Philosophical Vitriol and its preparation
tripod
1898
PRELIMINARY
I will not begin this study without paying a just tribute to the memory of the late Albert Poisson, whose treatise on "Theories and Symbols" came to produce a much needed clarity on all the alchemical books of antiquity. Thanks to him now, one can boldly open any old hermetic manuscript and, if not enter fully into the secrets that our ancestors have always jealously guarded, at least penetrate the thought that guided them and try to understand what they wanted to tell us in their writings.
After you have read and meditated on the various works relating to the "great work" that have come into your possession, what is your dominating thought? Or if you prefer, what is the question that arises in you? If I'm not mistaken, here it is: What can we mean by this Mercury of the philosophers of whom so many wonders are said? Is it a myth or does it really exist? And if it exists, where and how can I find it?
This is indeed the crux of the matter, and in it lies the whole hermetic secret.
According to all the authors who have dealt with it, the Mercury of the philosophers is found everywhere. It is, they say, in ourselves, in the air you breathe, it is the azoth which gives birth to all things; which inevitably leads us to believe that it can only be the astral light of Éliphas Lévi, the movement of Louis Lucas, the gold of the Chevalier Reichenbach, the force of Turpin. But, still according to the ancients, as of its essence it is impalpable and invisible, it is necessary that by some artifice, the craftsman make it appear in a tangible form, and this form is what is called the quintessence. . Accordingly, to remove it from any subject, one must therefore obtain the very quintessence of the subject,
It seems to me already, at this moment, to see shrugging the shoulders of all people reputed to be serious and learned. and hear certain qualifiers buzzing in my ears, the least of which can only be “quintessence abstractor”.
Alchemy, in fact, is a science still so decried in our time that anyone who ventures into it can be certain to see one day or another suspecting its cerebral faculties. Do you want proof? Open the Larousse and look for the article Paracelse: you will be able to read, in the middle of more or less bittersweet appreciations, this superb sentence: "In summary, he was a madman, to whom medicine simply owes his therapy." Here, the word "simply" does not lack flavor, and for my part, I regret bitterly that there has not been since that time a few madmen of this caliber who could have made, always by chance of course, some new discoveries. ; modern medicine, be it said without wanting to offend him, might perhaps have drawn some profit from it.It is the same for all the others, be it Oswald Cross or Glauber. You will be able to read that all their life, they shone brightly among their contemporaries, but always that by an unfortunate coincidence, they all ended up going badly on the decline of their existence.
Anything. It is not possible now, for an unprepared and even slightly enlightened mind, to believe that all the great philosophers of antiquity, the Paracelses, the De Locques, the Glaubers, and so many others, that he would take me too long to quote, it is not possible, I say, to believe that all these great minds have taken the wrong road, and that after having been the receptacle of human knowledge and masters with indisputable words, they were able, at the end of their days, to forget all their knowledge, to fall, which seems singular, into the same madness and the same dementia, although they lived in quite distinct periods.
If it is therefore impossible to believe in an aberration of mind which would have been common to all these scholars, we are naturally led to believe that there is a true science, hidden, deep, to which these were necessarily led. faithful watchers of nature, who, by dint of watching and working, have finally deciphered the enigma of the sphinx, and have managed to receive the reward of a lifetime of work and study. But back to our subject.
As for plants and animals, it is easy for anyone who knows spagyric art. to extract its quintessence. Thus de Locques in his "Rudiment of Natural Philosophy", Le Crom in his "Useful and Curious Experiences", give us the procedure to follow, but for minerals, it is a completely different operation, more difficult and longer.
As they are generally devoid of any humidity, we must first soften them and bring them to a state which will be the subject of our work, and which we will call, like all the ancients, the name of Vitriol.
PHILOSOPHICAL VITRIOL
FIRST PART
First of all, there are two vitriols, or rather vitriol can come in two forms; pure vitriol and impure or gross vitriol.
To fully understand this, we must go back to the very origin of hermetic science, and I do not think I can do better than quoting the ideas of Paracelsus on the pure and the impure of each substance. According to him, in all things there is the soul of that thing which he calls "the predestined element." ". This predestined element which is composed, still according to him, of salt, sulfur and mercury, is as if drowned and disseminated in a mass formed of phlegm and dead or damned earth, and thus gives us the body such as we see it We have a striking example of this in plants.What, in fact, are the various alkaloids: quinine, aconitine, etc., if not the pure and active principles of these vegetables, which, once deprived of these principles, remain without force and without action.
Now, in this case vitriol.
suppose that by spagyric art, we came to suppress this phlegm and this dead earth. We will have pure vitriol; otherwise, it is impure vitriol, and the work will be all the more difficult and long. that the vitriol will be more impure, or that the predestined element will be in less quantity. For it is this pure vitriol which is the basis of the hermetic work, it is the raw material of art, it is the salt which, by a series of operations whose story will be the subject of a another study, will take the form of mercury or secret fire. and, by an intimate union of the volatile with the fixed, will give us sulphur, the Sapphic philosophical magnet attracting the universal spirit and the armoniacal salt of Artephius.
All bodies are therefore composed of a pure principle and another impure; consequently, the metals have in them a pure grain buried under the black faeces, and it is this pure grain, this soul not yet completely fixed, that the hermetic art proposes to seek, to raise it to a superior condition, in the art of transmutation.
Raw Material
The raw material was perfectly indicated by Basile Valentin in his remarkable symbol "Visita interiora terrae rectificando, invents occultum lapidem" (1), a symbol whose first letters together form the word "Vitriol".
The vitriol is the beginning of the work; but what is this vitriol?
Shall we take the blue, white or green vitriols, which are the sulphates or couperoses of our modern chemistry? These compounds, according to Riplée, are the vitriols of madmen, and what concerns us at the moment is philosophical vitriol.
The philosophical vitriol of a metal is formed when this metal finds itself impregnated with a humidity of its own nature, that is to say with a mineral liquor to which it owes its birth and whose coagulation and fixation has produced this same metal, which will then find itself thereby, in a way demoted, or rather re-increased, according to the alchemical style.
Take, for example, ordinary iron sulphate.
Sulfuric acid is a mineral liquor still too far removed from iron to be a humidity of its own nature; therefore the green vitriol of commerce is not philosophical vitriol. But if, by processes which we will indicate, we manage to soften this compound sufficiently so as to make a paste of it which can be subjected to putrefaction, a new body will then be generated, in which SO4H will have approached the metal , and will be cooked by fermentation, to the point of having become identical with what this same metal was before its coagulation.
We will therefore have, in this case, a Vitriol Martial; we can obtain in the same way that of Venus, as well as the true matter so hidden from the ancients which was obtained from a martial and luminous pyrite, or more briefly from sulphate of iron and alumina; what Hyginus a Barma wants to teach us, when he tells us at the beginning of his Practice: “Take real earth well impregnated with the rays of the sun, the moon and the other stars. »
Now let's see how we can get this compound to putrefy.
It is not without reason that the ancient chemists considered putrefaction as the door to the sanctuary of nature.
It is she, indeed, the author of all generation, destruction and regeneration. But if plants and animals rot easily, minerals, on the other hand, are much more difficult to bring to this state; however, we can do this by examining how nature operates when she destroys minerals or stones.
Heat and humidity are its only agents; for, by a series of successive desiccations and moistenings, everything ends up breaking, crumbling and finally changing into a kind of paste or porridge.
Make a stone redden in the fire, then quench it in water or, to go faster, in salt water, it will break into pieces; repeat the operation and the stone will end up being reduced to mucus and water.
Let us therefore apply this process to the case which occupies us, that is to say to the sulphate of iron and alumina, and we shall reduce our materials to the pasty consistency required for putrefaction.
De Locques, in his “Rudiment de Philosophie” gives us the process opposite:
"We put the vitriol at a very moderate heat, where nothing can rise but the phlegm, that is to say, we must take care not to remove the water of constitution, and this as long as it remains dry as a sponge stone; we give it back its phlegm, we redistill, and this three times; at the second it takes on the color of a beautiful emerald, and at the third it becomes white as butter. This material is corrupted with manure for forty days, then the sweet spirit is distilled, which comes in small veins like the spirit of wine, then the acid spirit which distills in the form of white fumes, and finally the red oil by a strong expression of fire, without which it does not rise” (pages 83 and 84, 2nd book).
In this place, de Locques was not explicit enough, which happens to him, moreover, most of the time. If we take it literally and put the vitriol as it is, to dry out, we won't get anything good, because when we pour the phlegm back on the said vitriol, it won't dissolve. , there will therefore only be the surface which will be attacked by successive moistenings and desiccations, and the whole inside of the retort or cucurbite will remain intact. You will therefore have wasted your time and your troubles, which happened to me the first time.
Whereas if you first dissolve all the vitriol in distilled water or rainwater, you can at each cohobation redissolve it again, and thereby grind the matter sufficiently, so that after two or three operations, it ends up fall in the consistency of butter or guhr, the whole forming a homogeneous paste, which you will only have to subject to putrefaction.
So here we are at the entrance to the King's Palace; we have in our possession the red vitriol, the adrop, the azoque vitriol, the green lion of Riplée, the preparation of which has always been concealed with jealous care. It is the only material which alone contains the white and red sulfurs necessary for the stone. It is there that vitriol which, distilled either with saltpetre alone, or with saltpetre and cinnabar, gives us that stinking menstruation of which it is spoken in the clavicle of Raymond Lully. the treasury of treasures of Paracelsus, and the compound of Albert the Great, works translated from Latin into French by A. Poisson.
This stinking menstruation reduces the metals to their first matter, that is to say, to philosophical vitriol, and if, when the metals (iron and copper, for example) have been dissolved therein. one distills according to art. which means small fire at the beginning by graduating the fire little by little until it becomes strong at the end. one then obtains a liquor charged with the volatilized sulfurs of these metals which can, according to the language of the alchemists, dye the moon which one puts there to digest whatever time, by making him acquire a good part of the Crown of the King.
We will thus realize the problem already found by Tiffereau, of the transmutation of silver into gold in a singularly lucrative way, thanks to the action of these more material sulfurs and consequently more effective than the rays of the sun of Mexico, were they ten times more ardent.
But we will come back to this subject.
Among the ancient philosophers, many of them arrived at the hermetic secret, before having known this unique matter; thus, we will be able to quote Le Crom who left a very suggestive Vade-Mecum and in which he gives the preparation of the salt of the metals which is nothing else than the almost pure vitriol of these metals. I cannot do less than reproduce this preparation which is found in his "New treatise on dissolutions", page 34: "Put in stoneware terrines, a few pounds of iron filings, for good distilled vinegar over them (2), and let the matter infuse, stirring three times a day, until the vinegar is well colored.
Decant, add vinegar again and continue until you have enough tinctures. If it's cold weather,the operation will be done in a slightly warm place to help the dissolution. Filter, put all your colored vinegar in one or two half-filled sandstone cucurbits, and gently distill with sand. until the material is dry. Cohobez and redistill up to seven times, so as to grind said material. Then crush it in a mortar, soaking it with its menstruation, then put it in a glass retort and the vinegar on top, so that it floats by a third.
Distil carefully and by degrees. until no more drips or smoke come out. Rectify your distillation three times to clean it of its garbage, then grind the soil of your retort on the marble by soaking it with your rectified water three times,and put it in glass cucurbits with water rectified to the eminence of four fingers: cover the cucurbits with others of encounter, lute the joints and make digest in the bath of the ashes on a soft fire, during forty days. You will then decant, and the evaporated liquor will give you the requested salt. Wash the material well to remove as much as possible of all the salt, which you will then clean by several dissolutions and filtrations in rainwater.
Dissolve again in eau-de-vie to complete the purification of the salt, and evaporate in a bain-marie. and the evaporated liquor will give you the requested salt. Wash the material well to remove as much as possible of all the salt, which you will then clean by several dissolutions and filtrations in rainwater.Dissolve again in brandy to complete the purification of the salt, and evaporate in a bain-marie. and the evaporated liquor will give you the requested salt. Wash the material well to remove as much as possible of all the salt, which you will then clean by several dissolutions and filtrations in rainwater. Dissolve again in eau-de-vie to complete the purification of the salt, and evaporate in a bain-marie.
Put this salt in a well-sealed glass retort, and distill with sand over a controlled fire until nothing comes out. Rectify the liquor that will come out of it in a high-shaped curcurbite; first a subtle spirit will come out which does not attach itself to the capital: when you see that the liquor begins to attach itself to it, change the recipient, and you will have the oil. »
Le Crom is the only author I know who has gone so far in a clear and neat demonstration of the raw material, and not only does he show us how to obtain an almost pure vitriol, but he also puts us on the way transmutations which, thanks to its means, one can carry out easily.
Thus, this salt projected on fine pewter from England after an hour and a half of melting it in a crucible, and a good heating of about half an hour after the projection, while stirring vigorously. will give us after cooling in the bottom of the crucible. a pellet that will no longer be tin. since it will be changed into very good money.
“Let us digest,” he said again, “over a gentle fire of ashes, three parts of the second liquor, that is to say oil. with a part of fine silver dissolved by strong water, precipitated by copper and well washed and well dried: let this silver be digested until it has acquired the color of coal. or rather of a starting gold; separate this black lime from its water by pouring the whole into a filter. This lime being dried and put in a crucible, heated fairy until reddening or melted. good gold will be found weight for weight of the silver employed. »
Moreover, this salt of Mars is a drug which, it seems, is not to be despised. for twelve or fifteen grains melted in a pint of river water. give us, still according to him, a mineral water acting through urine and sweat, and of a very effective action in many serious diseases.
The vinegar. to return to our subject, is indeed what may be called the great agent of alchemy, as it is a compound of sulfur and mercury, it insinuates itself into the body of metals, attaches mainly to their mercury and their sulphur, and under the effect of fermentation they soften by changing completely into their own nature (Le Crom).
In an old manuscript attributed to de Bremens is found a preparation of quintessence of lead obtained by treating litharge with distilled vinegar. The lead acetate thus obtained in a pasty mass after evaporation, is left to ferment for two or three months, and at the end of this time the whole has fallen into crystals which are redissolved and recrystallized. We thus have a vitriol of a brilliant and almost pearly aspect, the properties of which are quite different from those of vulgar lead acetate.
But in our current chemistry, isn't the acetate of potash which is also called Arcane of tartar, regenerated tartar, also a real vitriol, although very impure? In fact, it cannot be said that vinegar is a liquid foreign to the salt of tartar, commonly carbonate of potash, since the wine which gives rise to the vinegar is the first state in which the tartar or stone of wine was first found. which is deposited by concretion and which, then calcined, gives the salt of tartar. Therefore the simple union of a fixed, as in our example the carbonate of potash with a moisture of its own nature like vinegar, must give a vitriol, without it being necessary to make them pass beforehand by fermentation or putrefaction.
Distill this salt after having however evaporated it to dryness and transformed into a lamellar mass (foliated earth of tartar of the ancients), let us heat until dark red, we obtain a blackish red liquid which, rectified to separate it from the impure and empyreumatic products , gives us acetone or the spirit of the body and the oil or soul, the lightest portions of which, passing between 120° and 150°, have already occupied chemists under the name of dumasine; spirit and oil which will be perfectly pure by combining them with alkaline bis-sulphites. I need not add that it is necessary to repeat this distillation often, if one wants to obtain an appreciable quantity of liquid, because, besides that in the case of an impure vitriol,the pure portion alone can give something and that it is only found in the proportion of one part in twenty; besides that, I say, all vitriol in the distillation decomposes into the fixed which remains in the retort and into the volatile which passes into the receptacle.
In the case which occupies us, the residue of the distillation is thus nothing other than a mixture of the salt of primitive tartar with charcoal.
I said above that acetate of potash was a very impure vitriol, indeed see what happens when, desiccated in the lamellar state, you heat it until liquid. This liquor is then completely blackish cooled and pounded in a heated marble mortar; the mass takes on a whiteness of fine silver, but each time it becomes liquid again it resumes its black coloration, which would certainly not happen if it were composed only of pure portions.
Take this white mass after having crushed it, put it still hot in a rather large flask, and pour over it in considerable quantity its spirit which is acetone. Let digest twenty-four hours in a warm place, shaking from time to time, and decanting; put new acetone and continue this operation.
Finally you will be left with a blackish liquid mud which represents the greater part of the phlegm and the dead earth of this body, the pure still accompanied, however, by quite a few impurities, having been removed little by little by the spirit.
We can realize it at the time of the decantations thus, when you removed your bottle after digestion from the place where it heated gently, put it in a cool reduced, you will see after some time fine transparent needles, like pure ice, attaching itself to the walls of your vase. But I admit that it was impossible for me to isolate them, because they ended up dissolving and uniting with the acetone to the point of decomposing in the distillation.
Seeing this, I took it another way.
I put two or three kilos of white, dry potassium carbonate in a large basin and poured good distilled wine vinegar over it, without any mixture of acetic acid. After the effervescences, I evaporated it into a very thick brown liquid which I enclosed in stoneware pots with well-sealed lids, and left to ferment for about two or three months in the manure. At the end of this time, the contents of these jars having been evaporated in the consistency of thick honey, by cooling, I obtained a streaky brown paste and as if studded with very shiny and very transparent fine crystals which could only be this time the pure portions of salt separated by putrefaction from the dead and impure portions.
The difficulty was to remove them from this mass to isolate them; however, I succeeded, albeit imperfectly, by stirring with acetone and decanting immediately. I was thus able to obtain a certain quantity of these beautiful crystals, in spite of the necessary loss resulting from the softening of this pure salt by its spirit acetone, which, after the distillation of the said acetone, let flow into the container a compound oil which, according to me, could only have been a mercury, the mercury of this body or, alchemically speaking, a true spirit of tartar, which by a new distillation one obtains pure and limpid.
Since we are now dealing with salt of tartar, we will take the opportunity to recall that this salt has always been in great honor among the ancient philosophers. Van-Helmont expresses himself thus about him: "If you cannot succeed in discovering this secret of fire, he says, speaking of philosophical mercury, learn at least to volatilize the salt of tartar, in order to make your dissolutions by its way”.
Volatilizing the salt of tartar is easy to say, but how do you go about it? I found, some time ago, at the Chacornac bookstore, a little book entitled "Suite de l'Alkaest" by Sieur Jean Lepelletier of Rouen, 1706, in which are related several places in the works of Georges Starkey, the disciple of Philalethes, and where one discovers the manner of volatilizing the alkalis, as well as "of preparing also excellent remedies, approaching those which one can prepare by alkaest." »
After having shown, page 60, that the salt, in general, to speak philosophically, in the action of the fury of Vulcan seizes upon the sulfur its neighbour, and because they were both volatile before, they fuse together and fix themselves in an alkali body, this author adds: "hence it is that the alkalis are easily volatilized, their generation not proceeding from seminal principles and being only a voluntary disguise of salt and sulfur, a disguise that the compound takes for better resistance to the violence of fire" , and further: "all alkali can therefore be made volatile in various ways, all of which produce excellent remedies, but the least of all is that which is done with the oils drawn by expression .
These oils boiled in alkali lyes make a soap , and this soap contains little volatile salt.Essential oils, because of their volatility, cannot be boiled with lyes, but there is a more secret way, by which these oils and the salt of tartar are reduced, not to soap, but to a volatile salt. in the form of candy sugar, which dissolves in water and in wine. Now, among all the fixed salts, there is none greater virtue than the salt of tartar, and among all the oils, none more detergent than the essential oil of turpentine, which is a clear, penetrating oil. and its very diuretic nature. but into a volatile salt in the form of candy sugar, which dissolves in water and in wine.Now, among all the fixed salts, there is none greater virtue than the salt of tartar, and among all the oils, none more detergent than the essential oil of turpentine, which is a clear, penetrating oil.
and its very diuretic nature. but into a volatile salt in the form of candy sugar, which dissolves in water and in wine. Now, among all the fixed salts, there is none greater virtue than the salt of tartar, and among all the oils, none more detergent than the essential oil of turpentine, which is a clear, penetrating oil. and its very diuretic nature. »
But, notice that by making the volatile salt with an essential oil, when the digestion is perfect and it dissolves in the water without any oleaginousness or fat, this water seems like a real spirit which is however not the tartar spirit; because this water being kept, it will retain its strong taste. until only salt remains, and then, if we pour water over this salt, this water will no longer have any taste, and during distillation it will pass without smell.
Now, it is this sort of salt that one must distil or sublimate, if one wishes to obtain the spirit, of which Paracelsus and Van-Helmont made so much of a case.
Here is the way to operate, which is at the end of the book, page 177.
“good saltpeter and white tartar; Pound them apart very finely, sieve, mix and detonate in a crucible, pouring it in by spoonfuls and lighting it with a hot coal. There will remain a white salt which you will take hot, crush it coarsely, and put it in an earthenware vessel with a wide opening and which has a lid; pour on it good oil of turpentine up to the height of two fingers above, taking care that this salt has not taken on moisture when you pour the oil, otherwise it would not unite with the salt. This is why the salt must still be warm when it is crushed and soaked in oil.
This matter should be stirred two or three times a day with a boxwood spatula, keep the vessel covered, in a warm place, and put new oil in it as that which was first put there diminishes. Continuing this work for six months, or until the salt is opened, it has drunk three times its weight of oil, and has taken the form of soap or fat, which, being dried and dissolved in water, gives, by evaporation, the volatile salt or vitriol of tartar demanded”.
This salt, by dry distillation, will subsequently furnish us with the spirit of tartar, which joined to its fixed salt, works so many wonders, according to de Locques, in his "Rudiment of Natural Philosophy", when he speaks of the manner to obtain the "Quintessence of Tartar".
We will stop here, so as not to go beyond the limits that we have drawn for ourselves, not wanting to speak in this work only of Philosophical Vitriol.
SECOND PART
So far we have only dealt with what the ancient philosophers called the wet way, but there is another called the dry way which was followed by Geber and some Arab philosophers, such as Avicenna, etc. Let us content ourselves with saying that the work of the Stone can indifferently begin by one or the other way, although thereafter these two ways must be alternative, as Eliphas Lévi told us so well in his hermetic philosophy.
We have seen in the preceding chapters that obtaining vitriol by the wet process is quite easy if, on the other hand, the work is a little long; but the dry way, although much shorter it is true, is, by that very fact, more difficult and requires a laboratory and expensive tools. which cannot be within everyone's reach.
It consists in calcining the material, so that of all the faeces, being reduced to ashes, there remains only the grain, the pure principle which resists fire, being by its nature as incombustible as asbestos, and which by dint of calcinations ends up being completely resolved, when it is then treated with water. It is this operation that Hermès speaks of when he says “Rex ab igne veniet, ac conjugio gaudebit, ac res occulta patebunt. »
We therefore see that it is only a question of being equipped and seconded, so that, after a few trials and trial and error, we can succeed quite easily. But we must not forget, according to the Sieur de Nuysement, to reiterate these calcinations and these washes, because if we wanted to achieve this by a single and continuous calcination, two things could happen: either that the force of the flames would sublimate and constrain the best part of what is sought would escape, or else this grain or pure principle would vitrify with the faeces; while from the reiteration of calcinations and solutions there come two benefits: one, that the thing calcined acquires by habituation to the fire a singular subtlety and permanence;the other, that what is often dissolved acquires penetration, prompt and subtle impression and powerful virtue.
Here is a process which is described at length in the Philosophical Discourse, by Sabine Stuart le Chevalier, page 167:
“After having recognized the material of the stone, it must be pounded in a mortar, to facilitate the calcination. One can, without fear, calcine it in the furnace of a lamppost and even in a glass furnace, because the material of the stone is like the salamander which does not fear fire. Then extract the fixed salt from the lime by leaching, then boil the leaching until reduced by half, fill the vessel with such leaching, and boil again until reduced by half. You have to repeat this calcination and washing operation, I suppose, up to eight times. By setting aside each time, the crystals formed by cooling and which are the salt dissolved in water or vitriol, and recalcinating only the fixed parts which are deposited at the bottom of the vessel.
After that, he says, you will have a perfect salt, it is what the philosophers call water which does not wet the hands, without this water nothing could grow in the world. This is one of the greatest secrets of the Philosophers; here is the universal spirit embodied, and which can be used to cure the most dangerous diseases.
This salt thus prepared, is the true salt of the earth, which, to the eyes, appears only one and the same thing, but it nevertheless contains three different ones with the four elements.
l) It contains at first a volatile and fixed spirit at the same time, although it is only of an average nature.
2) It contains sal ammonia or volatile salt.
3) It contains a saline, fixed, alkaline substance. This is what is contained in the substance of philosophical salt. »
Crollius, in his Royal Chemistry, also indicates the means of removing vitriol from Mars and Venus. When these metals have been well calcined at different times with sulphur, it takes them up again with rain or dew water, in which the pure grain dissolves and gives a vitriol by evaporation.
I refer the reader to his book for further information.
In these two examples it has been remarked that the pure principle necessitates a complete washing with the water of rain or dew, and the reason is that in these waters is found, in great quantity, the universal spirit or the movement diffuse of Louis Lucas, which, encountering by this operation, not only a magnet, but also a pure matrix, insinuates itself into it, incorporates itself into it with the necessary humidity, and the fixed grain makes of it a vitriol, which easily seen by subsequent distillation.
De Respour, in his “Rare Experiments on the Mineral Spirit”, gives us the opposite process:
He first treats the zinc with antimony in a crucible until the antimony evaporates, then continuing to heat, he sublimates this zinc which then changes into oxide or pompholix or zinc flowers which he removes with a spatula. of iron, as it is produced, and which he calls metallic ash of antimony zinc.
“Then put,” he says, “a part of metallic ashes with two parts of pure saltpetre in an earthen pot, which you will put on the fire for twelve hours, moving it sometimes with a stick, when the material swells. : the heat must be such that the pot does not become inflamed.
The materials being cooled, break the pot and put the mass into a coarse powder, then fill crucibles with it, which you will put on the fire one after the other, and make as big a fire as you can. When you see your crucible begin to vitrify, raise the little lid, and see if the matter is purple in color, which you will know, when it looks dull as lack of fire, the other sign is that a shortly before, there appears a beautiful star. Immediately withdraw your crucible, lest having passed the necessary moment, the mercurial spirit should flee in the form of smoke, so that being out of the fire it will not cease to exhale, and, when it is gone, the matter remains of a gray color, and no other spirit can come in its place; it's up to you to succeed, since it is not difficult.
When you have removed your material from the furnace, and it will be cooled, it will have the color of dark lacquer, verging on purple. I did this operation in an hour, but the moderns were only able to complete it in three hours.
They named this red saltpetre; it is up to you to experience what the ancients said about it, since you know how to do it. We let it resolve on its own if we want, and so it separates from the faeces in the form of a gum. When this gum after its preparation is joined to another gum, namely to that of the Sun, then they become like flowing water, under the metallic luster. This gum is also called amber, because of its attractive virtue of bodily sulphur; soap, because it cleanses the body, and semen, because of its smell. They called it vitriol, meaning, vitrioleum or oil of glass; because it is fired, as I have shown you, by vitrification fire.
“After the vitrifying crucible is cooled, the matter appears like a rose, surrounded by green leaves, because of which they named it rose.
“The salt that one draws from it, by common water, has innumerable virtues: it volatilizes all that is fixed, and fixes all that is volatile, it removes the venom of the sublimated like arsenic, and anything else dangerous. Being reduced, as you will learn later, it dissolves gold and silver, as hot water liquefies ice, without any noise or corrosion, rising together through the still. In short, it does so many beautiful things that chemical books are filled with nothing but its effects. »
Finally, to finish, de Locques, in his Rudiment, also speaks of the way of bringing carbonate of potash or salt of tartar, to the state of vitriol by the dry process:
“If you expose, he says, the tartar to the rays of the sun during the day, and to the rays of the moon during the night, it coagulates and resolves several times, and becomes in such a high degree of penetration and subtlety, that nothing greater can be said, on account of his incredible virtue..."
But this is an experience that I will wholeheartedly leave to those who want to try it.
THIRD PART
I have related almost all that I have been able to gather from philosophers touching on vitriol or raw material, and one can see by these various quotations that with time, a lot of care and patience, one can certainly manage to procure even a considerable quantity of it.
I have also previously spoken of stinking menses and strong water turning silver into gold, and I cannot better close this study than by indicating the way to proceed to obtain it. It is understood that for these works, metallic vitriol must be used, since tartar vitriol cannot be of any use.
Excerpts from a manuscript entitled:
“A true knowledge of nature and the search for its secrets. »
1° MOON FIXING. PRECIOUS TRUTH.
Take: Rubified Roman Vitriol: 4 pounds
Refined Nitre Salt: 6
Deflegmated Feather Alum: l
Deflegmated Rock Alum: l
Make an aquafortis of these materials, taking care to fight well the joints of the retort with the container so that the spirits do not evaporate.
I do not need to add that the container must be large and the fire led very gently at the beginning, must increase imperceptibly throughout the operation to become strong at the end. As for vitriol, we know how to prepare it; as for feather alum, alum based on magnesia and iron oxide, if it cannot be obtained, it will simply be replaced by rock alum, always well dephlegmated, ie say rid of all its equivalents of water of crystallization.
Then, when the strong water is obtained:
Take:
Crushed mineral antimony l ounce
Crushed red brick l
Verdet (copper acetate) 1
Common cinnabar l
Arsenic 2
all well crushed and incorporate them together.
Put them in a retort and add the aforesaid etching to it, distill only once, giving four hours of great fire of flames at the end; then put on each ounce of this water, twenty-three grains of silver.
Let it settle, for the clear by inclination and by this means your water will be purged and dephlegmated, then dry the moonlime and melt it.
Take a mark of silver which is eight ounces, and three marks of common etching (ordinary nitric acid), dissolve, then evaporate two-thirds, and to a pound of the aforesaid water, add the eight ounces of dissolved moon and put this mixture in a matrass surmounted by another of encounter, lute well, then put in the stove with a lamp with five wires below, for thirty days, and you will see at the bottom of the matrass the fourth part of silver tumbled into 24 carat gold flakes .
Draw this gold and add as much weight of moon as you will dissolve before, lute as the first time with strips of uncleaned paper and bladder of ox and lute of sapience, and put back in the lamp fire for thirty days as above; and by this means every month you will have for each pound of silver, four ounces of fine gold, this is what is very true and very tested:
This lamp-fire must be in a pot which serves as a tower with some holes to breathe and to give air to the lamp-fire; this fire must be continuous and without interruption. The tower or pot in which the matras will be must be provided with a lid that covers everything, and the matras must be on a terracotta tripod, and the lamp below.
By this means, one can multiply the matras and the furnaces or pots as above, so as to make a pound of gold per day; having the facility to remain there to operate. It is a rock-solid eternal miner. The above weakening water. it must be reinforced in the manner above, with antimony, red brick, etc., because all working silver weakens and weakens.
You have to be careful to do things exactly. To make the etching without inconvenience, it is necessary to divide the material in such a way as to make six retorts, we will put two pounds of material only in each retort as I have done. This water is made in the same way as ordinary etching and at the end when it distills nothing more, gives for four hours violent flame fire.
This graduating water being finished, do the following so as not to miss:
Take a pound of shot cup silver, dissolve it in ordinary etching; being dissolved, evaporate the two parts of the water by the still with its yoke so that the spirits do not evaporate. and let this water serve another time: being evaporated, remove the leu and let it cool twelve hours and your moon will have fallen into crystals; then put it on the graduated water you have made, and suddenly the silver will go to work just as the recipe says, and you will find the truth.
And if one wants to make a greater quantity of gold, one must redden the Roman vitriol, as follows.
Take as much Roman vitriol as you want, always after softening and putrefaction of the said vitriol, put it in an earthen urinal which resists fire with its cover and well-luted container. You will give it a slow distillation fire, there will come out a quantity of water comprising the spirit and the oil, and when the vitriol in the urinal is in the form of lime, stop your distillation, and put its water back on it and distill as many times while cohobing until the vitriol no longer spouts water and has turned white, then increase the heat one degree. it will become quite red: this is the red and rubified vitriol. Take it out of the urinal to use it to make your water as mentioned above.
Every time you put the water back on the vitriol, stir with a stick to incorporate.We can also extract the salt from the faeces of the etching and with it cement the moon two or three times, twenty-four hours each time, and the salt will soften the silver, which thus prepared must be dissolved in the graduating water made with the vitriol prepared as just said, and you will withdraw instead of two and a half ounces of gold per pound of silver, five ounces of perfect foolproof gold, and above all that the rock alum which will be used well phlegm; you will thus have the accomplishment of this great secret.which thus prepared must be dissolved in the graduated water made with the vitriol prepared as just said, and you will withdraw instead of two and a half ounces of gold per pound of silver, five ounces of perfect gold at any test, and especially that the rock alum which one will use is well phlegm; you will thus have the accomplishment of this great secret. which thus prepared must be dissolved in the graduated water made with the vitriol prepared as just said, and you will withdraw instead of two and a half ounces of gold per pound of silver, five ounces of perfect gold at any test, and especially that the rock alum which one will use is well phlegm; you will thus have the accomplishment of this great secret.
2° LUCRATIVE WORK (MANUSCRIPT MAHOT)
Take: Rubified Vitriol.4 lbs.
Saltpetre 3 lbs.
Cinnabar 250g.
Ammonia salt 250 gr.
Distil in a retort with a short, wide neck; over a very slow distillation fire, which you will increase little by little according to the art, and in a vast container.
In this strong water, dissolve silver and through a urinal distil the spirits of the said water, but not until the matter is dry, cohob these spirits on the matter of silver in the same urinal as above by distillation three or four times, and at the last you will distill the material to dryness, and the material being very dry, you will pound it and wash it three times to sweeten it, then dry it, put it to the start, and you will have a large amount of fine gold .
3° WATER THAT ILLUMINATES THE NIGHT AND TINTS THE MOON IN GOLD
Draw out the spirit and the oil of good vitriol, then calcine the caput mortuum well, and draw from it. salt with distilled vinegar according to the art; dry it and pulverize it. Then iron over the spirit and the oil so many times, grinding and redistilling strongly at the end, that all the salt turns into water and liquor. We first put 10 parts of volatile on a part of fixed, then when everything is gone, we start again ten parts on one in the same way, until all the fixed is removed by the volatile. This water lights up the night like a lighted candle, and if you cook moonlime in it, it will tint it and fix it in gold, and it will even fix the amalgam made of mercury and silver.
Whenever we say: take vitriol, it is understood that it is only vitriol which we have given the following preparation of Locques, sulphate of iron for example, previously reduced to butter and then submitted to putrefaction. By Roman vitriol, according to Chambon in his "Traité des Métaux", we mean a stony vitriol which is sometimes found in the mines, which, struck with steel, gives off fire like gun flint.
There is a considerable amount of it in the gold mines of Hungary, and when such vitriol is found in the mines, it is a good omen. We call this vitriol Roman, not that it comes more from Rome or its territory than elsewhere, but it is by its excellence among the other vitriols that it bears this name. The philosophers also called it Usnea (Chambon).
I do not need to add that, in the event that one manages to obtain it, it would always have to undergo the same operation as common vitriol or green vitriol whose properties, if they are inferior to his, should be very little, and which at least has the enormous advantage of being within our reach.
Excerpts from “Nature Revealed”
Salsaginosity is the beginning and foundation of all coagulation. It is the next thing in the earth to be converted into a gem. Thus the spirit, being of a spermatic saline nature, is disposed to coagulate, however volatile it may be, and it must be understood that acidity is the spirit or the universal seed which, by putrefaction and fermentation, has assumed a saline and coagulant nature .
The minerals therefore take their origin from the more fixed parts of the universal sperm, that is to say from the saltpeter and from the salt, and especially from the corrosive spirituous vapors of these two strongly fermented, in a word from the spirit of nitre and of that of salt mixed together, which violently attacks the earth changed into stone, corrodes it, and makes of it a vitriolic or aluminous gurh.
Thus, as the minerals are born from the more fixed and more spirituous universal sperm, it is also necessary that by the seed or by the spirit of nitre or salt, each is resolved and reduced, according to its degree, into an essential salt or vitriol, and this one into steam or corrosive water.
This corrosive water is the main key of any fortress; also one must always have a good quantity of spirits of vitriol and alum, because they are a proper mineral humidity for all the red and white stars. The ancients wisely and with good reason placed saltpeter next to vitriol to acuate the vitriol with saltpeter, in order to better penetrate mineral subjects. and they drew from the vitriol saltpetre, by distillation, a universal menstruation for the mineral diet. The metals there becoming volatile and then passing for the most part with it through distillation.
This menstruation is usually made of two parts of vitriol and one or two parts of saltpeter. After the vitriol has been calcined, it is mixed with CrU saltpeter, and an aquafortis is distilled from it, which has the same effect, however it is composed, but this is not a good method, here is the reason. When saltpeter is joined to vitriol, in the heat, the vitriol which has a burning sulfur, is contrary to the saltpeter, and it quickly drives out its spirit, before it could attack and resolve the vitriol. In this way the spirit of nitre passes into the receptacle, and carries with it only a small part of the most volatile vitriolic sulphur, of which even the etching retains the fetid odor, and what remains is vitriol fixed, as far as saltpetre and fire could.
The true method is this. First make a regular niter spirit (A 205, HO), take some a book; for it on a pound of pure vitriol (3) and calcined to whiteness (not reddened, but calcined only until white); put them in a retort, and distil the etching with sand, by slow degrees, and only up to the third degree, so that the vitriol does not calcine there. For if you distill the etching violently on vitriol, you will rather fix the vitriol than resolve it. When the etching has passed, add another pound of new etching and for the whole over the vitriol remaining in the retorte. Let them dissolve and digest together, one day and one night, then distill slowly and only up to the third part: the vitriol will be at the bottom like butter, and greasy like oil. He is then a mineral gûrh, regenerated and spiritualized,
Take back the etching that has passed; add another pound of new etching, so that in all there are three pounds of etching joined to a pound of vitriol; make it resolve and digest again day and night; then distill in the same way slowly by degrees, and you will see pass with the strong water, the greater part of the highly spiritualized vitriol; it is necessary to recohober until it passes entirely, and there is nothing left at the bottom of the retort; then, we will make it pass again, without addition, once or twice, and by this means we will have the true radical menstruation, proper to reduce all the red and white stars to their first matter, and to make them similar to it.
But before each metal or mineral. having passed through the fire, must be specially prepared. and for that it is necessary to restore to it the principles which have been taken from it. Thus before, gold is calcined with sulphur, arsenic and antimony; and the lime made of it, easily resolves with the said menses.
Silver, copper, lead, and iron, as well as tin ore, calcine with sulfur and resolve with the same menstruation, as also mercury sublimated with sulfur and common salt. Vitriol also resolves there. Antimony well mixed with sulfur, in the fire, until the sulfur is burnt, also resolves in the same menstruation.
Let us now take for example a mineral, whichever one you like, and after having pulverized it, make it redden in a crucible by a more or less strong fire, according to its fixity.
When it is reddened, sprinkle it with a quantity of common sulphur, stir the whole well together with a wire until the sulfur is quite burnt; then the mineral is prepared to be able to be dissolved in the menses.
Then take part of this mineral thus prepared, put it in an alembic; for on it three parts of the aforesaid menses; digest over the ash fire; for slowly by inclination. what is clear and resolved; and on what is not, for there again three times its weight of the menstruation, and let it digest, until all is resolved and becomes in clear liquor. Then the mine is in its first state; if you distill this liquor with sand by the retort or by the still, until the third part, that you let cool the residue. and if you put it in the cellar, so that it crystallizes, you will have a vitriol, and materiam primum illins minerae renatam. If you resolve this vitriol again in three parts of menstruation again;let you distill it and cohobish it by retort until all is over, you shall have. a vaporous and primordial liquor which can no longer be retrograded, it touches with the root the mineral kingdom, and with the head the vegetable kingdom.
Here you have the entire mineral with all its principles: for it has lost neither its sulphur, nor its arsenic, nor its marcasite, as the refined metals have lost them in smelting; and all its vital and nutritious spirits have been preserved. You can experience this by digesting the silver there.
If you want to coagulate and fix this liquor or mineral oil. it must be cooked and digested in a bain-marie, for three days and three nights, in a low curcurbite, with its capital and container, and the superfluous humidity distilled off. When nothing wants to rise any more, return to the ashes; Gently distill all the phlegm or weak spirit: put the residue in a vial, and let it coagulate in the ashes. From it will come a saline stone more fluid in the fire than oil, and which, in the air, will freeze like ice. There is no need to stop your flask, because nothing rises. In this way, you will have the mineral quintessence, but all corrosive and harmful to human nature, it is only good for transmutation.
We have seen how etching made of vitriol and saltpetre can reduce metals and minerals to their first matter or vitriol.
We are now going to show how it can be used to directly fix, augment and perfect metals.
Method of using acid fires for the fixation, increase and perfection of all minerals.
(Alchymy Key, page 83)
If you want to perfect lead, tin and zinc, you must reduce them to shot, because if they were too small, the solution would boil too much. Your shot made, put it in large cucurbits and pour in little by little your concentrated fires, that of nitre and vitriol is the best for this operation. In a short time, you will see your metals reduced to a white powder which is the true philosophical calcination which fixes and preserves all the parts of the compound; and your metal being reduced to white ashes, separate the solvent by distillation, so that the vase containing the matter reddens for an hour at least, so that all the spirits separate and pass into the container which must be well fought, and you will find at the bottom of the retort your metallic ash, which reduced to metal and passed through the dish, will leave you a considerable profit of gold and silver, particularly tin and zinc.
These last two being almost in all their substance only raw and volatile gold sulphur, which the menses has finished ripening and fixing.
It is to be observed that with the spirit of nitre alone, one can obtain very appreciable results, because the nitre holds enclosed in its power the true tincture of gold, and by cooking it properly, one can to give a perfect form, and to communicate it to the metals which, having lacked sulfur and mercury, have not been able to manifest and put out what this medicine discovers and develops in them.
To close this study, it only remains for me to speak of a single vitriol, but this vitriol, or rather the way to obtain it, is not yet within everyone's reach. In order to explain its production, I see myself forced to go back to the generation of vulgar mercury, and for that I do not think I can do better than by quoting verbatim the philosophical discourse of Sabine Stuart Chevalier on this subject.
..... "We have already said, that in the time that common mercury is formed in the bowels of the earth, it exists first in the form of clear water, and we will add that it falls in tears when nature produces it in the mines, where it settles, cooks and is converted into metal by the smell of more or less pure sulfur which produces all the perfect and imperfect metals, according to the degree of purity in which this sulfur is found, when it spreads its vapor over the mercury, which is about to metallize.
But when the sulfur of nature is not in the necessary degree of perfection, and well impregnated with the universal spirit, it can only produce bastard metals, minerals, and stones instead of gold and silver.
Abundant mines are always beholden to an abundance of sulphur. which always operates an abundant metallic generation. When the circulation of sulfur comes to be interrupted, the metallic water no longer fixes itself, no longer freezes, and flows back from the bowels of the earth to the outside. As soon as this same water feels the rawness of the air, its natural heat is concentrated internally: it coagulates in the form of liquefied lead, retaining a continual movement, and this is what is called common mercury.
To have the philosophical mercury, it is necessary to dissolve this vulgar mercury or this metallic water, without diminishing anything of its weight; for all its substance must be converted into philosophical water.
The philosophers know a natural fire which penetrates to the heart of mercury and which extinguishes it internally; they also know a solvent that converts it into pure and natural Argentine water, it does not contain or should not contain any corrosives.
As soon as mercury is freed from its bonds, and overcome by heat, it assumes the form of water, and this same water is the most precious thing in the world. It takes very little time to make common mercury assume this form.
This water does not wet and does not cling to the hands, like ordinary water; when we put it with imperfect metals, it only separates, in a marvelous way, all the impurities with which they are filled; it units with them, congeals, and corporifies into a metallic substance.
This is the pure vitriol to which Le Crom alludes, when he says: "I know that there is a much shorter and much easier way to remove the fixed salt from the imperfect metals, with still greater abundance, but it is a matter that I will only touch on, willingly leaving it at the disposal of the masters of the art. ”
We see that, to achieve this, we have only to seek this solvent, this secret fire which must deliver the mercury from its bonds, and this will be the subject of our next work.
END
l) Visit the bowels of the earth, you will find the hidden stone.
2) I can not strongly recommend, whenever we use distilled vinegar in alchemy, to take care that there is no addition of acetic acid.
3) The Crom salt seems ideal for this operation. All that remains is to calcine it to whiteness. Ordinary vitriol can still be used after it has putrefied. It is treated with distilled vinegar which only dissolves the hard parts. Evaporate well then distill the vinegar. The remaining vitriol is then brought to whiteness by distillation of the spirits, as already indicated. We notice that all the vinegar is removed and that the vitriol begins to distill, when the white fumes appear. The container is then changed.