latent light, is an absolute substance serving as a basis for manifestation. The absolute caloric substance is any body which, independent of sensible or latent heat, serves as the real basis of heat.
The absolute substance of fire is any body which, independent of sensible and latent fire, is necessary as the real substratum of fire.
Precisely, the question: "Do absolute light, heat and igneous substance exist?" is the one that most interests today's researchers; now, the object of my work is to establish the existence of these absolute substances.


Rational assumptions about the possible existence of absolute luminous heat and igneous matter
Luminous heat and fire are for us, up to now, phenomena of a certain order and are felt simply as such. They have for us, so far, only a subjective existence because the objective reality of their existence is still hidden from us.
However, despite this concealment of objective reality, the phenomenon of light, heat and fire continues to be experienced by us. Sensation confronts us with a cause which acts on the sensory organs, and the objective acting cause must be both substance and matter.
The essence of light, heat and fire can be admitted as an object filling a space. But filling a space is a property of the essence of matter. Consequently, light, heat and fire (as filling space) must also belong to it.
The objective cause of all sensations is and always remains matter; light, heat and fire are felt and apprehended by all the organs; the subjectivity of sensation necessarily presupposes the objectivity of matter.
A substance without matter is not conceivable. It is inconceivable to grasp a substance without also grasping matter at the same time. Light, heat and fire are phenomena: they are felt. Phenomenon and sensation presupposes a reality which can only be matter, because matter is the objectivity necessary for all phenomena and all sensations.
All these anticipations of reason already let us suppose that there must be an absolute substance of light, heat and fire. Only, when a substance is really present, it must be shown and it must be certified by experience.
By very simple manipulations, I separated these three substances from phosphorus. (1).

Nature of metals
Metals are in themselves nothing but phosphorus, bound to a compacted earth, analogous to talc.
The more phosphorus locked up in a metal, the nobler it is. Gold, silver, platinum, for this reason contain the most phosphorus and their earth is that which contains the most compacting force (einschrankendekraft).
The diversity of the metals depends, for that very reason, on the diversity of the quantities of phosphorus which they contain; form and color are inherent in this condensation .
When analyzing all metals, we find compacted earth, or the like of talc, coloring earth, and phosphorus.
In all metals, phosphorus is the allied part and what binds is the compacting and coloring earth (2)
This is why phosphorus might just be the sole solvent of metals because it is the part which is allied to them. Through it, all metals can be dissociated and again reconstituted.
All metals have the same fundamental elements and differ only in their proportions.
By changing the proportions of their constituent elements, metallic substances can be transformed.
But, for this transformation, a radical dissolution is necessary .
The proportion of the principles decides the form; quality is inherent in form.
Hence there is an ascending and descending progression for ennoblement or debasement. The more phosphorus there is in a metal, the more noble it is. Consequently, the most massive condensation of phosphorus is the condition of the greatest ennoblement.
Making glass and making gold have the greatest analogy. Glass consists of sand and alkali; the alkali stretches the sand and the stretched sand tightens the alkali. And so results a product which is glass.
The phosphorus expands the compacting earth, the latter tightens the phosphorus, and the result is a product which is the metal.
When the glass is coated with alkali, it lets itself be decomposed into its different parts.
When the metal is covered with phosphorus, it allows itself to be decomposed in the same way.

Statement of Concepts on Radical Dissolution
Radical dissolution consists in perfect penetration, that is to say: that the constitutive substance as well as the agent of the solution penetrate the object to be dissolved.
When this penetration is not effective, there is no radical dissolution, but only a mechanical division, in which the substances do not act one on the other, but only one in the other. This explains why metallic limes (oxides) increase in weight, while the radical dissolution of metals by phosphorus produces light and resinous bodies.
During the radical dissolution, a perfect chemical penetration takes place; the internal is reached and not only the external binding parts. This is why the “solvens” mixes completely with its “ soluto ”.
In the noble metals, the fundamental substances are associated in such a way that they cannot be separated either by nature, or by art, or by any foreign means.
But, as soon as noble metals are manipulated with the fundamental base substance, which is also their element, they gradually melt in it, like ice in water, and spread in their solvent.
This radical dissolution is a gentle fusion which must take place without destroying the metallic form; this is why the means of radical dissolution must be of the same nature as the object to be dissolved.
But the medium of radical fusion and dissolution must be of the same nature, that is to say, it must consist of the essential substances and forces of which the perfect metal itself is constituted, and must also possess the same elements, but in a fluid state and in a higher degree of activity.
Such a medium is the Universal Menstrue, the + of the philosophical Mercury of Nature, the dragon whose head eats its own tail.
This Universal can, after having absorbed the interior of the metal, thicken itself into this body which is called the Stone, capable of uniting afterwards with other metals purified and dilated by fire, in order to bring them to their supreme perfection and to make them the redeemers of the rest of the imperfect metals; this perfection is called transmutation, but is simply a radical reunion of the metallic principles which, by this reunion, necessarily changes their external form.
Profane chemistry exhausts itself in its work of multiplying, by new combinations, the species of metals already known; it has already brought up to twenty different metals, instead of striving to reduce them all to a single species (which is, in short, in the mineral kingdom, the goal of Nature), in order to come closer to the knowledge of metallic nature.
So it only knows, up to now, the mechanical separation of substance from metals: the true radical dissolution, which is the only true solution, transfusio per minima and complete penetration, is unknown to it.
To animate a body amounts to saying: to transmit this caloric substance to it and, through it, to give it penetration, subtlety and movement.
The animated alone can in turn animate; to make metals alive means to animate them.

Main remarks on the dissolution of Gold
Gold consists of three things, two superficial, but one essential.
The surface ones are the binding parts of the metal; they are the metallic earth and the liquid phosphorus.
The "bound" is the sulfur - phosphorus (P hosphor-Schwefel) and that is why all the metals dissolve radically, as soon as they are mixed with the sulfur-phosphorus: the sulfur which is in the metal units with the bound parts of the mixture and meets the binding parts, or the metallic base, the virgin earth .
Thus unites the sulfur of the metal, as the soul of gold, with the phosphorus, abandoning the body-gold or the earth-gold. The spirit follows the soul.
Then the body becomes white as snow; this white body or pure earth must again receive its soul, because the spirit and the body receive after their reunion a new form (3).
Where one can separate this white earth, is precisely found the Stone or base of the metals. It remains to revitalize this pure body by means of its soul, which takes place by giving it its animator or phosphorus.
This phosphorus is at the same time the fire of corruption and that of generation. It corrupts impure bodies and regenerates pure bodies, bringing them to higher perfection.
Therefore, phosphorus has the closest kinship with the metallic earth. Consequently, when this earth is put in contact with a metal, the potential igneous force (force of phosphorus) contained in this metal immediately unites with the metallic earth, rejects the impure and ennobles it with the igneous force. which is proportional to it and which is allied with the metallic earth.
If we take pure metals, melt them, and add to them at the same time phosphorus or bodies containing phosphorus, they multiply in weight.
The silver is transformed into gold insofar as the phosphorus has penetrated it, through a certain portion of compacting earth.
All the transmutation of the Ancients consists in the fact that the earth adorns, the soul, the internal, attracts phosphorus, bathes in this same pure metal, uniting with the pure and rejecting the impure.

On the Interior of Things
Inside things is a pure, igneous, sulphurous, incombustible substance which, when fixed, might be called the Light of Nature; for it is the luster and form of all metals, illuminating and perfecting all bodies.
This internal salt possesses a force that changes forms, coloring and penetrating them. This force penetrates all metals, forms them radically, units with them indissolubly and, under the species of a tingant Stone, transforms them into another metal. Even diamonds are melted like water by this salt.
This salt is the true Sulfur Balm.
In the center of the metallic ashes is an extraordinarily pure salt, like a limpid crystal, which liquefies very easily when it has reached its most extreme degree of purification; in him resides the incorruptible power to give perfection and all possible increase. This force cannot be destroyed by consuming fire, nor dissolved by the cold of dissolving water, because it is animated and moved by its own spirit, and is reintegrated into its primitive state. This salt is found, in the creatures of the subterranean realm, of a particular fixity and penetration.
This is why salt, among all peoples and in all religions, is considered sacred.

On the Fundamental Separation of Metals
1
Our Nature Sulfur is the salvens universale, the key to the interior of nature (4).
2
By this key, the bodies are opened, to receive the terra virginea (5).
3
This terra virginea, this substance of nature is the fixed substratum, as the sulfur of nature is the volatile. Sulfur in nature is the higher centre; the substance of nature, the lower
These two must be brought together, and that is what art is all about.
1°. - Separating the principles from the body;
2°. - Purify these principles;
There are innumerable paths in the art, and innumerable matters the principles can be extracted from, but the shortest paths are the best (6).
Do not be misled by all the methods by which some have obtained, in the most tiring way, these two fundamental stones or matters.
You know nature's sulfur or volatile stone. That's enough. From there you will obtain the fix of the bodies or the terram virgineam (7). You don't need to know more than to use these principles.
Nature's sulfur is the volatile earth that hovers above our heads.
The substance of nature is dry water which does not wet the hands; both are one matter, but in two different forms.
Our subject is, therefore:
single, double, triple and quadruple,
10
and, for this reason, universal.
It is simple, because the Superior and the Inferior are united in it; the radical Humidity of nature, in which the Sulfur of nature and the Substance of nature are combined.
It is double, considered as natural sulfur or higher principle, and as natural substance or lower principle: as form and matter.
It is threefold, containing Spirit, Soul and Body, or: force, organ and form.
It is fourfold because it contains a fixed moisture and a fixed dryness or the four elements
Fixed humidity, without water.
Fixed drought, landless,
Volatile humidity, without air,
Volatile drought, without fire.
And it is in this that the true knowledge of universal matter consists. By these properties alone it is universal. In this matter, all terrestrial power is included; only this power must be developed and implemented.
You should know that the Ancients looked for this earth in different bodies, then they calcined it on a high fire and in this way obtained the sulfur of nature which they then exposed to the air, in order to obtain our Acid (8).
The white earth and our sulfur are therefore the same matter and its solvent must once again be dissolved with it, since it differs from them simply in proportion and digestion, their ratios being those of extensum to concreto .
When therefore the wet earth (9) or Sulphur-Phosphorus, is joined to our dry Water or substance of nature (terra virginea), the Rebis of the Ancients results, that is to say two things in one.
When we project a sufficient portion of phosphoric acid into our earth and dissolve it, this solution is called mercurius duplicate.
The perfection of the work consists in uniting the heavenly Spirit with matter; this Spirit resides in our Sulfur of nature, and it is apprehended by the earth.
In nature sulfur are the elements; in the terra virginea, the elements proxima ad generationem.
In this Sulfur is the real entity (entia realia) of the minerals, but the internal force moves the external and determines it morphologically.
Only the Universal must be determined, either in metal or in any other body, and in this determination consists the practical teaching of the production of metals.
Man can only act, through the Universal, on what is already presently created; specify its Universal, at will, in that which is created. To create is proper to Divinity alone, for all that was to be created is already there. Man can therefore only specify.
Our white earth is transformed nature or natura naturata; our sulfur is the transforming nature. To unite them with each other, that is the science!
This white earth is the first visible and tangible substance created by God; it always appears in white form. The Ancients said: Omnia in manu Dei sunt. ut ab ipso tingi sticky (10).
This white earth resides within everything; it is the tabernacle of the sun. It is not necessary to prepare it. When one has the universal key of nature, one can open any body and extract the internal.

Essentiality and Quality, or Purpose of Inner Nature
When our white earth is united with sulphur, it is the Mercury of the Sages, the true metallic Gur in the philosopher's water, said the Ancients: Latet Spiritus Essentiae qui solius est virtus magistraliter corrumpere et in ima Mateiriam Corpora transmutare.
TRUTH is the secret substance of all things, the generating Soul, the Light; and this Truth is the “unique necessary”.
Our white earth is a concentrated sun, when it has boiled in its Acid it is the philosopher's elixir. This is why the Enigma of Paracelsus is true, to the letter: "We must steal the sun, cook the water in the moon."
Stealing the sun is our sulphur, formed of concentrated solar atoms; sulphur-phosphorus, Moon water is our Acid (11).
On the Nature of Gold and Silver
Sulfur is Man, arsenic Woman, say the Ancients. Sulfur produces the red metal and arsenic the white metal.
But it is necessary to have a more precise conception of sulfur and arsenic.
We should not understand under these names the ordinary sulfur and arsenic, but those of the philosophers.
The sulfur of the philosophers resides in the coal; it is the substance of fire (12).
The philosophers' arsenic is phosphoric acid, hence the garlic smell of phosphorus.
Sulfur steals its acid from arsenic. Charcoal steals acid from phosphorus. These experiences attest to the kinship of these bodies.
EXPERIENCE
When you take a fine dust of charcoal, place it in a porcelain cup, moisten it with phosphoric acid and expose it to the summer sun, then melt the mass with a magnifying glass for some time, you get a very beautiful little sheet of gold. But this vanishes again in the air, in phosphoric acid or rather in "auric" acid (Goldsäure).
To this aerial phosphoric gold, only the compacting earth is missing for us to have a real metal. This experiment sufficiently proves that all metallicity consists simply in a union of the substance of fire with the substance of light, which are found in carbon and phosphoric acid.
OTHER EXPERIENCE
I observed in phosphorus that its exterior is white and its interior reddish (13). This observation led me to think that the white part of the phosphorus could have a completely different action than the red part.
So I once handled my charcoal powder with the white phosphorus which I simply detached from the surface; I placed it in the sun and let my magnifying glass work on it. I got a little sheet of silver when the white was heavier than the coal; but if I happened to put in a larger quantity of carbon than of white matter, I obtained a small sheet of gold which, like the other, vanished into the air in acid (14).
abstractions
This experience taught me that gold differs from silver simply in that, in the first case, the substance of fire exceeds in weight that of light.
Silver differs from gold in that the substance of light exceeds the substance of fire in weight. Gold is therefore of a masculine nature and silver of a feminine nature.

On Dissolutions
No dissolution can succeed unless the body to be dissolved is dissociated from the foreign parts associated with it.
The chemical dissolution must, first of all, be facilitated as best as possible by mechanical partitioning. This is achieved by the finest division, the ramming of the parts, in order to provide the chemical solution with as much surface area as possible.
In metals, it is the alloy of phosphorus or metallic sulphur, which is retained by an earth analogous to talc. This compacted earth united to the metallic base must therefore be saturated with phosphoric acid.
By its nature, phosphorus has more affinity with phosphoric acid than with the metal which encloses it. The metallic sulfur is therefore divided; the phosphoric acid, as a means of dissolution, seeks to penetrate it.
The solution of the metals in the phosphoric acid is a destruction of the metallic sulfur by acid saturation, because the oxygen (Sauerstof f) units with the igneous principle contained in the diluted phosphorus and forms the phosphoric acid: the metallic sulfur is released from the surrounding earth, and the metal separated into its components.
It would certainly be good to know, at each dissolution, the exact proportions of the component parts of the body to be dissolved, for example, in the metal, the part to be dissolved being the metallic sulfur, it would therefore be necessary to recognize the proportion of sulfur contained in this metal. It was then that one could determine with precision the true proportion of solvent to be used.
The certain rule always remains that the weight of the part to be dissolved calls for a triple weight of solvent. According to this rule, eight ounces of acid should be used for one ounce of silver lime. In such operations, there is never too much solvent: it is from too little that the damage comes (15).
But to find a certain law and surely specify the quantity of solvent, I set to work as follows:
As experience showed me that the portion to be dissolved in metals is metallic sulfur, I could rationally conclude that the whole process of dissolution lay in the transformation of phosphorus or metallic sulfur into phosphoric acid. After repeated experiments, it was confirmed that one grain of phosphorus gave two grains of acid; therefore, I thought, one could, from the sum of the weights, specify a certain portion of metallic lime; in other words, how much metallic lime the metal contained, and, according to this calculation, it would be possible once and for all to cover the metal to be dissolved with three parts of solvent.
Metallic lime results from the destruction of metallic sulphur.
It is a metal from which its sulfur has been removed, or rather a metallic base supersaturated with acid, because the metallicity of its state depends only on sulfur. The metallic sulfur is destroyed when the oxygen units with the combustible, that is to say with the matter of fire which is found in this metal and produces with it phosphoric acid.
Therefore, where the metallic lime is produced there is lack of metallic sulphur-phosphorus. This reappears again as soon as the acid can unite with the base of the carbon to form the metallic sulphur.

EXPERIENCE
A certain quantity of metallic lime is simply reduced on the fire; a loss of weight of the reduced metal is observed, because by calcification part of the phosphoric acid has been volatilized. As the amount of acid gone with the substance of the fire cannot supply the sufficient amount of metallic sulphur, there necessarily follows a loss of metal.
But if certain plants, such as watercress, mustard, etc., are added during the reduction of the acid, the weight is completely restored. We can thus persuade ourselves that the phosphoric acid disengaged by these ingredients units with the base of the fire to restore the phosphorus or metallic sulphur.
I also observed during this experiment and while preparing the metallic lime, that real metal can only be produced insofar as the enveloping earth or metallic base is in a state to incorporate the metallic sulphur. Only a certain quantity of metallic earth limits a certain portion of metallic sulphur, and the metal is composed according to the modes of this limitation, which depends on the purity of the surrounding earth.
To calcine a metal means to steal its sulphur; to reduce a metal is to restore its sulphur,
Calcification occurs when a greater portion of oxygen combines with the base substance of fire and generates phosphorus.
The reduction occurs when a larger portion of fire substance converts phosphoric acid to phosphorus and oxygen volatilizes (16).
It therefore seems to us that, by the observation of metallic lime (17), nature leads us to that of its own generation of metals. It seems that it first chooses the metallic earths and supersaturated them with acid to form metallic salts. The result is a sort of metallic lime or a metallic base supersaturated with acid, which lacks only the metallic sulfur to become a complete metal.
The binding parts or the metallic base are then the coloring earth and that which is analogous to talc; they can therefore, analogically, be compared to flour at the baker's.
Phosphoric acid would be the ferment by which this metallic base should be, little by little, acidified in order to gradually qualify as a "metallic subject." Likewise, the flour base must qualify as the "subject of the bread".
After complete acidification, nothing is missing except cooking in the oven. This should be accomplished by the substance of fire, by means of which the metallic ferment units with the base to produce the proper metal.
Another beautiful experiment demonstrates the correctness of this very interesting process of nature.
If you calcine human blood (18) and sprinkle it with coal dust, you very quickly get a kind of clinker.
The question then arises: How was this clinker formed?
We know that blood contains phosphoric acid; we also find there the substratum of the metallic base or the cobalt earth which, in combination with the phosphoric acid, produces the beautiful blue color which is observed in the washing of blood.
We therefore have two substrates in the blood: phosphoric acid (19) or metallic ferment and cobalt earth or metallic earth. Nothing is missing here, except the substance of fire. This is taken from coal and forms with phosphoric acid a real metallic sulphur, enclosed in the cobalt earth contained in the blood and which forms a metallic scoria.
It seems to me that we have here, on a small scale, a process of metallic genesis (20).

Resolving Phosphorus to Phosphoric Acid in Oil of Vitriol
Phosphorus resolves to phosphoric acid in oil of vitriol.
We know that 60 grains of sulfur burned in pure air yield 87 grains of vitriolic acid (Vitriolsäure). Vitriolic acid is therefore sulfuric acid (Schwefelsäure) transformed by oxygen.
As we know the main ingredient of oil of vitriol, thus we can explain the cause of the dissolution of phosphorus in it.
The oxygen contained in oil of vitriol has a greater affinity for phosphorus expanded by heat; Thereby it units with its base to form with it phosphoric acid.
We can count on each grain of phosphorus two grains of acid, in multiplication of weight, so that a grain of phosphorus gives two grains of acid.

On the Possibility of the Existence of Metallic Dyes
Proven by reasoning and experiments on the dissociation of Metals
To dye means to transform.
For something to be dyed, something must have been changed.
To do this, therefore, two things must be present: What must be dyed or transformed, what dyes or will transform.
What tints or transforms is the Tincture or the Active; what is to be dyed is the Passive or the subject of the dye.
Dyeing [in the alchemical sense: “tingiren”] has some resemblance to the processes of dyeing [in the industrial sense “Färberei”]; coloring is equivalent to changing the orientation of the particles of a body with respect to light rays. The coloring therefore results from a modification of the form, and this result is inseparable from a given form.
To dye ( “ tingiren”) therefore simply means to change the shape or direction of the parts to be colored in relation to the luminous force in action (21).
What “dyes” must therefore contain a force capable of giving a certain orientation to the elements of the body to be dyed, in order to make them appear in this or that chromatic modality and not in another.
Each coloring substance capable of coloring must contain within itself the concentrated coloring force; the more concentrated something is, the more powerful is the force of expansion. The nearer the particles of a dyed body are, the greater is the intensity of the color and the more this body will be likely to dye in its turn other bodies in the solution.
The strength of the dye is proportional to the degree of condensation; the essence of the tincture resides in the state of the most intimate union of the parts and the tinctorial form behaves according to the faculty of redilation of these parts.
The formation of a metal is simply a change in the shape of the metallic base.
Experience proves that when metals are treated with phosphoric acid they turn into a sticky and resinous substance. They lose their polish and luster because the metallic sulfur changes to phosphoric acid and hence the metallicity is destroyed. The cause of metallicity is, therefore, metallic phosphorus or sulphur.
From the moment this metallic sulfur is reconstituted, this sticky and resinous substance becomes metal again.
There is therefore a change of form: the metallic sulfur gives this base another orientation and the result of this action is the metal.
He who can tint or transform a metal into gold must be in a position to modify the matter of light in such a way that the latter, thanks to the metallic sulphur, finds itself in the closest cohesion with the metallic base.
For this reason, the metallic sulfur must necessarily be the tincture principle, because it is the essence (Wesen) which engenders the metals.
But metallic sulfur is phosphoric, that is to say, it contains the substance of light and fire or substance of the earth.
Where the substance of the earth (Erdstoff) is linked as closely as possible to that of the sun or light, there results, in analysis, a solar body. Where the substance of the sun is found in synthesis intimately united with that of the earth, there results an auric body (Goldkörper).
The sun is a deflagrating phosphorus, gold, a concentrated phosphorus.
Experience shows us how gold sulfur or phosphorus alone contains in itself the true tinctorial essence.
When, for example, we melt copper filings with phosphorus in a container of vital air (Lebensluft), we always find, in the residue, a sometimes very large portion of gold and silver, provided that the fusion is done very quickly and that the glass is not damaged.
Necessarily, the penetrating force of the phosphoric acid which has dissociated the copper has brought about this phenomenon: the acid has united in the copper with the carbon or the substance of the light which preserves the phosphorus (which is retained by the compacting earth) and has transformed part of the metal into gold (22).
Gold is the product of the auric base (Goldgrund), of an enveloping and coloring earth, analogous to talc, and, finally, of phosphorus or metallic sulphur.
The ferment of the auric base is phosphoric acid; this one acidifies it little by little. The acidified auric base is the subject, which simply lacks the base of fire which is found in the coal, to form with the latter and the phosphoric acid a metallic sulphur. This sulfur forms a perfect metal as soon as it is coated with earth analogous to talc.
Thus the bread dough is made with flour acidified by yeast. But this dough is not yet bread; it contains it only in potentiality of becoming, just as the acidified metallic base is not yet the metal, but is only the metal in potentiality.
The acidified metallic base still requires fire, as does the bread dough to become bread. In its union with the metallic ferment by means of the substance of fire, metallic sulfur is produced, which gives the metallic paste its maturity and forms a real metal from it.
It seems that nature does the same in the mines. First of all, it forms its coloring earth analogous to talc, which it acidifies with its saline and igniferous vapours. These vapors are the Bergschwaden (exhalations from the mountains) (23) and the acidified earth is called metallic Gur.
When it is penetrated little by little by igneous vapors or the bad storms (böse Gewitter) of the mountains, it absorbs the carbonic substance and forms with the phosphoric acid which it contains the metallic sulphur, which forms the various metals according to time, proportions and place (24).

Other Observations on Metallic Dye
A dyeable color must be water soluble. A metallic dye suitable for dyeing a metal must be soluble in this molten metal (25).
The more soluble a body is, the more force it can transmit. The salts are the most soluble bodies; therefore, they must be the bodies most apt to serve as tinctures.
Salts are an earth united to acids. If a substance of fire combines with them, they will become dirty, oleaginous.
The igneous substance makes metallic sulphur, with the help of phosphoric acid. Consequently it seems that the best of the metallic dyes must be a salt conveyed in an oil.
The purest sulfur makes the purest metal; therefore, the tincture must contain the purest sulphur. But the purest sulfur is a real fire - a phosphorus -: Therefore, the true tincture must be all phosphoric, all fire.
This essence of fire possesses the property of converting everything into its own nature; it must necessarily consist of parts having analogy with all the metals, for the metallic parts are first of the same form, then receive a particular form.
This undifferentiated formation is purification, while formation in a determined aspect is assimilation or unification.
To supersaturate the metal with purified sulfur means to dye it, or if the operation is carried out gradually, to bring it to maturity. This maturation is the transmutation of the metal, and it happens as naturally as when we produce vitriolic scale.
Thus when we put saltpetre in a dish which we place on the fire and mix vitriolic acid with it, the vitriolic acid drives out the nitric acid and units with the alkali of the saltpetre; after washing the residue with water, we obtain tartarum vitriolatum.
In the same way, if the acidified metallic base is placed on the fire, the oxygen leaves the base while the substance of the fire units, with a part of this base, with the metallic sulfur and forms a metal.
And, just as one cannot say of the first operation that one has transformed the saltpeter into tartarum vitriolatum , but that one has dissociated it to reassemble it into a new salt, so one should not say of the second operation that one transmutes the metal, but one dissociates its acidified metallic base and brings it back, by the addition of its sulfur, to another metallic base.

Gold Dissociation Experiment
Gold is finely pulverized, phosphorus is taken, three times as much as the amount of gold used can support (26).
The metal is placed with the phosphorus in digestion for a few days. It may be observed that the phosphorus has united with the gold on a sharp fire, the whole mass rises in flowers of the color of gold, which dissolves like the phosphorus with a lesser heat, and with a still less, takes on a metallic luster.
Comments
I first observed that the liquefied phosphorus flows like a fluid oil on the zinc powder that has fallen to the bottom of the container.
If we continue the digestion, as soon as it attacks it flows out in a viscous mass of a dark red, in which we notice an internal fermentation.
If the gold is totally dissolved by the phosphorus, this mass is perfected if, after cooling, it is removed from the utensil.
It has a pasty consistency, but in the open air and with movement, it hardens. On the other hand, in a vacuum, it sublimates gold in bloom.
But if we take gold in sheets and triturate it with mercury, then cover this amalgam with phosphorus and put it in digestion for a few hours, then the easily fluent amalgam begins to liquefy. The phosphorus penetrates the whole mass, the mercury units with the gold and amalgamates the latter with the phosphorus. On high heat, the mercury overflows and the gold shows itself in flowers which, in the air, dissolve into oil (27).
Comments on the above
Gold is, in the mineral kingdom, similar to the sun. As the sun brings everything to perfection, the perfection of metal is given to gold.
Gold must be dissolved in its mercurial , hylic water.
Metals have luster, ductility, density.
These are properties; you have to find out where they come from. As soon as a metal is digested with phosphorus, it first loses its density.
The cause of density must therefore necessarily be found in the close union of phosphorus with the base of the metal, that is to say, the more phosphorus a body contains, the denser it is. The rarer phosphorus is in a body, the lighter is this body.
Phosphorus must be considered as matter of heat and light united.
When the luminous matter is condensed in the periphery and the caloric matter inside expands, a body becomes light.
If the luminous matter condenses, it changes into carbonic substance, the matter of fire expands and the body appears as dense.
If metals are decomposed with aqua regia, they lose, it is true, their metallic appearance, but they gain in density. The acid acts on the causal principle of luster, condenses luminous matter into the form of carbon; charcoal apprehends the igneous principle of metal and rejects the luminous principle; thus the metal is recomposed.
The more a metal loses igneous principle, the more it loses weight. The more it loses its luminous principle, the more it loses its radiance. The more it loses in caloric matter, the more it loses in ductility.
Caloric matter thus gives the metal ductility; igneous matter, gravity; luminous matter, radiance. The question is: In what form are light, heat and igneous matter maintained in the metal?
Noticed
As soon as a metal is digested, by immersing it in sulphur-phosphorus, it changes into a body of resinous appearance: the igneous substance is removed from it and, consequently, its property: gravity. Lightness is inherent in the caloric matter, it then presents itself as metallic resin.
As caloric matter is the general instrument for the dissolution of all things, we might call this pitch the universal solvent of metals.
This pitch is the true mineral Gluten (Elektrum-cement).
One may wonder what connects this cement to the metal. We answer: Luminous matter with that of fire, because luminous and igneous matter unites everywhere with caloric matter.
Another question then arises: In what form does luminous matter appear in metal? We answer: in the form of its terra virginea or binding substance; while the igneous matter is in the form of sulphur-phosphorus or, also, in that of a metallic carbon.
Metallic matter, if it is dilated, gives luminous matter; if concentrated, igneous matter.
We can, therefore, obtain from our pitch terram virgineam and, at the same time, metallic coal.
The thinker must and can be directed to particular things, but for this work and research are necessary.
Order of Nature Progression
As everything progresses in nature, the chemical bodies are also gradually assembled and follow the general numerical law of measure and weight.
Nature acts on everything through movement; movement is the expression of succession; the succession determines a time and the time is numerical. Hence also motion and its phases.
Nature or the forces acting on the whole and of the substances which incorporate these forces, divide the whole of objects into three classes. They come in three different aspects that are in harmony with the resulting shapes
1 - 2 . at 2; - and 2 to 5.
The first class contains all the objects produced by fire and whose nature is not changed; all the stones which are incalcinable and which, by the first simple matter, were gathered together by means of water.
The second class contains volcanic products.
The third class contains the calcinable substances, formed with animal and vegetable remains, collected by water; rock stones, limestone, topsoil, mineral coal.
The organic parts are found in the third class and are the active parts; there, the raw matter or the volcanic products are passive bodies.
The various forms of minerals depend on these active parts; for the productions of organized matter are still after their death the noblest thing in the mineral kingdom and give form to passive matter.
Nature gives life to animals, vegetation to plants, representation to minerals.
The first instrument she uses is the universal force "Mercurial Water" which penetrates everything; it penetrates each atom and deposits in it the power to unite with others.
The second instrument at her disposal is heat; this tends to separate everything.
The alternative form or "Mercurial water" is also widespread in all organic substances; it is always proportional to the mass; it also acts, penetrates everything and takes, by extension in length, breadth and depth, the form inherent in an organic seed as soon as it acts on a given body. But if it acts on substances hardened by desiccation, it can only transform the surface.
Practical recipe for dissolving metals
1
When I had, by an incessant reading and study of the oldest as of the new chemists, by a sustained comparison of old and new experiments, recognized the nature of metals, I began to unite experiments with reasoning; the results of my work are as follows
2
The art of transforming metals can only be accomplished rationally under three conditions:
a) It is necessary to know the internal base of the metal and its components.
b) These components must be separated.

c) It must then be possible to collect them.
3
Metallicity is nothing but the fixation of light and fire. All metals are coagulated phosphorus, and gold occupies the first rank. The sun can be considered as phosphorus in deflagration, and gold, as phosphorus in concentration.
The sun consists of luminous and igneous substance.
As the luminous and igneous substance is expansive in the sun, it is condensed in gold.
The difference in proportions between luminous and igneous substance makes the diversity of metals.

EXPERIENCE
We take a piece of phosphorus, we leave it in water so that it does not catch fire and we melt it over a low flame in a porcelain dish.
When the phosphorus has become liquid, finely crushed Cyprus vitriol (28) is mixed with it; the phosphorus immediately units with it and there results phosphorus copper (Phosphorkupfer).
Let this copper be dried, let it be placed on the fire, it will ignite and be entirely destroyed. But if you put it in water, it will darken little by little; carbonic substance will be produced, while luminous matter will pass into the water in a soapy form.
From this copper are therefore derived the igneous or carbonic substance, the luminous or soapy substance, and the phosphoric acid.
With this, one can learn to know all the metallicity which consists of the combination of the igneous substance with the luminous substance, by means of the acid of phosphorus.

4
In the phosphoric acid are found the three principles of the metals: Sulphur, Mercury and the Salt of the Sages.
5
Phosphoric acid appears where the pure substance of coal, dilated, units with the vital air (Lebensluft).
6
Phosphoric acid contains the carbonic substance (Kohlenstoff), otherwise known as sulphur; the acid substance, which is Mercury or Vital Air (carbonic substance in a fluid state); finally the luminous substance - this is Salt.
The Sulfur of metals (Metallschwefel) is the true Phosphorus; the mercury of the metals is the true phosphoric acid, and the metallic salts form the phosphoric acid, when they combine with the metallic earth.
7
The properties of metallic earths are to be similar to talc and to be coloring
The talc-like earth is astringent and contains the volatility of phosphorus, so that it unites with the metallic earth to form a metal.
The coloring earth has in itself the coloring principle (29).

Consecutive Experiments on the Decomposition of Metals
Decomposition of noble metals by wet process
We take a noble metal that we have made spongy in the reverberatory furnace or that we have made suitable for decomposition by any other means, such as fine trituration, amalgam, then we cover it with our sulfur, prepared philosophically.
So, after having sprinkled it with our Mercurial water , we put it in a gentle heat and we let everything digest for some time.
The first phenomenon which follows is that the metal covered with its sulfur loses its luster and its polish and that it appears in the form of a colored and resinous body, which resolves on heat into a tenacious and sticky mush, but which evaporates completely, in a closed vessel, on a medium fire.
If the transformation has been properly carried out, we can move on to the separation of the constituent parts.
The operation has changed the constituent parts of the metal by the difference of proportions; what was "bound" in the metal united with the solvent and separated it from the binding parts. It is only by their affinity that these hold together and they must, therefore, like other bodies, be separated according to the laws of affinity.
But above all it is necessary to separate again the acid solution and the metallic sulphur, so that the constituent parts, binding and bound, are disengaged from each other, according to their order.
The binding parts can be separated from the metals when the part bound or dissolved by the appropriate separation means is removed from the mixture.
The extraction is obtained thus: when the pure metal is dissolved by the metallic sulfur with which it has been covered, sal ammonia is poured into distilled water, which absorbs what is sulfur and phosphorus. The residue contains the binding parts of the metal, that is to say the talciform and coloring earth. This must be leaked and often desugared with distilled water.
On the noble metals, which have in their fundamental mixture the coloring earth analogous to talc, a solution of the spirit of salt and the spirit of saltpetre is poured which absorbs the earth.
In any metal which contains only the earth analogous to talc, such as zinc, tin, etc., only a solution of nitric acid is required; the talciform earth, by its decomposition into an alkaline salt, is rejected. When the deposit is dried and desugared, a white earth is obtained which is a little greasy and soapy to the touch, which is very flammable.
When the desugared residue of the talciform coloring earth is put in a solution of mercury, in nitric acid, this earth dissolves in the acid. The salt units with the mercury and settles with it at the bottom of the container.
The salt of this earth is obtained by extracting the mercury by distillation; the salt settles at the bottom of the container in the form of a red, flammable sediment. If one wishes to separate from the metal the phosphoric acid and the metallic sulfur - or real phosphorus -, which are both dissolved, one must slowly evaporate this solution and cover the remaining urine salt with soot or carbon dust; by subjecting the whole to distillation, we obtain the quantity of phosphorus which was in the metal and that which has been added to it. The final residue is urine salt.

Dissolution of Metals by Dry Process
Metals are calcined and, as soon as they have been made to completely lose their metallic sulfur by calcination, one proceeds to the transformation of the destroyed metal or rather of its components which remained in the fire.
This is most commonly obtained by pouring, in the manner which has been described, well-prepared metallic lime into a concentrated hydrochloric acid and putting them in digestion in a closed vessel until no trace of a solution appears any longer. The hydrochloric acid absorbs the metallic salt, it absorbs the coloring earth and forms with it a "sympathetic ink" (30).
The talciform earth is separated from this solution, after having left it for a few days in a cool place. At the bottom of the vase we find the metallic salt in pretty crystals. They are removed, rinsed with distilled water, and the solution (or sympathetic ink) allowed to stand until it contains no crystals. Then the coloring earth is precipitated by means of pure washing salts which have been dissolved in water, and it is separated from the spirit of salt which, after several new affusions of distilled water, lets it appear visibly, just like the other two parts.

Extraction of Salt from Metals
Metal salts can be completely extracted from metals. They sometimes vegetate in the fire, in certain operations, or let themselves slowly crystallize, by means of acid solutions.
EXPERIENCE
These salts are most often presented in tight, brilliant crystals, of a celadon green color, very friable, and which, externally, offer much analogy with the benzoic crystalline efflorescences, dissolved in water and recrystallized, hiding in their interior a coloring substance.
These same salts can also be in the form of a colored earth. They can be recognized by their red color in a well calcined tin lime.

Properties of these Salts
I have observed that these salts are extremely refractory and non-fusible in the strongest fire, like earth analogous to talc.
They allow themselves to be dissolved without effervescence in the spirit of concentrated salt and, as they do not unite exactly with this one, they can again be crystallized and made to return to their first form.
They unite exactly with phosphoric acid and then appear as true metallic salts, easily soluble and fusible.
EXPERIENCE
The benzoic flowers (31) are taken, dissolved in water and this solution is crystallized. The salt obtained and dried will not fuse in the fire.
One takes phosphoric acid, one units it with these salts, one recrystallizes them and one obtains a pure metallic salt.

Use of Metallic Salts and their role in the production of Metals
These salts easily unite with phosphoric and metallic sulphur, immediately presenting the opacity and brilliance of the metal.
They possess an extremely constrictive force, by which phosphorus (or sulphur-metal) loses its flammability and acquires metallic hardness.
These salts also exercise a special action on mercury; they penetrate it intimately and are able to transform this liquid metal into fine silver. But, for this transformation, one should only use the salt of silver; it renders the best service and it is obtained by dividing the money in the following manner.
EXPERIENCE
How, by the dissociation of silver, one can obtain the pure salt of silver SAL LUNAE.
Silver made spongy or finely pulverized or amalgamated to render it suitable for dissociation is placed in the reverberatory furnace, and covered with phosphorus. Place the mixture in the heat for a few days and let it digest.
At first the silver loses its luster and polish, appearing as a colored and resinous body which melts in the heat into a pasty, sticky and tenacious mass, which can be completely evaporated in a vacuum.
This operation completed, the separation of the parties is undertaken. The metallicity of the silver has disappeared; the "bound" element (that is to say the phosphoric acid in the silver) has united with the phosphoric acid used for the operation; the binding parts of the money are separated from the "bound". They hold together only by their affinity and, according to the law of affinity, it is also by means of other chemically related bodies that they can be separated.
But before this separation can be skilfully attempted, the acid dissolving medium, the phosphoric acid, must be extracted, otherwise the component parts could not be totally extracted. The handling is as follows.
As has been clearly shown above, as soon as the silver has been transformed and dissolved in its digestion with phosphoric acid (which has changed it into a resinous and sticky mass), salt of urine (salt ammonia) dissolved in distilled water is poured into this solution. This immediately absorbs all sulfur and all phosphorus, and leaves intact the binding parts of the silver, that is to say the silver earth, coloring earth and talciform.
This residue is leached and de-sweetened with distilled water. So we begin to dissociate its binding parts.
Noble metals contain both coloring and talc-like earths. A spirit solution of salt and nitric acid is then poured over the residue at the same time. This solution absorbs the residue.
Nitric acid absorbs earth similar to talc.
This earth is separated by the addition of an alkaline salt which produces a precipitate. When the latter is dried and de-sweetened, a white, greasy earth of soapy consistency is obtained, which is the true metallic earth analogous to talc.
When this desugared residue is placed in a solution of mercury and nitric acid, the earth analogous to talc dissolves in the acid, and the salt uniting with the mercury is deposited at the bottom with it.
The mercury is then removed by distillation and the salt remains at the bottom, in the form of a reddish earth, which resists fire.
This salt is taken and dissolved in phosphoric acid, with which it units perfectly. If left to reform into crystals, a pure silver salt is obtained.

OTHER EXPERIENCE
When gold made sponge is digested with phosphoric acid and the acid is then distilled, a brown-red salt is obtained which is very easily vitrified. This salt gives the color to each metal whose lime is amalgamated with it.
This salt could be the land of the philosophers - their field - from which they derive their metal (32).

ABSTRACTIONS
This fixed salt, digested once again with phosphoric acid and left to crystallize in a cellar, was dried by the ancients into a powder which they used as medicine.
This salt, pulverized with gold lime and enclosed in a dry phial, is transformed at a slight heat into a blood-red liquor (33).
This liquor can be fixed on a lamp fire.
This fix, pulverized, and put on mercury (34), worked by degrees in a closed crucible, gives a tingent powder (Tingirendes Pulver).
If we dissolve a portion of gold lime in our phosphoric acid, separate the residue, and pour over the clear solution (35), we obtain an oil of red gold.
Based on these various ways of operating, if we mix lime with our acid, we can make all the olea metallorum.
OTHER EXPERIENCE
We amalgamate fine gold with our acid; the acid is removed, then the gold is calcined; we amalgamate once again with our acid, we separate the mercurial water , we let it digest for 24 hours, and we obtain a yellow powder and, finally, a red salt.
If we take the red-brown salt and put it in our vinegar, we get a tasteless water and salt.
If this water is poured over the above powder, the salt is again obtained.
Eight grains of phosphoric acid dissolve a grain of gold lime with heat and turn it into a blood-red liquor (36).
Through digestion, this liquor gives all the colors and, finally, it becomes like burnt blood, but with a special shine.
If we want to increase this product, we must re-dissolve the gold in our acid, take half of this product, triturate it in a glass, mix it with the solution, then make it digest again, in the manner already described.
Time always decreases. As in the first operation four months were employed, in the second it will only take three weeks, in the third three days and at the end only three hours for the entire completion.
When four grains of the first product are mixed with fifty of purified mercury and allowed to cool, a red powder of particular strength is obtained (37).

Experience on the preparation of Chaux d'Or
We do not always have the opportunity to make the gold spongy by means of a reverberatory furnace which is in itself the best. One can however also obtain a pure gold lime in the following way
We take fine gold which we dissolve in aqua regia, we precipitate it with oleo tartari, we sweeten it well and let it dry slowly. But before drying it, we mix it with flores sulfuris. The moisture is allowed to evaporate, then the sulfur is burned and the lime is leaked well with distilled water.

ON THE PROPERTIES OF THE TRUE SALT OF THE ANCIENTS
1° Dissolved in water, it is green (38).
This green color is caused by phosphorus, which also appears green in water.
2° Coagulated, it is white.
3° Crystallized, it is sweet.
4° On a heated sheet, it flows as easily as wax and the spirit evaporates; what remains shines like silver.

Preparation of various Metals
The metallic salt is first prepared; it is joined to the coloring and talciform earth, the mixture is allowed to digest with the phosphoric acid, and a metallic lime is obtained which, on high heat, flows into a translucent glass or resembles scoria.
This slag only lacks the fuel (39) to be a real metal. It was mixed with charcoal powder and subjected to the fusion fire in a tightly closed refractory retort. We then obtain the real metal.
On Precious Stones
Gold and diamond have a tendency towards the same shape, especially in crystallization where the salts crystallize in octahedra. We deduce from this observation a kinship of nature.
From all the above we have learned that pure Light united with pure Fire in the Pure Land produces the noble metals which are, in themselves, condensed phosphorus.
The diamond differs from gold by its transparency, as gold differs from diamond by its opacity. In gold, luminous matter is fixed and fire matter diffused. In the diamond, the matter of fire is fixed and the matter of light diffused.
Precious stones are reckoned among the pure natural glasses; nature therefore observes the law of vitrification in the production of gems. We know that metals themselves can be vitrified.
Nature shows us that, in descending order, the last corporization by concentration of luminous matter is gold; and, in ascending order, the counterpart is the embodiment of the diamond, like the noblest glass.
It is a curious experience that the phosphoric acid mixed with the radical humidity of the stones (Kieselfeuchtigkeit) reduces them to a kind of paste and dissolves them radically.
We also know that, according to the most recent works, the diamond is classified among the bodies of coal or fire (containing the matter of coal or fire). The action of the diamond on the glass shows its homogeneity with it.
If we fuse two scruples of fine gold with two drachmas of phosphoric acid, we obtain a purple scoria which, fused with pulverized charcoal, increases by two drachmas in weight (40).
The metals consist of phosphoric acid, which, combining with the carbonic substance contained in the earth of cobalt and analogous to talc, produces a metallic sulphur.
The cobalt earth is alkaline; it dissolves easily in water and readily combines with acids.
Earth, analogous to talc, is constrictive.
The analysis of the metal consists in the separation of the binding constitute parts from the related ones - the synthesis, in their reunion.
Phosphoric Acid Experiment
If the talciform earth is digested and concentrated with phosphoric acid, it becomes like rubber.
Phosphoric acid strongly attacks the zinc and turns it into a transparent mass analogous to gum arabic.
The copper is dissolved by it, and after this dissolution a greenish gummy mass remains.
With a lime of gold precipitated by an alkali, the phosphoric acid combines and gives an auric phosphate which melts into a light red glass on heat.
If we amalgamate and grind gold leaves with phosphoric acid, and then withdraw this acid by means of the urine, a fine purple-red powder remains. If we work gold leaves with sugar and phosphoric wine (Phosphorwein), dry the powder, then pour ether or alcohol on this powder, the gold sulfur passes into the alcohol: the gold dissolves; there remains a red and soapy residue and, at the bottom of the vase, a salt. If we separate from this salt the acid of the sugar by means of nitric acid, we obtain the acid of gold, which is in itself acid, carbonic and phosphoric acid.
Carbonic acid gives the redness, phosphoric acid the blue tone, by which the purple of gold is constituted.
If the auric acid is separated from the soapy residue, a coloring earth and the earth of talc are obtained.
The metallic limes are reconstituted by the addition of soot or coal dust, and they resume the metallic appearance. Here is the cause: the phosphoric acid contained in metallic limes has the closest relationship with the combustible matter of coal; this immediately reforms the metallic phosphorus or sulphur, which contracts the talc-like earth in the metallic lime, thus reforming the metal.
If we take a salt of urine dissolved in water and moisten the metallic limes with it, the phosphoric acid is entirely removed from them and we can no longer, in any way, reconstitute the metals.
This experience is even more convincing when applied to zinc flowers. These can no longer be brought back to their metallic form, either by charcoal powder or by soot: but if one adds watercress, mustard, or phosphorus, the phosphoric acid contained in these ingredients immediately combines with the igneous principle of charcoal and reveals the metallic form of zinc.
All metallicity therefore consists in the combination of phosphoric acid with the carbonic substance by which the metallic sulfur is formed.
To become a perfect metal, this sulfur only lacks fixation.
When one places fine charcoal powder in a porcelain capsule, moistens it with phosphoric acid, then concentrates the sun's rays there for a certain time by means of a magnifying glass, one obtains the finest phosphoric gold (Phosphorgold) . But its lack of fixity immediately dissolves it in the air, in the form of phosphoric acid (41).
It is earth analogous to talc which is the fixation medium of metals.
Gold, silver, platinum contain the greatest quantity, zinc contains the least.
All the metals are only mixtures variously proportioned of coloring and talciform earth with phosphoric acid. The compaction of sulfur depends on the difference in the proportions of this earth, and the various degrees of its condensation form the different metals: the earth analogous to talc is, in the metallic kingdom, what pebbles and sand are in glass.
Man is the most noble of created beings although he wears the envelope of the animal. In him resides the fire of nature.
This fire, which contains the measure of all nature, the power of all organizations, subsists in the remains of the organized body whose death only alters form and action. This organic matter is the most suitable for composing other forms, accepting new combinations, and entering again into the order of animate beings.
But this matter is nothing other than the materia universalis and this is the fire-water of nature: acetum philosophorum.
In the vegetable earth, rich in destroyed organic beings, there is enclosed a great quantity of active forces, as well as of the small molecules animated by the fire of which animal and vegetable life are composed.
Each kingdom has its own receptacle of the igneous principle. In the animal kingdom, the principal organ is the skeleton and the marrow, from which one can extract fire, caloric and luminous substance (42).
In the vegetable kingdom, the true matter of nature's fire is found in peat. Peat contains solar substance carried by water. When such water is made to rot, a kind of phosphorus is obtained as a deposit, which is transformed into carbon if an alkali is poured over it (43).
In the mineral kingdom, the matter of fire is found most abundantly in pyrites.
These are called nature's fire and thunder stones. They are true stalachils of silty earth, and though mixed with iron, their essential base is nevertheless fire, fixed by the medium of acid.
They are produced from topsoil fertilized with salts of vitriol. All the vitriolic salts whose combustibility is robbed give nature's vinegar or phosphoric acid.
When the pyrites are decomposed, the three Principles of nature can be drawn from them. There are different kinds: the real ones are iron pyrites, martial pyrites (44).
In themselves, they are nothing but iron transformed by sulphur. Iron lime (Eisennkalk) is clayey earth and phosphoric acid, or phosphoric clay transformed with vital air or oxygen.
When, therefore, phosphorus is associated, in suitable proportions of oxygen, with clayey earth, iron results.
When a bar of red iron is plunged into a ball of sulphur, the iron immediately melts; if we receive iron melted in water, we obtain small black balls which are real pyrites.
By these pyrites one can obtain a beautiful production of metal containing the three principles: the metallic base, the phosphoric acid and the vital air. This production is not difficult to achieve (45).

Analysis and Synthesis of Metals
Having learned to divide metals into their elements, it is necessary for us to consider their union. Observation shows us the way.
In mines, it seems that nature first forms compacting and talciform earth. This one sixteen little by little sulfur-phosphorus which rises in vapors and, according to the form of the mixture and the proportion, composes noble or vulgar metals (46).
When you have the pure earth analogous to talc, you have the metallic base, the corpus. This corpus, by digestion, by means of phosphoric acid which contains in itself the vivifying principle, vegetates and finally becomes ennobled by the vital air which is the true spirit of the metal.
The talciform earth is therefore the body; phosphoric acid, the soul; vital air, the spirit of metal. The production of metals is analogous to the making of a pastry. The ferment is phosphoric acid: it is the soured dough, the leaven.
When the earth is completely acidified, it then requires digestion, just as bread requires baking when it is penetrated by leaven. And, as the leaven transforms all the rest of the flour into leaven, so the metallic base, penetrated by the acid, transforms the metallic subject into a new leaven.
Phosphoric acid can turn a pretty red color through digestion.
When it passes into a solid state, it becomes the natural sulfur of the Sages.
One part of this sulfur dissolves in three parts of its water, and this solution was called by the Ancients blood of the sun. With fire and water - they said - you can get anything. There are three jobs:
preparatory work,
Supplementary work, perfective work.
The preparatory work is the sacred fire.
Auxiliary work, holy water - or phosphoric acid.
The perfective work consists in the digestion of the metallic base.
The Ancients also said: There are three Stones or f unda menta
The Stone of Heaven or the Stone of Fire,
The Earth Stone or the Water Stone, the Stone of the Sages or the Tincture.
The first stone is Light or Alkali.
The second is Fire or the cidum of nature .
The third is the union of these two into one essence.
The Ancients called phosphoric acid their Sea, their Sea of ​​Fire.
If the golden lime was dissolved in this water, they called it the Water, the Sea of ​​the Philosophers, in which the King is drowned (47).

Bead magnification
We dissolve small pearls in our Mercurial Water and let the mass digest slowly, until it forms a thick porridge; form this mixture into pearls of the desired size, which are pierced at the same time with horsehair; they are pressed in a silver mold which has been carefully coated with phosphoric oil.
When working on silver lime, white oil is obtained; with gold lime, red.
White is best for pearl processing. Red is suitable for that of rubies. For these, one takes ten parts of pure crystal, one part of red oil and one obtains the most beautiful stone.
If we mix the white stone or the white oil with the liquor silicon, we obtain a thick juice which, by digestion with heat, becomes the hardest stone.

Mineral Kingdom
Diamond and gold are the most noble in the mineral kingdom. Gold is terrestrial matter transmuted into luminous or solar substance. Diamond is the substance of earth or fire transmuted with luminous substance.
The efflorescence of metals (48) is nothing other than the analysis or disjunction of the luminous substance and the synthesis or recomposition of the terrestrial substance, which is oxygen.
The metal loses its luster as soon as it loses the luminous substance. At the same time it also loses its expandability, its aggregative power increases; this results in an increase in weight in the metallic lime. All metallic limes are super-oxygenated earth stuff. Super-oxygenated clay is the basis for decomposed iron.
This is why zinc and iron can be recomposed into metals if their lime is treated with phosphorus, because phosphorus restores luminous matter, disorganizes the zinc earth or takes away its oxygen and replaces it with luminous substance.
All metallic earths differ simply by the amount of oxygen (49) they contain, just as metals differ among themselves by the amount of luminous or solar substance they absorb. Fulminant gold is gold lime combined very exactly with ammonia. From a given quantity of gold lime we obtain four times more air than with saltpetre. The air thus released is in the form of nitrogen.
Abstraction on this Experience
When the gold is super-oxygenated, it is also calcined, and the luminous substance is liberated; the release of the luminous substance takes place in gaseous evolution, in the form of nitrogen.

Principles for a Philosophical Work
I
There is only one Thing, only one Vase, only one Work. This is the fundamental principle of all hermetic art; he who ceases to consider it will never find the truth.
II
When we know the Thing from which everything comes, we no longer need any other; with this Thing one has found the vase and the work.
This Thing, this Universal is our mercurial Water , our philosophical dew, which contains the extensive and attractive force, the three principles and the four elements, the Universal of Nature.
The Sages only need their Water, it is their vinegar of nature which liquefies everything. In its state of coagulation, it generates and increases everything; in the liquid state, it is called the flying dragon.
In the solid state, the serpent.
The first dominates the volatility, the second, the fixity of the single essence.
The dragon is our Mercurial Water . The snake, our Earth.
But the earth is only nature's coagulated vinegar.
In this state of coagulation, the earth is called dry water .
In its liquid state, our Mercurial Water is also called Mercury.
To make of this vinegar the earth or the Salt, such is the true fixation of the Mercury of the Philosophers (50).
The pure vital air that is in our vinegar is the MATERIA REMOTISSIMA. Vinegar, Materia Remota. Salt, the Materia Proxima.
Vinegar is our mercurial Water , also called the Dew of Heaven, the Fat of the Earth, the present of the Firstborn in Spirit.
Of this great operation, which first demands external rebirth, religious sacrifices are the symbols.
Our Sacred Wood (hyle, Matter) is placed on the sacrificial altar and ignited by its own heat (51).
When the flame rises, three phenomena appear.
The first is a white smoke which is Mercury.
The second is the white and yellow Sulfur, the gold and silver of the Philosophers, their Sol and their Luna (52).
These dissolve into a water which is our Mercurial Water ; this mercurial Water is Mercury.
The whole operation continues with this water (53).
Burn our matter under a bell jar, in a porcelain vase; let the flora ignis and lacis which arise all around sublimate then liquefy in a cellar, and in this way you will obtain the vinegar (54).
When you have enough, burn our matter again in the bell jar and wash the flora with our Mercurial Water (55).
Put a fairly large quantity of this solution in a circulatory vessel, close it hermetically and simply allow it to circulate over gentle heat (56).
You already know that the vinegar gradually consumes all the sulfur, so that the dragon eats its own tail.
Then matter will rise like morning dew and fall back to earth again. Gradually the volatile will become fixed.
The most beautiful colors will show themselves and eventually all the liquid will coagulate into a mass which is the fixed one. First it is white, then it turns red.
This fixed is a great treasure: it contains the forces of nature. He justifies the aphorism of Hermes
What is above is like what is below To produce a single Thing.
This unique Thing contains all the others and generates all the forces. but its power is greatest when it turns into earth; it contains all the treasures of the Universe.

The Purpose of the Work of the Elders
We know that the true matter of metals is phosphorus; the question is to know from which substance the Ancients extracted the phosphorus with which they worked and which they named lapis ignis (*)
(*) More likely lapidis ignis. The text incorrectly bears “lapidem ignis”.
For this, we must go back to the Egyptians and the Persians.
It will be found that they generally agreed that their matter was a gray-black stone, sometimes milk-white, ornamented with veins, heavy in weight; the Arabs called it Albaon and also Abakozodi. The Persians, Puch (57).
The Ancients said that this matter was the flower of the earth and of the astral spirit which deposited all the forces of the fifth being in this mineral.
The Persians dyed their hair black with this material (58) which they put in water. This water became completely black, then a layer of black matter was deposited at the bottom of the vase. Dried and kneaded with fat, it was used as a dye.
This matter is called black lead; there are different kinds; one is better than the others. It was this which was distilled by the Ancients and from which they derived their phosphoric acid.
This was poured over the residue and the white earth was obtained (59).
We know that there is phosphoric lead, and that lead pyrite is the intermediary between this lead and common lead.
Let us read again what is written on pyrites.
If a ball of sulfur is suspended from a bar of incandescent iron, the result is pyrite, that is to say, the white earth, the basis of combustibility, combines with a part of the phosphoric acid contained in the iron, in the form of a pyrite which is in itself a compacted fire . The pyrite is under the metal.

PHOSPHORUS. PYRITE. METAL
or
Phosphorus-fire, compacted phosphorus, pyrite.
Phosphorus, extremely condensed METAL
The first kind of such lead ore is found in the Joachims-Tal, and is called Glanz (“galena”). The Zentner, (half quintal) contains 6 to 8 Loths (half ounces) of silver. The better the material, the more money there is. Its sign is:




The second kind is found in Poland at Ekkisch, thirteen miles from Cracow. It is called galena with silver reflections. Its sign is





The third kind was encountered at Fribourg-en-Meissen; it is covered with silver buds and is therefore called lunaria.
The fourth is even purer; it is found in the ground at the Hungarian border, not far from Klobuck; it is thus designated:




and, from this representation results the error on the lunaria grass which symbolizes this mineral, also called silver lead, and which is still represented in this way:




The fifth kind is virgin lead (gediegen) which has not yet been on any fire, easy to melt as well as to dissolve.
It is found near Villach.
It is thus designated




The sixth kind is found at Meissen and is called Glaserx; this ore holds lead, it can be cut and stamped. The Zentner contains 24 to 26 Loths of silver; it is often referred to as:







It is then the true materia bruta: on which worked the Sages who drew their Stone from it.
It is the filia aethiopium, of which it is written:
Nigra sum, sed formosa, filia Jerusalem, adeo dilexit me rex, and introduce me in cubiculum suum.
This matter is called Electrum minerale immaturum (60).
Magnesia, Lunaria, PLUMBUM SAPIENTIAE.

END OF "CHEMICAL TESTS"
(Notes by André Savoret at the bottom of the page)

appendix
Summary of D'Eckhartshausen's Booklet:
"THE MOST RECENT DISCOVERIES ON LIGHT, HEAT AND FIRE (61), FOR LOVERS OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY".
(Munich, 1798. 1st Notebook , 1st Fascicle ).
We observe, in nature, forces acting on substances in renewal. All forms, in ascending order, are modifications of a primitive form; all forces, in descending order, modifications of a primitive force. The forces are the active stimuli or stimuli; bodies are determine orders of the principles of matter, or Elements, and appear as the result of the action of stimuli on passive excitability.
Primitive force would therefore be the first Agent or physical mover, and the first form, the first excitable element of things.
Physical nature forms all appearances, in ascending and descending order, by extension and concentration, from these two extremes. Corporeal products, being appearances, constitute a middle term between activity and passivity, force and matter. The Substrate of each manifestation of the three kingdoms is the ELEMENTAL HEAT or SUBSTANCE OF FIRE (Feuerstoff), which reveals itself in the form of CARBON, extreme inferior, passive subject of nature. The other extreme is NITROGEN, the active principle of nature. Having carried out all possible tests with these two principles, active and passive, I deduced the following system.
The primitive physical element of nature is ANDROGYNE; Force and Matter, Activity and Passivity balance each other there. This primitive body unfolds through MOVEMENT: the Active separates from the Passive. After this separation, the active force acts on the passive body, engendering a Manifestation which constitutes a Medium between the force and the body. This triple process by means of Movement forms the Three Principles of Nature:
Lichtsto ff: the luminous substance or elemental Light;
Warmest of f: Caloric Substance or Elemental Heat;
Feuerstoff: Igneous Substance or Elemental Fire.
These three principles are manifested in three properties
Expansion, Contraction and new Expansion, by which nature is divided into Upper, Middle and Lower. Where expansion dominates, the gaseous state appears; where attraction dominates, the solid state; where these two balance each other, the liquid state.
By this division, nature establishes two progressions: one in decreasing series, from force to body or from Light to Fire; the other, in ascending order, from body to force, from Fire to Light. This double hierarchy entails action and reaction, from which proceed the life and movement of beings. The tendency of Force to pass into Form is called Attraction; that of the Form to pass to the state of Force, Expansion, Assimilation.
Thus, the Movement determines three Essences (in ascending order, Fire, Heat, Light) which form three passive Subjects or Bodies.
Elemental Fire is latent or potential Fire; Elemental Heat, latent Heat; elemental Light, latent Light. Potential Fire is sensitive in the form of Carbon; the potential Heat under that of a fatty, acidic Liquid; the potential Light in the form of a soapy, viscous, tasteless Essence.
That these three bodies enter again in expansion by the Movement, the gaseous phase appears: for Carbon , like AIR VITAL or oxygen; for Fatty Acid as Flammable Air or Hydrogen ; for Soapy Gasoline as Nitrogen.
These three gases, in increasing order, are three stimulating forces which again, acting on the three primitive bodies, produce 5 manifestations, through the medium of the body to which they give rise.
Igneous Substance, absorbing Vital Air or Oxygen, produces Liberated Fire by means of Hydrogen; Caloric Substance, absorbing oxygen, produces Liberated Heat; the Luminous substance produces, through Nitrogen, Liberated Light. Thus appear, in descending order, Light, Heat and Fire in nature.
The environment or medium which allows the action of the primitive Agents on their passive Subject, consists of three Fluids, resulting from the action of the three Forces on their Subject; they are divided into three Regions (upper, middle, lower), but interpenetrate. They are the link between the force of expansion and that of contraction. Where liquefaction is established, this bond generates the cohesive force and, where cohesion begins, this bond associates again to liquefy. Thus maintain the Movement and the Life. In the gaseous state, this medium is oxygen or Vital Air, which maintains the balance between the rarefied Air and the fixed Air. In him, L light and heat are intimately united in gaseous form.
The Second Fluid comes from the Calorific in expansion, by intervention of the Vital Air, and forms an elastic body uniting the most subtle Forces with the most fixed, body in which Luminous Matter (Lichtmaterie) and Caloric Matter are closely associated . It proceeds from the union of oxygen with caloric matter rendered volatile and forms the body that generates ACIDITY, the true VITAL AIR or OXYGEN OF NATURE.
When ACID appears, the action of Vital Air alone is insufficient; this Vital Air must, beforehand, form with the volatilized Calorific a medium or bond which will give rise to the ACID. This medium appears during the formation of the Acids, but is not manifest to the senses. This true SEMI-ACID is not simply oxygen, as has been claimed, but an oxygen or Vital Air united with the volatile Caloric, thus forming an Elastic Fluid, bubbling like water, without humidity. It is subject to various modifications; it is the cause of the elasticity of bodies; it generates sonority in its expansive mode;elastic and volatile, it allows itself to be concentrated by the cold, expands again, heats up on contact with water, generates Causticity with Carbon; has an attractive property; combines with most bodies, modifying their properties; is found in the Three Kingdoms, under various modifications; appears as a suffocating body in reddened coals and fermenting bodies; it is moved by heat. It is the medium between Light and Heat, between Acid and Alkali. It is fixed in fire with the fixed alkalis and has the greatest affinity for carbon; it is the cause of all expansion. In combination with the alkali, it makes it soluble in Water. Whenever ACID is joined to this MEDIUM with Absorbent Earth, ALKALI appears...
In ascending order, if the Elemental Fire is fluidized in the form of Elemental Heat, then a median Fluid is born between Carbon and Elemental Heat, which is an Inflammable Acid, which I call IGNITE ACID. If the Elemental Heat is volatilized in the form of Elemental Light, then a new Fluid or Liquid appears, middle term between the Light and Heat terminals, which can be recognized as PHOSPHORIC ACID. If the Elemental Light is still volatilized, a new medium-term Fluid is then formed, which is a Vital Air united with the very rarefied Caloric of which I spoke. This Caloric separated from the elemental Light, there remains NITROGEN.
Considered as an elastic being, the Elemental Light, in its liquid phase, penetrates all bodies; this elastic being, imponderable in itself, makes a body heavy when it is concentrated, light when it is rarefied. These two modalities also appear in the production of heat or cold: as soon as sensible heat is born, the elastic being is concentrated inside the body; as soon as the cold appears, it expands and concentrates outside.
The capacity of a body to absorb Fire, Heat, Light in a free state is independent of its density or its volume, but depends on its affinity with Light, Heat and Fire Elements, which is a function of its degree of cohesion. The more a body tends to expansion, the more it is apt to release Heat, Light, Fire in a free state; the more it contracts, the more apt it is to unite with Heat, Fire, Light. The sensible Fire, in its greatest expansion, becomes sensible Heat, which, in its greatest expansion, becomes sensible Light... The already named elastic entity is the cause of the attraction of bodies: wherever it is in expansion, it tends to recontract, hence the Attraction. This elastic luminous essence has the greatest affinity with the matter of iron and forms, with it, in its diluted state, the Magnet. The attraction of the magnet is observed whenever this expanding elastic essence tends to resume its concentrated state of equilibrium; the repulsion takes place as a result of the repulsion of this elastic fluid, by periods, under the action of calorific matter.
Fire, Heat, Elemental Light have determined spheres of influence: the most restricted is that of Fire, then comes that of Heat, finally that of Light.
The coexistence of the Motor and the Mobile in a being produces its manifested existence: in a physical body, movement; in a plant, the vegetation; in an animal, animal life; in a metal, electricity. In the three kingdoms, the Motors in action appear in the form of the elastic substance, which is a liquid, soapy, dilated essence. Motile Subjects appear in the form of more or less dilated Carbon.
A metallic lime from which the Carbon is removed to replace it with Elemental Light gives a vitrified body, which has become insulating, without electrical conductivity. If you add carbon to glass, it becomes a conductor like metals.
The flower lives on carbon, just as man inhales vital air and exhales carbon which, in contact with oxygen, changes into carbon dioxide. The plant sucks in the carbon-fixed air, transforms it and gives, in sunlight, renewed oxygen. In animal bodies the excitatory principle is in the nervous Ether while the excitable principle of Carbon is in the blood. The factors of all destruction are the excess of the excitable principle or "carbon" and the exhaustion of the excitatory factor. Carbon tends to densification, matter of Light to volatilization. By volatilization, there is exhaustion of the stimulant; by overcrowding, excess excitability.
In plants, where carbon is dissolved, there is putrefaction; where it accumulates and where the Engine disappears, desiccation.
A body remains in its perfection as long as its principles interpenetrate. At the slightest modification, imperfection is born, the starting point of all separation and dissolution. What penetrates is, everywhere, the Elemental Light or, better, the Light produced by the luminous Engine on the luminous Subject.
Nature is a whole made up of acting forces and moving bodies. Everything is alive, nothing is dead.
Death is only a pause to harmonize new chords. Putrefaction is a process of renewal, with a view to freeing life from apparent death and freeing imprisoned living particles in order to make them fit for new organic combinations. Caloric Substance and Luminous Substance are the PASSIVE and ACTIVE Principles of Nature.
The atmosphere of this globe is a fluid whose particles are formed of dissociated luminous and caloric matter; it is liable to condense and become noticeable under various vitreous formations. Bodies are composed of luminous and caloric matter made visible and are only modifications of the Elemental Heat and Light, in definite proportions.
The matter of Heat and Light exists in a dispersive state in the atmosphere and constitutes the fluid in which floats the diversity of life. Diluted or concentrated in visible forms, it can form multiple appearances. In the rarefied state, it is imperceptible and becomes sensitive, formal, ponderable by concentrating.
By means of the Sun and convex and concave lenses are produced the Archetypal Forms of luminous and caloric matter. Nature's Carbon can be obtained in a vase full of water, by means of lenses. By expansion, it resolves into caloric matter and forms, with animal or vegetable earth, true coal. The colored phenomena of the lenses show the modifications of the luminous and caloric matter by the appearance of distinct ACIDS: the RED focus generates Carbonic Acid on the Carbon; the BLUE focus generates on the Caloric of Phosphoric Acid; the WHITE focus generates very volatile Hydrochloric Acid on the luminous matter. The Acids therefore seem to manifest themselves through the intermediary of the colours.By the knowledge of the laws of the colors one can arrive at that of the Acids. Where the particles of light are disjoint, there is darkness, this disjunction giving black to an object. Where they are joined, visible light reigns, giving white to an object. Darkness should be called: "A certain state of disunity of luminous matter."
The Sun acts on our globe as a luminous stimulant, transforming the nascent Carbon into luminous matter and returning it to us under the species of stimulating forces. So the world feeds the Sun and the Sun feeds the world.
Process of Nature: There is a Formative Principle; this AGENT is the dispersed Luminous Matter, manifested in a gaseous state as NITROGEN. And a Passive Principle, which is CARBON. This Nitrogen acting on the Carbon divides it into three basic bodies: Elemental Fire, Elemental Heat, Elemental Light, each of them having three possibilities: keeping its passive specificity or changing to a liquid or gaseous state under the action of an Agent. The liquid manifestation of Carbon is a flammable acid (Phosphorsäure) which is distinguished from chemical phosphoric acid (Phosphorige Säure) by its greater causticity. In the gaseous state, it is transformed into Air Vital.
The caloric matter in the liquid state becomes Phosphorische-säure [phosphoric acid] and, in the gaseous state, Flammable Air [ Hydrogen, if one wants to consider it chemically].
Luminous matter gives Mephitic Acid in the liquid state [carbonic acid to follow the analogy used by the author], in the very volatile state of Hydrochloric Acid, and in the gaseous state of Nitrogen. These three gases act as stimulants on the passive bodies and give rise to manifest fire, heat and light . In the liquid state, these three manifestations give the FLUIDUM UNIVERSALE in which bathes our Earth, seat of all modifications. The first bodies formed are therefore Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Carbon, which then effectively produce acids, waters and earths: four Type-Forms from which all the others come.
If the Elemental Heat and Light are collected by means of lenses in porcelain vessels in pure water, ablack color is produced in the expansion phase. The water heats up until it boils; gradually cooled, the Carbon concentrates in a white residue which , on analysis, turns out to be a Carbonate of Magnesia (Kohlensdure Magnesia) a porous, tasteless substance, hardly soluble in water: this alkaline earth could be the primitive earth. According to the proportioning of the carbonic and luminous elements, it is offered with an excess of luminous matter as siliceous; of carbonic matter, like clay, which after new addition of carbonic matter is transformed into limestone. In the multiplicity of acting Forces and moved Subjects, neither the Primitive Agent nor the First Subject can be recognized. But, with the help of higher Chemistry, the bodies allow themselves to be divided up to Carbon, the ultimate limit. Starting from this base and breaking down in ascending order, we come to gas and, finally, to the First Agent, NITROGEN [ie Azoth or Azoth of the Sages].
As soon as the NITROGEN acts on the CARBON, it extracts a soapy essence which is the Substance of Light (Lichtstoff) in a bound state. It arises from the expansion of Carbon. By condensation of this body, a second is born, a Fatty Acid, Substance of Heat. The luminous substance is Principle of Expansion, cause of all diaphaneity. Caloric substance is principle of Attraction, cause of all condensation. These are the two FIRST PRINCIPLE OF CREATION, the AZOTH of Heaven and the AZOTH of Earth, Yin and Yang Chinese people. CARBON is the true matter of all things, the ANDROGYNE OF NATURE, uniting Male and Female, Passive and Active.By expansion, it forms its active Principle which it again attracts as a passive being to form, from it alone, the multiplicity of bodies. It is the CENTER of NATURE, from which flows the visible creation. This primitive body has a triple faculty: expansion, contraction, new expansion.
In Nature, the Force is always immutable, offering itself. The body captures it and is modified by it. The participation of the Force seems a plunge, freely consented, in the form, to manifest itself. This penetration generates a median being which balances the two and which is called SPIRIT. Thus, in physical Nature, the luminous exciter acting on the elemental heat produces a Spirit - in physics, gas. The Ancients called it SPIRITUS, VAPOR which bathes the universe; it is called Air Vital, SPIRITUS UNIVERSALIS. Through him, Light is linked to Heat and spawns all Manifestations.
The entire natural process forms the following cycle:
Everywhere, the Light, acting in descending order, tends to congeal into elemental Heat, while the Heat, in ascending order, tends to volatilize into Light. Whenever, in descending order, Heat is linked, Light appears, in ascending order and vice versa, through the medium of the Vital Spirit of Nature. The Three Principles of the latter are therefore, LIGHT FORCE, ELEMENTAL HEAT, SPIRIT OF LIFE, their product. Three distinct essences, but united in a Matter which is the Primitive Matter of the Physical World; these Three Elements can be called SALT, MERCURY and SULFUR of the Philosophers, Matter, Bond, Force of all things.
This Spirit of Nature, issuing from Light and Heat , is like a Breath or Vital Breath of the Universe, which, by condensation, is transformed into WATER - and it is then the HUMID RADICAL OF NATURE.
The World inhales and exhales.
From the movement applied to Carbon as the Universal First Matter (elemental fire, HYLÈ) are born Calorific Matter and Luminous Matter
AGENT: Luminous Matter PATIENT: Carbon PRODUCT: Calorific Matter.
In ascending order, these three Expansions graduate as

Luminous Matter: Elemental Light.
Caloric Matter: Elemental Heat.
Matter of Fire: Elemental Fire.
These three bodies, possessing a real existence, must have the force to produce Light, Heat and Fire. In the most expansive state, these Three Agents are three gases, named by the Ancient SPI R ITUS, Physical Spirits: Nitrogen: Luminous exciter. Hydrogen: Combustible air, heat agent; Oxygen : Vital air, agent of fire.
Where the light appears, there is action of Nitrogen on the elemental Light or the soapy substance. Where heat appears, action of Hydrogen on Elemental Heat or Fatty Acid. Where fire is born, action of Oxygen on elemental Fire or Carbon. In fire are contained elemental Heat and Light. Elemental Heat is the expansion of fire to a higher degree. Elemental Light is that of elemental Heat at a higher level. When, in ascending order, these three gases take birth, they form by attracting Vital Air a medium substance to recombine with Carbon, and this medium is the first liquid body of Nature.
Oxygen and Hydrogen give water; Hydrogen and Nitrogen, from nitrous acid, by means of Oxygen: The Acid appears each time luminous matter and caloric matter are liberated.
If Nitrogen is balanced with Hydrogen through the mediation of Oxygen, an acidic liquid is born, formed by Light and Heat, which can be called UNIVERSAL ACID. If Hydrogen balances with Oxygen, it is born from water. The three phases solid, liquid, gaseous contain a medium being which units in each one the Fixed one with the Volatile one: in the gaseous phase the Oxygen; in the liquid phase a pure Liquid; in the solid phase, the elemental Fire acting within the water.
Oxygen, considered as an igneous exciter, governs any phenomenon where a body is volatilized. Pure Liquid, like Elemental Heat, governs any phenomenon where bodies are present in a soluble state. Elemental Fire governs all phenomena where bodies are in a molten and mixed state.
These last three laws are of the highest importance, because with the simplest means the most admirable actions can be brought about.
END



ANDRE SAVORET'S NOTES FOR "CHEMICAL TESTS"

1 That is to say from our + [Mercurial Water]. This therefore contains the three absolute substances of Light, Heat and Fire.

2 Phosphorus is the living Azoth, the universal Mercury or fire-Water. In the course of the work, the author speaks of it in various ways, considering it in itself, in one of its elements, or under the species of the sensitive medium which virtually encloses it.

3 The process described in this passage has two meanings, depending on whether one considers elementary alchemy or mystical alchemy.

4 One could understand here by “sulphur of nature” Fire-water distinct from the hidden sulfur of metals, which is however not heterogeneous to it.

5 This “terra virginea” comes from the “subjectum artis”, prepared philosophically in order to develop its attractive faculty which will be exercised on the sulfur of nature”. Compare what the author said, a few pages earlier, on the passage from the universal to the stone.

6 Among the substances from which the inquisitor of science can suppose to choose or extract the elements of the work, very few will answer his expectation. If he works without firm principles or according to erroneous principles, disappointments - useful however if he knows how to take advantage of them - will not be spared him. In any case, let him beware of the dangerous temptation to work on vulgar mercury.

7 In other words, our starry Virgin.

8 Here the Dry Way and the Wet Way branch off. The partially exposed method requires delicate adaptation. D'Eckartshausen comes back to this in the course of the chapter entitled Principles for a philosophical work.

9 “Die nasse erde”; expression not to be taken literally.

10 The white earth is philosophical mercury in one of its stages of maturation. The sulfur of nature can be conceived here as the universal mercury, under one of its modalities. To unite them, at different degrees of their mutual exaltation, that is the science.

11 Sulfur-phosphorus can be seen as the Fire element of Fire-Water.

12 The coal with which we heat our furnaces has a fire in it and has a coarse sulphur. It has stored solar energy, and that is why the author can make it an analog substitute for real sulfur. In the same way the Arsenic of the philosophers or the Fire-Water resides in the vulgar phosphorus only by analogy. In the experiment that follows, the “coal dust” could well be simply, the subjectum artis , already qualified for the Labors of Hercules.

13 What demonstrates that this experience, very real, is no more “chemical” than the previous one and that the substances it describes are not the bodies known by this name, is that its phosphorus is white on the outside and red on the inside. Let us understand that the Mercurial Stone is white on the outside, but that it contains its virtual red sulfur, invisible on the outside.

14 This is a charcoal… a little special, as I said, and which is difficult to find among the “bougnats”. For example, it could be a metallic, saline or metallogenic substance, depending on the period of the work envisaged, or mercuro-sulphurous in the hermetic sense of these two terms, when the "white phosphorus" acts on it through heat and a certain humidity.

I will not cross certain limits, but, to put MM. chemists or hyper chemists at their ease and their avoid wasting time and "false control experiments", I will point out to them that the author treats his "coal" with the "white" of his phosphorus but not with the red, which is understandable, if we accept with me that this "red" is still at this stage only a virtual coloring.

15 This whole chapter on dissolutions is of extreme importance. Keep proportions and remember about charitable advice: “It is from too little that the damage comes. » The process to which it is alluded will find its application - with the difference of the weights - as well at the beginning as in the middle of the work, as well in dry voice as wet way, by adapting. Do not forget that philosophers distinguish several mercury as he distinguishes several Fires. D'Eckartshausen often plays on this terminological keyboard.

16 P 31. The Igneous base is the latent sulphur. This seizes upon the mercury liberated by the departure of the oxygen and fixes it in its own nature, or, if you will, in "sulfur phosphorus." »

17 That is, a metallogenic Gur. See also the beginning of the Analysis and Synthesis of Metals chapter. In the operations which are described here, we can hear "phosphoric acid" under two meanings, either universal mercury (or that aspect of mercury that some call astral quintessence), or philosophical mercury, which has the closest and most legitimate relations with it. A distinction must be made between what mercury is in nature and what can be or become in the laboratory.

18 chemically

19 But unsuitable for operations on metals because specifying another realm, which seems to ignore those who believed that the Agent of the philosophers of fire was animal magnetism.

20 In metallic alchemy, this “charcoal” is a slag residue, resulting from certain manipulations and whose usefulness is demonstrated rather in the dry voice when the wet voice.

21 The reader will have already noticed the intentional simplicity of the expressions used by the author and his disdain for effect phrases.

22 This recipe, which seems to fall into the category of “particulars”, nevertheless requires, in order to succeed, effective knowledge of the “universal”. Here if the copper is indeed that of the chemists, the phosphorus is something quite different from the body to which we give this name. Alchemists know that copper contains an exuberant tincture which only lacks fixity, as Basil Valentine observes in his Revelation of the Mystery of Tinctures .

23 In a more usual style, Bergschwaden are synonymous with Mountain Vinegar.

24 the metallogenic Gur takes its strength from what is above (solar and cosmic radiation) as well as from what is below (heat and telluric energy). At their point of junction tends to form gold, surface metal.

25 In principle, the role of heat, in the work as in spagyric operations, is to bring solid bodies to a stage more permeable to the action of spirits, whether it is a question of fixing the volatile or, conversely, of volatilizing the fixed.

26 In the present case, phosphorus can be understood as philosophical mercury.

27 Vulgar mercury, well purified, philosophical phosphorus. The oil thus obtained is precious, because, again mixed with its phosphorus and digested, it is one of the paths which lead to the sulfur of the philosophers, according to the processes of the wet process.

28 Copper sulphate, chemist's phosphorus (just for ounce). Water, on the other hand, is our hyleac + (mercurial water) containing the three principles in a potential state.

29 The theoretical and practical importance of this chapter is considerable. The equivalences posed must be grasped thoroughly, if one wishes to penetrate what may remain obscure in this work. If I myself read correctly, metals are made up of bound elements and binding elements. The related ones are sulphur: carbonic and igneous substance; Mercury: caloric substance, acid or vital air; Salt: luminous substance. This salt principle, in the terminology proper to the author, is not, in its root, the principle of corporizations, nor the result of the union of sulfur and mercury, but it allows this union, having come out of their common androgynous source.I believe I have noted that it should not be confused with the salt of sapience, a laboratory reality and not a cosmic principle. The binders are: terra virginea . Metalloids would be unthinkable if they were totally devoid of the same three principles. Theoretically, one could pass from metalloids to metals; practically, this work would be enormously long and difficult. Like the metals, the metalloids tend towards a still perfect, finished body, equivalent to gold in the metallic series. And this body is, if I'm not mistaken, the sulfur of our profane chemistry.

Consider a solution in which appropriate reagents cause the elements in suspension to reappear, one by one.

31 The Benzoic Flowers that is to say the salts of the previous experience. Phosphoric acid is here, of course, our + (mercurial water).

32 The base, still imperfect, of the sulfur of the philosophers, the obtaining of which is the subject of the second work.

33 Auric oils.

34 Philosophical Mercurys. Lampfire fixation to the elixir state requires great caution or boldness. The technique is different when using the closed crucible or the glass matrass. Also the working hours.

35 The clear solution: the blood-red liquor. This process is not a continuation of the preparation of the dyeing powder, but is entirely distinct from it.

36 Proportions to remember.

37 This experience should be compared with the previous ones. Note the qualitative and quantitative multiplication processes. We would be mistaken in taking this projection powder for the result of a “particular”.

38 The author has in view here not the principle salt, but the harmonic salt, useful in the humid way, indispensable in the dry voice. It is naturally insoluble in ordinary water. He will talk about it further on, in the chapter on pyrites.

39 “Brenbar”. To grasp what the author means, it is necessary to refer to what he says about coal and the principle it contains, in the first pages of this booklet.

40 This increase powder can be performed after the end of the first Work. It is therefore properly alchemical. I am not qualified to judge whether the formula is truncated or not.

41 Don't take “coal powder” literally. Compare this experience to that described in the chapter on the nature of gold and silver. Of the one, too, of which he speaks about human blood. I couldn't be clearer where the author obviously wants to remain obscure. You need inspiration from heaven to recognize yourself in this maze. But is it not written, "Ask, and you shall receive"?

42 Seats of Nervous Energy.

43 Peat is more impure, but easier to work than anthracite. However, to feed these carbons, acetum philosophorum is required. Not every key opens every lock.

44 In English in the text.

45 All of this is subject to several adaptations. Here is one: to obtain iron, sulfur, mercury and talciform earth must be combined in proportions which are those of iron. So, have it analyzed. The alchemists did not wait for Lavoisier to use scales.

On the other hand, the last eight paragraphs have a general meaning, and a particular meaning of the highest importance, touching on a certain problem of the great work, which sometimes obliges the author to play a little on words. The last sentence may sound ironic, but it isn't.

It is still necessary for this realization, to know the first agent. The ancients had a good knowledge of soluble and insoluble metal salts (chemically of course). Vitriols and other "atraments" played a major role in the manufacture of artificial minerals. We know, on the other hand, that Roman vitriol or green vitriol was the support of the famous powder of sympathy, to which Robert Amadou devotes a very objective and highly interesting monograph. There were thus a lot of simple or double salts endowed with unusual properties, either symbolically or really, I mean in vitro. Emile Canseliet has devoted precious pages to some of his pleasant salts. One will also find in History and Doctrines of the Rose-Croix of Sedir, more useful information, in particular in the Parable of Mars of Busto Nicenas, revealing in several respects.

46 The telluric energy metallifies the Gur and densifies it… Gold, as I said, after many others, is formed on the surface, preferably in silicas (sand, quartz, etc). Sulfur and iron, in various combinations, hasten this process of gold, certain other pyrites also, playing if one wishes the role of catalysts, exciter (Le Brun de Virloy) or stimuli (D'Eckartshausen). Antagonist and complementary to gold, iron is a metal of the depths. In the meeting of these two metalliferous energies of opposite direction or signs, one can suppose that the telluric energy tends to iron and that the cosmic energy tends to gold. It was not out of fantasy that the alchemists of yesteryear traveled, sometimes very far, to go and observe the mining deposits.

47 Part of the above belongs to the dry process, another part offers the equivalence in the wet process.

48 That is, oxidation, in the chemical sense. Take in the hermetic sense the “phosphorus” of the following paragraph.

49 Vital air. The author, in the use of the two terms, Lebensluft and Sauerstoff considers sometimes the physical body "oxygen", sometimes fire-Water, manna or philosophical dew, also called Vinegar of the mountains.

50 Which is, summarily, a condensation of the astral quintessence in the subject made receptive and more stripped to each eagle of its initial specificity and its superfluities. It is necessary that, in this genesis, the spirit disqualifies the chaotic waters.

51 Metaphors expressing the action of internal fire, without prejudice to the other. Here, we are at the first work and, if you want to hear me, at the second rung of the ladder of the sages. By unanimous agreement, the philosophers sawed or buried very deeply in the arid ground the first rung, as an appetizer...

52 Continuations of the first work in the style of the dry voice.

53 Philosophical mercury, virginal milk.

54 This paragraph is in no way a continuation of what precedes. The very original process which is given here is almost complete. It is as sure, perhaps more so, than that known as "of the two Dragons." I have said enough for the attentive seeker. I would add two words: do not take the flores ignis and lucis too literally ...

55 It is perhaps charitable to warn that months may elapse between this operation and the preceding one.

56 Here an essential phase described in one of these preceding pages, is omitted. We arrive without relay at the elixir, this time following more the technique of the wet way, it seems.

57 See Aseh Mesareph; the Vulgate renders this word stibium. After Christian, Éliphas Levi first (in The Key to the Great Mysteries ), then Jolivet-Castello ( How one becomes an alchemist) have reproduced this word crippling it, by confusion between a final Kaph and a Daleth. Puch or Phok has the number 106 (80 +20+6) or seven (1+0+6). These authors copied themselves without even trying to understand and verify. Otherwise, could they have written: "the central metalloid whose name is Phod or Plumaya, whose number is 106 = 7"? The number of PHOD is undoubtedly 90 = 9. Just this, which is obvious, should have preserved them from error if they had had the slightest desire to study for their own guidance what they gave to readers, not necessarily Hebrew scholars, as the theme of the highest alchemic-kabalistic speculations!

58 This is apparently Kohol or antimony makeup. Perhaps it would be wise not to conclude from this somewhat… showy digression that vulgar antimony is the materia bruta philosophorum .

59 Or first mercury.

60 I will comment as little as possible. To guide the ideas, I will only say that the figures must be studied independently of their gloss and replaced in the true order, which is that of successive obtainings starting from the lead of the wise men or their mine.

A philosopher friend reproached the author for having copied his apparently mineralogical mentions in "The Great and the Little Peasant", a famous treatise of the sixteenth century. D'Eckartshausen no doubt had his reasons for doing so, following in this a method common among the best Hermetic authors whose borrowings from the "classics" of their literature often have excellent reasons for opportunity.

61 Text obligingly translated and communicated by a hermetist friend of ours, B. H*****. May he be warmly thanked here.