Letter from a Father to his Son
Put ten pounds of minium in a large pot and put on it enough distilled vinegar to fill the pot almost to the brim, bring gently to a boil, stirring often with a wooden spoon, and maintain the same heat for three hours.
For and filter the vinegar; and put the vinegar back into the pot again and boil as before, for three hours, stirring frequently, and decanting and filtering: and you must repeat this process as many times as necessary to nearly dissolve all the minium in the vinegar, and there will remain a blackish residue. In the same pot, put another ten pounds of minium, and continue to dissolve in the vinegar as before until all the minium is dissolved.
Then, put all the filtered vinegar in a retort, and distill in an oven without grill until only a quarter of it remains, which you will put in a glazed pot covered with paper to protect it from dust, and leave to rest in a cold place, where it will freeze into a salt.
Decant the vinegar which has not crystallized, and evaporate half of it, crystallize again, and continue in the same way as often as necessary for all the vinegar to be reduced to crystals.
Put the said salt in a large flat-bottomed pot, and place in the sun and let it dry.
Dissolve the said salt of Saturn in distilled water, after it is distilled let twenty four hours in digestion. Then filter, and distill the water until a film forms, and crystallize as before for the vinegar.Thoroughly dry the crystals in the sun until they fall into a fine white powder, then dissolve them again in distilled water, and digest for 24 hours; filter, distill and crystallize. And you will repeat this process as many times as it will be necessary to eliminate the terrestrial sediments: then dry the crystals perfectly and keep apart.
Then take twelve pounds of the aforesaid purified salt, place in a large retort of which two-thirds must remain empty, close with a blind capital and fight the joints; put the retorte in a steam bath leaving the neck and the capital out of the bath, and leave in the bath for twenty days, at a sufficient heat to keep the said salt melted into oil.
After twenty days apply a gentle fire equal to that of the sand, and distill the white spirit; then when you see a pale yellow color appear at the mouth of the retorte, it will be the oil: then immediately remove the retorte from the fire and wrap it in a warm cloth, and when it has cooled somewhat, put the distilled spirit back in, close again, lute, and place in a vaporous bath for seven days. When the seven days have elapsed, distill only the spirit, in the same manner as above and when the distilled spirit begins to take on a lemon color remove the retort from the bath, and as aforesaid, put the distilled spirits back into the retort, close, and purify for seven days, and distill again in the sand; and you will do this seven times. The seventh time and last time,
You will do the same with the spirits, rectifying them in a bain-marie several times, until they leave no more impurities, then keep aside in a tightly stoppered bottle.
Put the residual powder mentioned above in a pot, cover it, and cook for eight days at a heat which will not cause the powder to become incandescent, nor to melt it. After eight days, increase the heat, but first put the powder in an open pot, burn in a reverberatory oven for another eight or ten days, so that the heat is dark red.
Then, using distilled vinegar, remove the salt, filter, and distill, and crystallize; when the said crystals are dry, dissolve them in common water, which has been distilled three times, filter, distill, and crystallize, then dry;and likewise dissolve with the aforesaid common distilled water, filter, distill and crystallize, as before, then after drying continue this procedure until there is no longer any residual earthiness in the solution; then dry thoroughly and keep aside in a bottle.
Into a long-necked matrass, put one part of the aforesaid salt, and add to it nine or ten parts of the aforesaid spirit of Saturn, add a flask of encounter, and wrestle with the damp bladder the joint, place in a water-bath or in a bath of horse manure for fifty days, during which time the substance will putrefy and become black in color: then put the whole in a retort, in the moderate heat of the sand-bath, fit a vessel, wrestle the joints, and distill until the salt is perfectly dry, put the distillate back in the retort, and cohob several times until the salt distills with the spirit in the form of butter, then rectify three times, each time in a clean vase, and you will have an incomparable treasure. This butter is called Alkaest, and it radically dissolves all metals,
This Butter Will Freeze Vulgar Mercury Into Silver in Two Hours, Perfectly in this Manner: Put Fifty Onces of Mercury in a Retort and Cover with the Butter Mention Above so that there is more Than a Finger of it, and cook with the Neck of the Container Fitted for Two Hours In An Ash Bath Duced to a White Powder: When this is done, Distil all the Butter Back to the Container, and when the Distillation is complete, you will have your butter of the Same Strength as Previously, in Fact it will be Better; the powder of Mercury, after having been dissolved by the means of the bath of the moon, will have become a perfect moon. To make the Stone, proceed as follows: Take equal parts of the aforementioned butter and the oil of Saturn,or three parts butter and one part oil. Here you have the union of the bright sun and the bright moon. Put these two substances together in a philosophical egg, seal tightly, and cook on low heat until set. Soak with an equal amount of oil of Saturn and bake, and after doing this a third time you will have the stone in the fixed oil, which will give a very high projection when treated with pure gold as described in the other procedure involving Saturn's Mercury, and after obtaining productions with the other metals, lead is best. You can multiply ad infinitum by soaking with the oil of Saturn, and cooking until fixed. Put these two substances together in a philosophical egg, seal tightly, and cook on low heat until set.Soak with an equal amount of oil of Saturn and bake, and after doing this a third time you will have the stone in the fixed oil, which will give a very high projection when treated with pure gold as described in the other procedure involving Saturn's Mercury, and after obtaining productions with the other metals, lead is best. You can multiply ad infinitum by soaking with the oil of Saturn, and cooking until fixed. Put these two substances together in a philosophical egg, seal tightly, and cook on low heat until set.Soak with an equal amount of oil of Saturn and bake, and after doing this a third time you will have the stone in the fixed oil, which will give a very high projection when treated with pure gold as described in the other procedure involving Saturn's Mercury, and after obtaining productions with the other metals, lead is best. You can multiply ad infinitum by soaking with the oil of Saturn, and cooking until fixed. Soak with an equal amount of oil of Saturn and bake, and after doing this a third time you will have the stone in the fixed oil, which will give a very high projection when treated with pure gold as described in the other procedure involving Saturn's Mercury, and after obtaining productions with the other metals, lead is best.You can multiply ad infinitum by soaking with the oil of Saturn, and cooking until fixed. Soak with an equal amount of oil of Saturn and bake, and after doing this a third time you will have the stone in the fixed oil, which will give a very high projection when treated with pure gold as described in the other procedure involving Saturn's Mercury, and after obtaining productions with the other metals, lead is best. You can multiply ad infinitum by soaking with the oil of Saturn, and cooking until fixed. and after having obtained productions with the other metals, lead is the best. You can multiply ad infinitum by soaking with the oil of Saturn, and cooking until fixed. and after having obtained productions with the other metals, lead is the best.You can multiply ad infinitum by soaking with the oil of Saturn, and cooking until fixed.
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