Whereas metal was created of God in the depths of the earth as well as of any creatures above it, it was established to him, as well as to other creatures, and implanted in his seed the means and the virtue of to be able to bear fruit, without which otherwise the seed could not grow or increase. Because we often find seeds that are not fruitful because they are deprived of the virtue of being able to bear fruit. Hence it follows that these two things, knowledge is seed and virtue, are different in respect to production; but if one wants to research this virtue or fertility very carefully and know what it may well be, it will be the surest and best expedient to confront and make a collation or report of the differences which are found between life and death. of all creatures in the universe. For death is not fertile, but life, which alone lives since it moves and stirs. Now we experience, in all kinds of work that we undertake in metals, that there is nothing and that there can be nothing volatile but metal, nor also anything more subtle nor that moves. or move more. But what movement and movement is is what I want to call here the Ferch of the metals, because the metallic Ferch has a continual and perpetual action and movement. But because this is not visible in metals and because movement is generated in two ways, I will content myself with leaving it the double old name and, for this reason, I will name the stirring or movement by the name of lubricum, and the volatile of the name of Ferch; and I will not change the terms of these two movements, by the force and virtue of which the metal accomplishes all its perfection, purity and constancy, as much as it can and must have in its work, work and natural operation of itself.
Now, in that the Ferch is a thing always living and dying, some might well be surprised at the encounter or effect it has with the metal which is worked, used and found before our eyes and by our hands. But I say the Ferch is hard and coagulated, whether alive or even dead. I can also be asked if it is possible to kill life or Ferch in a metal — which cannot be — and how that would go. Whereupon my answer is very simple, to know is that a metal can be as much alive when it rests as when it grows or moves.
And there is still a difference to be made between the death of metals and between their rest, because death only touches metallic bodies when it descends or degenerates one altogether and perishes, because it is the very living thing that comes to die. But the rest or Ferch of the metal cannot damage nor go to bottom or annihilate. And hence when a metallic body is present, it is visible in two kinds or ways. One is in liquido—that is, in liquid form—because this metallic body moves and flows here and there; and when agitated by a foreign and damaging ardor or heat, it becomes volatile, flees and evaporates. The other kind is when the metallic body is present in coagulato — that is to say in coagulated form — because then it rests in there as long as it is put back into liquid form. And this coagulated body remains in this state as long as it lasts; but when a body departs and is changed and ascended into a nobler or less noble body, so is the Ferch or life withdrawn and brought with it.
So if you want to have and keep a body, beware of the Ferch, because if you push it and chase it without judgment, it will make a noticeable waste of the body in which it lives. For he never goes out and goes empty; but this Ferch, going away, always diverts and drags away another, one after another, and brings him along until finally there is no more in the body of the metal. But care must be taken, with great care and special attention, how it happens as to the movement and rest of the Ferch and how nature brings it to rest. For this careful and diligent knowledge teaches us that the seed and the body of the Ferch are two different things, because of the seed you do with it what you will and it will not become volatile, which would be against its kind or nature, similarly also from the body of the Ferch. But as for the Ferch, if you prevent it and maintain it with its meat, you strengthen the whole work. For neither more nor less than a mother strengthens her child, whom she feeds and waters well, and that he rests better, it is the same with Ferch. Which means that many who stop only at the seed or the body of the Ferch and do not know anything well-founded and sure concerning the Ferch, lose the body, insofar as they do not know the procedure and the order that nature teaches, and take the front for the back. Now this rest and sleep of the Ferch is also useful for this, namely, so that a body is not consumed when it has arrived at its perfection; because when the Ferch watches or is in action, so much the more it is consumed. But when it rests, it holds tight and is of duration. And precisely when he has no more meat to preserve and feed himself, he attacks his own body, until he consumes it entirely; and finally it rises, goes away and goes to another place. Wherefore the treasuries of the pagans or coined species of metal, when they are buried, at last they rise in growth, consume their own bodies and reduce them to dust, so that there is nothing left of them. a bare stone or fluid substance, as can be seen in many places.
All who have written of the seed of the metals agree in saying that the masculine seed of the metal is sulphur, and the feminine mercury. Which must however be understood according to its meaning, and not in such a way that one believes that the philosophers have understood the common sulfur and mercury. For the visible and palpable mercury of metals is a particular body taken and drawn from these metallic bodies; and yet he cannot be a seed, because he is cold and coldness cannot also be a seed. Similarly, sulfur is the meat of the metal. How then could it be a seed, when even the seed consumes sulphur? How then could one seed consume another? And what body would come from it? And for this, there is misunderstanding in this according to common judgment. For if the mercury of metallic bodies is in them and has taken its nourishment there, it will be true to say that there are six metallic mercurys, one of which would be capable of producing some bodies. But one can doubt which of these six mercurys one must choose among those which are increasing or decreasing.
But as far as there are seven of these mercuries, it happens that if the seed of Venus and Mars has the advantage, it will bring a male body from the sun; that if also the seed of Saturn and Jupiter has the upper hand, it will produce a feminine body which is called Moon; as for mercury, it is on both sides.
So it is with other bodies, which are also always in each work with each other, because they do not allow themselves to be separated or divided, as is also reasonable. Hey, what body would it come from? But nature has perfect bodies, notwithstanding that they have to dissolve into themselves, which nevertheless does not prevent them from being perfect in their time. For what seed would that be if something were to fail in some member?
And therefore, each body has a whole seed; and from this it is that transmutation has its foundation, its course and its descent from the metals; otherwise it could not be done if they were not allied to each other in the seed. Because of what someone says: “Silver is not gold”, it is what a peasant also believes. But there's no good instruction on the seed, how it is that her body has to come into another body, because she wouldn't be fertile otherwise. She also cannot be without having a body where she can rest. Now what is the formless body of the metals before it is formed and prepared for their meat? From this depend three different subjects. First an earth, second a stone, and third an ash of earth. Fourthly I add flows or streams of earth, and fifthly the honey glass of earth and sixthly the color of the earth and finally seventhly the soot of the earth. All these things are the matter of the metallic body, just as the earth is the matter of the body of man, from which God made him and into which he must return; and so eventually all bodies will return there. I consider a good worker and a true and expert miner who, working in the mines, knows the reason for these things. For there are few who can give and render reasons for what they undertake in the mines, even though they enter and work there daily. And although one wants to say that they understand it, this is not, however, telling the truth, although they can use it as it should. Which is why they give wrong names and know no reason for their works, although they supply and bring a lot to the market. These people, however, become better and more knowledgeable the older they get. What everyone must think about and not show himself ungrateful and hostile to this instruction and this advice. One can well excuse the philosophers here as if they had known something. But where is it written that one can seek and find the mercury of a body that is sorted from the soot, stone and glass of the earth? Because of this, too, the subtle test of it in science has been inflamed and infuliginated or defiled. And hence the seed of the metals is as perfect as the Ferch is invisible. But where do those have fun who want to work according to nature and who do not know any body where the real mercury or seed is? And then, it is necessary that science suffers from it and is decried as false, and false all those who get involved in it. But what isn't lack of judgment doing? So it is an impossible thing to recover a living body without seed, as little as a seed without fertility. However, look carefully on all sides around you if you will not see it in its resolution, and it will happen that you will find the body in reduction. Therefore, this being so, work diligently.
But that is not the least work as some of the ancient philosophers said. Which have named it a double work; because this is how they talk about it: the metal must first have passed through the hand of the founder and then it must pass through the hand of the alchemist, if one wants to learn then afterwards to know the seed with the subtle work of Art. What does that mean? Otherwise that the resolution is of two kinds. One when the expert founder brings and reduces to ductility or malleability a frangible body by union and natural coadunation, and by an assured order which unites all the ducible parts. The other is when the alchemist takes this ductile body and brings it down to ashes, lime, earth, glass, color or soot as it was under or in its earthly abode; and then in there, namely in this body reduced to ashes, the seed of the metals and the Ferch are stirred and are then easily found in a more fruitful, more lavish and more fertile state in body or bodily; and can this body be easily reduced into spiritual water or into first matter according to the species and property of the metallic body, even it can be separated and divided quite artistically into its natural principles, according to the use and science of the alchemists. Of which will be spoken hereafter in its place more fully and clearly when I deal with minerals.
Although up to now we have not heard of the manner in which minerals or fossils are made and engendered under the earth, nevertheless nature does not cease to make and work them by means of the moist liquors of the earth. and mine plants; which substances serve as food and meat for the metals, and not those which are cooked here on the earth. Therefore if in the work which you imitate and undertake here above in metals, you wanted to add to them those substances which are cooked and not dissolved in their corporeal form, you would work uselessly. also mines — if not quite near, at least they are not far away — which will give you good marks of their valor and kindness. As in Hungary the finest and best mines are those of vitriol, alum, and sulfur, so around the Harz are those of resin, salt, and vitriol, as around Goslar, Mansfeld, Zellerfeld; also similarly around Schwyz in the country of Etschland; in Halle there are fine salt mines, which are very fine there. But you must not think that the workmen roughly hasten the work and perfection of these minerals, so they prepare them beforehand. And then it's a beautiful job to be able to bring a mineral so high in its flowers which are half metal; and especially when by the metal taken and reduced by retrogradation, one makes of it a mineral, and then when from this mineral the flowers come to be extracted and prepared. In this you see how nature allows herself to be led in front of her and then again behind her backwards to her first water, to her sulfur and to her salt.
There are many people who also make these flowers; but they make them without metal, which only comes a long way to those early metals in goodness. For the oil which has been made and distilled from a natural vitriol of copper is a thousand times better, more virtuous and more efficacious in its operation than that which is made from common and ordinary vitriol, which has not yet been exalted by nature. And though the vitriol of Hungary is of many and various sorts in its virtues, strengths and operations, there is nevertheless one which is very powerful, marvelous and very exquisite, because nature has elevated it and has rendered it more dry than all the others above named, this one far and away surpassing them all. And by this choice of vitriol as by its preparation, the philosophers can enjoy the effect of the minerals, fortify them and increase them according to their desire and desire.
When one wants to do something that is proper, good and valid to metals, it must be done of metals with metals and by metals. Because truly the real and unique knack by which the reduction and acquisition of mineral flowers is done, is that you always take and amass your mineral without adding anything to it. It is the matter which causes great contemplation, thought and foresight.
Thus, learn to work, for these flowers are sometimes and often met with all dry and arid, without them being recognized by any miner, especially in Hungary and Wallachia, where, however, one also finds such beautiful ones as one could ever wish, in the manner of brass or red metal, sparkling like fire and like transparent red crystal. These flowers are good gold or silver depending on whether they are colored and dyed; however they fall a little. And this is one of the main knowledges and a science and [a] subject of meditation and secret ratiocination to make the glass strong and hard. Hence it is originally that these under-earth glasses dispose and arrange the metal and render it into its proper form.
One can also, from the same metals, make an extraction and preparation of flowers which are greatly profitable in medicine. Indeed, if one can cut off and separate from it all the stench and excrement or superfluous matter of digestion, this mud or mire and [these] refuse are nothing but the faeces of the minerals, which are of no use for the metals. . For these malignant collapses bring and cause great damage to metals.
But the misunderstanding and ignorance that we have of minerals is the cause of great inconvenience, because the minerals that we boil are a poison [and] damage; and even a water is made of it which corrodes metals, as artists experiment when, being out of their mines, they make strong water of it. What therefore causes the corrosive virtue to minerals is a miry substance which grasps and grips the metal, loosens it, tears and divides it, as well as the other matters of so beautiful appearance which are attached to metals and which are nevertheless the worst poisons of iced; for as soon as these matters are engendered, they excite and kindle the muddy or ugly substance and it is in vain that they appear in beautiful forms. For as a poisoned man nevertheless appears still in the form of a man, yet such a poisoned man does not fail to infect many others. And assuming that you reduce an infected metal to a body, it would still be empty and [there] would be nothing of value in it.
Now this remark, thus quite exact, is and proves to be absolutely necessary in the work of those who generally meddle in the mines and work there. For in that they do not take good care of it, they do not harm the work alone, but similarly to themselves, because not only does the metal become volatile if one leaves or adds this dung or mire to it , but also what remains becomes greatly firm and not so flexible or workable, and continually suffers from waste as long as it is struck with the hammer. Because the seed becomes like Schliessig in the bodies. And this is what the workers must take good care of when they attack the minerals with fire, so that they know what wages they will have by searching for the mines which are in the flow of the mountain, where one sees how it is that the poison sticks to the top in the ruptures and cracks of the furnaces which one builds there expressly in huts; what we perceive by the fumes which come from it, which carry everywhere only damage, as experience teaches us only too often.
All [the] natural works have their particular places or convenient places, where they work or are generated. And if there is any place where magnetic and precious materials are produced, and even if nature has some marvelous tool and worthy of astonishment as being of unknown substance, it is in these places of work that all this is found. . But to describe to you a place of work according to the praise it deserves, I say to you that it is like a church or like a beautiful vaulted grotto, and it is in there that the seed and the Ferch are married with the metallic body; there they eat, feed, rest and work; there goes there and collects all that is most beautiful and most pleasant in the earth, with which they dress and clothe themselves. It's like another fire, another water, another air and another earth. For everything that stops and perfects therein cannot be undone here above one from the other, except with great difficulty and by the aid of the lower air, or if otherwise one does not know. studying to separate it by the way of mercury from the metals. Moreover, whatever these sorcerers or subterranean spirits do cannot be easily divided, as is seen in the gold which is so constant in the fire. And what is the cause of all this is the heat and the coldness of the shop or subterranean pharmacy, which separate themselves and insinuate themselves into the metals and become firm there. For heat and cold are the stony, constant, solid and firm foundation of the earth, which gives metal its stony virtue; and which, often finding itself both hollow and full of dimples, she successively fills them with metal in the same way that bees fill their hives with honey, until at last the earth divides or splits little by little and drags itself or crumbles in the mire. For the firm stone of earth is not consumed in the earth, because it is a base or rather a solid dregs, placed and seated, which does not allow anything to enter or leave it. This means that there is a difference between the stone of the earth and between the stone of solid earth: the latter is one of the stable and constant foundations of metals, but the other is their most damaging death and perdition; which is a stop, bog and mine prevention. No one would ever say or imagine that metallic stones should have in themselves such heat or ardor and such coldness all at the same time, of which nature manifests and makes appear now one and sometimes the other. . For when this nature forms and perfects the sovereign metals, when it hides the heat or ardour; but when it produces the least, it hides the coldness. And she behaves in this way so that she can help everywhere, because these are the tools or instruments, namely the ardor or heat and the coldness. And it is by the inner fire of the stone that the scattered substances are picked up, cooked and perfected, being first reduced into a body coagulated and united by cold.
The alchemists of today, ignorant and devoid of understanding, having no regard for nature nor recognizing it at all, have quite strange tools and instruments, with which they make vases of all kinds, according to let them convince themselves of it by their particular imagination; but they do not understand it according to the order of nature, for she has no regard for the difference or distinction of the individual form, but she chooses and takes a good, valid and defensive instrument, which maintains in the work and the work it undertakes. For as to the individual form, it will come in due time according to its orderly and proper seed.
And if the alchemists do not succeed in their enterprises, it is because they work with ignorance and consequently in vain, because they do not believe that it is necessary to have knowledge for all the things which depend on the mines. . Now all the true knowledge that one should possess for all things is to know well this instrument which nature employs in her operations. I should mention it here, but I want to do it in another place where you can have recourse if you want. Those who imagine themselves to be the most heard estimate and write that it is in vain to take heed to the superior stars according to the order or instruction of the mathematicians, in order to work according to the cleanest times, days and hours. . There is certainly something of it, but which is not very considerable nor firmly founded. Now what is assuredly very true is that if you work in your operations according to your head and otherwise than we have accustomed, you will work in vain.
However, it is a matter of great consequence to properly distinguish and recognize what difference there is between the superior stars and the stars of metal, and how these shine and have their influence in their own bodies. Because for the stars above, they have a special influence by their light and movement. But as to the lower or subterranean metals, they all separately have their influence from their stars. And so each sky has its course and its particular instruments, through which one can understand, hear and conceive the proper place of the stars. You can here imagine two particular opinions: one that the metals receive the influence of an entire starry opaque sky, and the other of a lucid or transparent sky. But don't mind the pain and the work if you want to experience something. And if I say little, don't be surprised, because I would need a whole and very big book if I had to describe the whole circuit of underground mines; still it would not be enough, because besides that it would be necessary for me to name all the mines there, it would also be necessary that I undertake to prove that all the properties which I would attribute to them are certain, true and assured; which would contain a very long and prolific discourse, to imprint this knowledge in the brain of every deluded ignorant and to make him sufficiently capable of it, without including in it the matters to which I could hardly give a proper name, which nevertheless I know all ; for no man can be found who in this inferior and subterranean school has learned perfectly to the end all that can be learned there.
I must tell you here particularly concerning this science and doctrine that there can be no book in the world in which each and every trick, their ins and outs, can be described and reported with the same rarity and circumstances. marvelous that very often the workers would desire. This is why the artist or the engineer must know himself, after so many demonstrations, how he must behave by a solid foresight which serves him as an address and a strong support in his work, which he must learn by himself so that he can enjoy a very happy success. Behold now, then, that I show and teach to any man what kind he must operate and practice when he descends into the pit of the mine to undertake natural work there; being in such a place, that he be instructed and that he seek what is the most clean and suitable instrument to succeed in his work, and that the one who will instruct him be some honest expert worker actually working in the mines, good man and not an ignorant talker. Everyone, today, would like to be very rich, but it is not possible to become as one would like. And even if I were the best painter, I could not easily depict to someone the instrument which is suitable for his work. But he has to know it, see it and have it in his hands, and then he gets to work.
I know what to put in writing in a book; this is what I did and faithfully executed.
The work of the metals testifies to a widening and tightening of the metals. Now, not only should we understand by enlargement or loosening the extraction or the extract of the entire work, so that in one place a miner will go completely to the bottom when she has no more to consume or to nourish, for then it swallows and engulfs its own bodies, consuming and destroying itself. But enlargement is also understood for a partial extract, for then one part chases the other incessantly and follows it very closely, as you see in metallic mercury when you shake it and throw it out, so that being poured out, it divides into hundreds of several small living grains which, however, all flow together into one body. So in the mine does the volatile or lustful, as the Ferch also withdraws of the same kind by pieces and portions, until it comes to one place alone, as a mass or heap, as far as its quantity permits. , for it furnishes no more substance than it can give of itself.
The other, namely metal crunch, is when the surplus of the mineral substance buzzes and rattles towards another shop or mine workbench. This division then gives subject to various kinds of mines to be perfected according to the extent of the place where is the work, work and food arranged, and according also to the good disposition of the mine. Because of which, in this contraction, the Ferch and the seed go straight as with wings into the volatile part, which is so thin and slender that it cannot even be seen well; however it is leafy like a ghost and like a heap of atoms and also flies away like very subtle dust.
And so the Ferch must always have its seed, the seed its body, and the latter its points and loose and subtle atoms. But my opinion is not that this volatile part crosses the thickness of the earth, nor that it withdraws into the air to fly there in powder here and there, and then return to the ground, which would not agree not. For there is nothing of its nature to be perfected in this air, except that by our means this volatile substance was taken out of there, and then it would have another form; of which extraction I do not here mean to speak, for it seldom happens that this volatile part or substance thus withdraws into the air, but it is much more appropriate to believe that it goes and penetrates the earth which is fastened firmly in the mineral furnace, not as we take it and see it, but by others and certain passages only. For the earth is open to this retreat and departure, as water is to fish and air to birds, as long as this volatile substance comes into its stony metal bottom. Which stony bottom is something other than the stone of the earth, for when this volatile substance meets this one, it turns around like water around a stone, without flowing and passing through, as long as it again finds its path to pass into its stone, where it dwells and receives from it life and strength, by means of which it becomes body. For in this retreat and contraction it receives a metal firmness by the stony firmness which sucks it in and makes it penetrate further and further into the most remote places, and takes on a flowing or lustful nature within itself, as when a bird pulls his feet away from him while flying; and when that lustful substance comes to push itself too hard, it loses something of its body. Thus this volatile substance, having become flowing and lubricious, being in its retreat or contraction, allows itself to be perfected in its virtue and its operation. For while it is there, with the metallic seed, the two together make the metal grow. And it attracts to itself in a marvelous way its meat and food which it talks about again. Now it is a thing worthy of astonishment that in this tightening, when the lubricious volatile substance approaches and comes more and more to its place of crossing, it suddenly increases and strengthens again, so long as finally the metal re-hone and grow in the natural workplace.
Now there cannot be signified or taught at all a better way than this, by which one can know well what is the reinforcement of which I am speaking. For it is through this that mercury becomes metal, because mercury in its liquid nature slips and submits in this place of work, where being lodged, it coagulates and congeals, according as the metallic bodily seeds are masculine. or feminine, until at last it is arranged and reduced under a solid fixed body, either of gold or of silver. This contraction, or intrusion, makes the place of the earth all noble and all fertile. And when there's increasing brass working, that's when there's wholesome air right there; and if at the top of such mines one does not infect the ambient air with venomous melts and fumes, it is good to live there. We must also understand in this place all the work of imitation, how it is that we must begin the whole work, so that the brass remains and does not fade, but is maintained in its increase and always remains close to his own body, from which he does not depart willingly when he has once entered it well and introduced himself into work. For he does not rest in his place, nor does he rest in his whole walk, but always works. And gently makes himself see that it is Schliessig or Flüssig in which this bronze goes away to render into a flowing body, or salt of the earth, which salt stirs and rolls there so often and for a long time, even torments and agitates until 'as long as it receives and covers a liquid body, and afterwards a body of earth; which always gets harder and harder. And this is called dissolving and coagulating or congealing, liquefying and congealing, as it is proper to do with mercury, which by this means produces something good.
It happens that natural heat is the cause of all the softness of metals, which become flowing. Now that the seed of the metals is fiery entirely in itself, it is certainly the heat which is the cause; also it comes from the stirring and movement and from the fiery lubricum, or hot and igneous flow, as much as there is oil in the metallic seed, which has a much more fiery flow when it arrives at its place of origin. work. Because as much as this seed is hot, also its flow is strengthened still more and becomes ardent and burning in its work. He even needs it badly, because he could not make the semen enter his body, or metallic mass, if this semen were not flowing and soft, which cannot penetrate or enter it, except by the way. heat which makes it easy to sink. For nothing flowing can approach the metal, nor be received and introduced into it, except by means of the preceding heat of the said igneous flux carrying the seed. Moreover, for the purification of metals, the flow is necessary, useful and of service, so that they reach by the company of this way and work until the end and last intention of their goal. Now, this flux is different from the other, the latter being artificial by which the metallic body is made to flow or creep, alone or otherwise. Because it is melted as the founder does when by melting he separates the excrement. But nature doesn't melt like that in the earth, but she does like the vegetable seed or grain that grows here, leaving the grain and chaff there together. And so there is a great difference between the flow of nature and between our way of melting, and if we study ourselves well to observe the differences of flows and melts, we will see much less loss, and waste in our operations. I must also mention here that we are greatly occupied after drinking gold, and how it is that we could produce it and bring it to a good end. There are a bunch of masters who want to take what is not yet separated from its metal, which also still has in itself the ashes of excrement and even something worse. And for this they take corrosive or sour water, brandy or similar liquor. But tell me, please, what does nature take when she wants to make frozen water flow? She is not going to take waters like these, only she uses there a heat or ardor for everything. Therefore imitate it, you who are a philosopher, and do the same. And when you want to take the metallic body, as it was perfected by nature and brought to light by melting and refining, and you want to return it and bring it back to its first matter, awaken the Ferch, and you will have every drinkable metallic body. When therefore the metal has been made and made pure, clean and finer, then it has no excrement. Therefore, leave me there the addition of corrosive things or liquors, for the flow of such matter hardens the metals. It must not be heard externally for those below the earth, as for ours above. For when a metallic body must become hard, it is hardened from the outside. But nature does not do this, for she hardens the metallic seed, and then the flow of it falls down and stops, from which comes such hardness that the manner of melting above can remove nothing. When water freezes by cold, it happens to quiver and tighten a little and always more and more as long as it freezes and freezes completely to the center. But here, in the metallic seed, the hardening takes place from inside out. And it is from there that one learns to carry out the beautiful and glorious foundation and project which reduces the mercury of the bodies in a natural degree excellent on any degree, namely stratum supra stratum, that is to say by perfecting it bed on bed. For it is in this way that the metals have been assembled.
And so it is then necessary to behave in the artificial work. And from this also comes the basis for cutting down and crippling mercury from metals to take, lock up and enclose the lustful or flowing substance. But it must not be imagined that such a hardening is done in the same way as one hardens an iron by reducing it to steel, and then making it soft as [of] tin, for that is only called a tight hardness. But the hardening of the mercury, or metallic seed, is still firm and holds its body flexible and manageable and hard as well. So that the fire above can do no damage to it, for all the artificial hardnesses and hardnesses here above can be released in the fire, [but] not those which are natural, for they sustain here above all the trials and trials of fire. And as all the hardnesses or hardenings that are made here above harden the metallic bodies and these bodies harden in the water, quite the contrary in the mines, it is necessary to draw out of the metallic bodies all the water or the phlegmatic superfluity which is enclosed therein, and so they become hard to air. For the air that is in the earth hardens the earth so that it remains earth and does not turn into stone. Also the earth hardens the water so that it cannot flow all into a heap and turn to stone or become pearls or precious stones, such as they can be made of.
Now the way in which one must remove the interior fire which is in the metals, that is the whole highest point or mystery of this science, but easy to conceive, and [which] will be found in its place when I write more of such things. But I call that in this place - as it belongs to people who are workers in mines, by the words of which I also use now - the rest, which such a fire which lies in the metallic subject possesses while it stays there. , which fire being drawn entirely out of its rest and metallic body leaves nothing left behind which is valuable or good. That is to say that this fire is precisely the lubricum, or the lubricating or flowing substance, and the volatile joined together or precisely one near the other; therefore, such a thing must be removed and brought into sight with purity and clearness.
We see that in Schiefer, or Mansfeld's slate matter, the volatile substance and the lubricum, or flowing substance, do not appear there. Because the impurity and filth is there among the subject or metallic body, which is not a work that is in any way beautiful or pure, but it is only a mixture and a collection.
This new way of proceeding and of writing metal takes its foundation and subject from experience. For the first continual entry of the Ferch augments and strengthens first in the place of work, or metallic matrix, the mercury of the metallic bodies or masses, so long as it reaches its full force and vigour. Then, when he has become powerful and strong in himself, he gradually begins to put on a body, and, for the first, he makes use of all the most puny. Which also he soon leaves, as being too abject, for, among all metallic bodies, there cannot be found a lesser and more vile one than Saturn, which is so thin that one sees it as one sees it. sees a beautiful body through a fine, light-colored linen cloth. And through it the body of Saturn the spirituality, or spiritual body, which is therein, is the metal of mercury, or, to speak more properly and to name it more aptly, it is the singular and proper mercurial and simple body of it mercury. : which, in this natural work, shows and shows also quantity of other beautiful works. For of his most subtle earth he makes a habit of it to Saturn; after that this mercury raises Saturn higher by giving him a harder and better garment which is not so light or easy to him as that of the said Saturn, but which he can nevertheless leave with as little trouble. Which comes from the work of mercury in metallic bodies. For such Mercury is all the more fiery and active, because of its subtle fluidity, as it testifies in Saturn when it comes in its crescent, or growth, for out of the earth which is its body it makes a ashen or terrestrial body to Saturn. Which is because Saturn is greatly impure and ashy and has only a beginning of sound, because it is [a] metal which is not firm. And yet it must be incorporated into the nearer, which is iron, for it sounds a little darker and duller, and is also somewhat farther from iron and so much nearer to Mercury because of the ardor or fluidity.
Beware now of this metal of iron, which, while growing, is lying and contiguous near the ashes or mineral impurities, there where it is purified by the water of Saturn; but it will not be here above a glass drawn from the ashes and the salt of the water of the earth or the water of Saturn, and of the sand or stone. But what is underground glass? It is what does not break or break and always sounds like iron. Now nature has knocked this down if you brush against it and ring it, but this iron is greatly squeezed when it is pure and clean; wherefore it is greatly firm, and, therefore, it is here in the mine surrounded by stone or sand, which in this work mingles with ashes and salt water, and so this metal of iron is a glass of the earth or a firm iron of dark glass. After that, tell me, if one gives such a complete and perfect metal here above the color of earth, if this color will not be that of copper? Yes-da, actually. This is why we see daily that iron is made into another metal, as happens naturally when, letting the iron infuse in a mineral lye, as is the practice in Hungary and elsewhere, it takes on a color metallic, and finally is converted into very good copper.
However, this iron still retains the quality of earthenware, even though it has been touched and pressed a little of its color by the mercury of the bodies which ennoble more and more the flow of iron in suppleness, constancy and stability. And, for this subject, have your thoughts here attached to this instrument of color, which you find and meet all prepared near such a metallic body in the underground pharmacy which now gives you the expedient and [the] means of changing this metal of iron into copper, with great gain and increase of wealth.
Now leave this color behind and contemplate how the mercury of bodies still passes through so many white bodies that finally it incessantly reaches a beautiful white soot, the most stable and the most excellent in beauty, of which it clothes itself and is made. or finally transmutes into an excellent and pure body of silver. And thus it becomes so hard in this lunar body that it cannot be brought out by the ardor of the fire; for it has passed seven times through all the greatest inferior heat, which moreover destroys the bodies which are capable of being reduced and ruined if they are not and do not come to be closely incorporated with the mercury of the bodies.
Moreover, not having the opportunity to make you recreate now on the fire of the higher and lower element, nor even being able to give you the means, contemplate then how and in what way it is that nature works, rises and advances so nicely, because it burns into lime by its progress and works naturally the whole body of silver. And this lime is nothing but a body of gold which receives its tint and red color from the perfection and loftiness that the fire has in itself and which it can grant to it. And we must keep this same color until it comes out again and descends, because the very fire can force and constrain it by annihilating it. But as regards this descent, contemplate well the ascent and know that the difference of this one, knowing gold, is that in its ascent the tincture is previously presented to it and [that it] takes before the body; but he may take her soon. Wherefore these brasses or metals thus descending are more perfect and perfected than the uprights.
Especially since it is making a great irruption or a great effort against nature to apply oneself to the work of the mines, so it allows one to recover in these mines a diversity of metals. And for this reason it was necessary to make a distinction between them, so that one would not have to suffer from loss and waste in the work, because each kind of metal has its name and its particular property and also allows itself to be recognize with the rod. And although it is a good knowledge to know how to discern and distinguish the metal by the colors, as is the [color] aurea-red, the color glass, that of mine green and that of mine black, nevertheless one does not know again by this so entirely what is the substance of the work so that no waste is made in melting. I will say here all that I can know of it, in order that I may show and teach how it is necessary to know the property of a mine, of a metal or of a bronze, before the metal is struck down and pulled out, to know with hammer blows, while he is still underground near his Witterung, that is to say, ready to perfect himself. — This word Witterung means what is done above the air, in the space of time that there is thunder and storm and, in short, when the furies or stormy storms dominate there: what should be express in one word the occurrence of the item; I say in a single word to the feminine like coction, perfection, accretion, etc. Moreover, it is necessary to see the explanation of it which has been made of it on the table of contents of this book where the true word is used — For no brass or metal is wittert or perfected only under the earth, for notwithstanding that it is wittert or perfected above, it is however only a weak Witterung or perfection which does not move away from the metallic body. Nevertheless, the rod does not fail to strike or bow on these superior metals, or from above, and this is the greatest sign and advantage they derive from metallic goodness; for these metals are wittern or perfected by clear and ardent fire. But it sometimes happens that the gentleman grave-diggers or miners bring nothing but Flug and Schliess, which we try to purify on the grills by fire, where we can suffer three kinds of damage. For in the first place, from some of these metallic matters a quantity of metal therefore flies away; and even what remains also retains so much of the volatile that by melting it afterwards one often loses much of it. Secondly, the aforesaid remnant also ceases to be so manageable and so supple, and one can only help it to receive suppleness with great difficulty. Thirdly, as to those minerals or metals which are elevated or on high, if they are burned pressed and squeezed alone there is great waste; which otherwise would give great profit and advantage for the work of imitation or sequel, and even for medicine, for it is also prepared by the mineral and metallic nature. There are also workers who work other minerals unnecessarily and fruitlessly.
From the fossil vitriol which is found at Goslar, near or adjoining which silver or tin grows in the same mine, being there diligently prepared, one can make copper without any addition; from which copper we can then make vitriol and afterwards an oil which cures leprosy, podagra and all other kinds of drops. If, therefore, this vitriol was burnt carelessly with the money, it would doubtless be a great pity. This is why from among various metals I take one which witters or perfects in itself and completes the wittern or perfects by digesting. Notwithstanding that the Witterung or the perfection drawn out of it is stronger, it is a lively metal as to the property of the life which it contains, because that which partakes of the breath is living. Now Witterung or perfection is to be compared to life. And such a metal, as well as the breath, immediately increases and strengthens. And just as a young child, from ten years to ten years, perfects himself, so this metal advances and rises as long as it reaches the end in the state of a sovereign body. And then it receives another name, so much so that one can conceive that as there is a great difference between a dead and a living one, so it finds itself in this metal between its first state and between its own. last. What is here well to weigh and consider, because such a difference brings and causes a beautiful and neat work. And to this belong all the bronzes which, being mixed, do not come to be divided sooner than when they are separated according to the ordinary usage; as, for example, there is found in all the mines of Hungary aure silver, that is to say, in which there is gold which in its color is pure and clean, without any diminution of the highest title. And if this aureous silver always remained in the natural work, without the gold having been extracted and separated from it out of season, this silver would finally have become all gold. And even one can very easily and easily help him to his elevation and perfection, and this by cementation. And then it is the best to use for the use of the currency.
Similarly, in the province of Mansfeld, there are several kinds of brass, among which some are better than others in work, for it is only by a small defect that they have not been silver. absolutely. But the best coppers are those which have very full and full colors and which have not lost them like the Electra. So it is with other metals. And it is quite remarkable that these coppers have this property that the principal body, and of more value for our intention, hides the slightest neat when they are melted, this one not noticing nor distinguishing itself that by separation, by means of which this principal body perceives itself. And we can only possess it as it is when it is still in [the] earth. For if it is a brass which witters or perfects, it is certainly one which is so mixed as I have now described. You can rely on this without test, even though the cake in bronze mass has an all silvery color or quite a copper color. Hence we now see and know everything apparently as nature augments a body, making it ascend and advance ever lower and higher, what is lower becoming higher. But understand this emblematically or in an emblematic way. For the bodies which are deceased or destroyed contribute to it by adding more and more of their substance to it, and thus make themselves heavier in the mercury. To this also greatly cooperates for the perfection and advancement of the metallic body its own meat, or food, which is none other than the naturally prepared minerals. Which cause dye to said metallic bodies, neither more nor less than excellent meat does good blood to the human body. And it is also from there that the flowers of the minerals come and are produced.
Now whoever cannot know or learn in this way all that I have just said, he will never learn it in any other way. Because this is how the real dye or color comes to the metallic body, not a color tending towards dappled gray nor a misleading white or red. Also when the lucid and transparent degrees of such a brass rich in beauty, mixed and high elevated, come to be broken and lost, one could well still pass for an electra, but improperly. For the colors thus mingled one among the other in this bronze give it such a beautiful and magnificent appearance and luster that it appears like chrysolite or like excellent amber which is diaphanous and transparent.
It is metals like any other living creature on earth, which is to decay and deaden in their ordained time and hour into the being of their bodies which had been similarly ordained to them. For when the metallic nature, or the body of a metal, has reached gold, it happens that it descends again when it lacks nourishment; and, because of hunger, he recovers or receives a stronger Witterung or perfection; from this Witterung or reinforced perfection comes a Witterung or dependent perfection, and a Witterung or perfection of fire, as also a Witterung or perfection of air. But when the Witterung or dependent perfection becomes stronger to a metallic body than the Witterung or reinforcement perfection, then this metallic body descends and wastes everything beautifully. And this is what is then called a dead bronze or a dead metal, because an exterior body dies to it incessantly, one after another, until at last it withdraws completely somewhere. of the mine with his Ferch and his seed.
Now we recognize that the body of metals has a beautiful Witterung or perfection by the particular rod of each of them. And this likewise has its place and its work separately, for in both, in this and in the living, is found great gain. And note and take good care precisely that when a metal dies again by the decline of its perfection entering another body, it is the same as a man who loses his corporeal color, then also his body, that is to say say gravity. And thus the gold does not become aure silver, but an electre, that is to say, a gold which has lost its color. This is a great test point, that one can recognize a similar aure silver by discerning it and distinguishing it from real silver. For it is found to be heavier than other pure silver, because it has the body of gold and has only lost its color. But it's still a pretty knack, to be able to give him back and re-establish the color that had died in him. In short, in the separation it retains all the qualities of gold in itself. So it is with the red silver which has lost its color, and has thus attuned and engaged with the copper, so much so that it dies in its body. But to remove this silver now from the copper and to give it once more its own and singular color, it is a great science which the founders do not know and which depends on the art of chemistry and the industry of work. Now I leave you to imagine how many people there may be who will now find themselves having bought some of the electras mentioned above and who will have taken them only for silver and copper. But what gain and what extreme profit would not have been made by those who are well acquainted with it? And what I say of the electras of these two, it is the same with those of other metals, as for example all the iron which comes from Hungary is spröd or mixed. And here is the reason: it is that the copper with which it is supplied and naturally full is not outside it. For when it is outside, as indeed one can easily and subtly draw it out, does it not come from pure iron and steel of such quality that its hardness has no equal? , for sabers and cuirasses are made of them which cannot be cut into, pierced or penetrated by any kind of weapon or by any piece of artillery, and which are nonetheless very light. Note also that the lubricum or the flow of mercury and that of these electra take place in a decline, because it is easier and more quickly done to chase or extract some substance from a matter which is slippery than from one which is hard. ; even there is always something left behind. Also these so-called electres do with respect to the tingent and flowing bodies, which they always leave when they rise and ennoble themselves and when they join together their simple body and their volatile crescent-shaped part. And know that when you have one of these instruments or electras in your hand, if you want to make an imitation work of it afterwards, you must attach yourself to the lustful or the volatile, because they are two spare hands from which you cannot you can pass and which ones you have to prepare the instrument if you want a metallic body to come up or down. Also beware of the flux in this metal, for it is more open than the hard when the colors begin to escape, of which nevertheless it is proper to fortify. The instrument also becomes flowing and collects more than living metals.
When the crescent or waning metal is in its seven systems or conditions, it sustains and sustains itself until it finally goes into another body. If, therefore, anyone should come across such a metal or bronze, or such a mine, he may well be assured that it is the purest metal that he can recover and have in everyone. It is also true that such a metal is called here above by our founders a very fine metal. But our metallic surface which has not yet been put to use is an impure thing compared to this metal, from which if only one small grain were missing in the proofs, it would still not be as it should be. Now, such a metal is, as one might think, very good and manageable and good at forging. And [thus] if he loses nothing in whatever kind of work he is employed in. And though all metals may be reduced to the very finest, yet none shall become finer than gold, to which not an element touches more that it may cut something out of it and render it into an otherwise null and vain spolium.
The silver found at Markirchen in Lorraine is very fine, and so are other metals, which are said and called very fine when they are pure and deprived of excrement. However, if they are tainted with it, it can be diverted, separated and cut off, so that the excrement does not cause them any damage as to the very fineness that they contain.
There is often found in silver mines pure and fine copper, which proof shows to have been naturally generated there. Which copper can soon be broken or separated from silver, though it must be remelted because of its spolium, or because of its foreign colors and flowers that it has. However, this is done very easily. So we can conceive of a beautiful instruction how to bring out the colors of mines, such as azure and mountain or mine green, even if they were in the mine glass. For such colors readily stand near this pure brass or this pure metal, notwithstanding that at first they do not appear to sight. Now in the south, like the above-mentioned where such a metal is quite pure there, also so much more abounds in a corporeal mercury which it produces of itself naturally, either increasing or decreasing. But here, mercury takes on another body of its own. And therefore it is now evident how by imitated artificial work one can have and extract this mercury from one or other metallic body, and how one must prepare the body in which the mercury is and whence he must come. But the metal body must be pure and very fine. The gold from the mines of Italy, and particularly from Wallachia, where it is purer, shows that the metallic mercury undresses and leaves its body and that it sends it into a very tight body of which a fine gold. Also we see in clay soils that the mercury takes so strong and so firm, and it is hardly necessary that it only brings back to the spolium what prevents it thus. Because otherwise mercury is transformed and rises when another metallic body comes to be awakened with it, because a body awake and another sleeping do not expedite anything; but they must all watch over them. Now when in the engendering or birth of a metal, like gold, there would be only a small filth, that is to say a foreign body, its pure parts could not be assembled. , as you see in the gilding. And for this you must here notice and learn to know what is the first body of metals and know that when metals have some obstacle which prevents them from rising, increasing and conjoining, only one kind of metal can bring them together and perfect them; what other sorts of metallic bodies that I call here by the name of body, speaking in general, will not do. You see in the body of metals how hard the mercury is and constricted in its flux, so that one cannot take it there because of its own purity. For there is in him, strictly speaking, no metal. For as soon as a metallic body joins it, there it is immediately discord and rendered disunited. From there one sees how one can put metals at rest from their work, to know when before they are pure. Because in a pure instrument one can put into it all that one must put into it. For [you] perceive this in the mercury of metals, which you cannot see because of its purity, except in its flux or reduction. Now the mercury of the metals is the flux of the metallic mercurial bodies, that is to say, if the water joins them, or the mercury of the bodies of the metals which has entered the water instead of the air. Then think what a great science that is, yet can be as easy to do as being able to attract and bring wind or air out of water and put another mercury in it. If you bring the air which is in the earth out of the earth and put there instead of it the mercury of the bodies of metals, you have a mercury in a coagulate. From there look how you will be able to coagulate it yourself, but in another way and way that is not quite neither common nor known.
Bring then without delay another mercury of the bodies in the place of water, and you have a beautiful pearl. Take this same mercury from the bodies and bring it into an earth which is pure instead of air, and you have a pure precious stone as you must have it and according to the species of the country and as the earth participates in color; or give him the color, because that is not difficult to do either. These small stones and the like all come in purity and are taken from it, but the natural working only provides all such background. People who talk utterly badly about philosophers are not worth much about their magnificent inventions of the three principles from which it all stems. Try it and you will say it is true.
There is a good quantity of mineral metal, but there is little pure. Because there are very few which do not pierce or which are not mixed with each other, which must also be separated. This is why I want to discuss it separately here. But as for the great expenses that it is advisable [to] make to separate the metals particularly out of their coarse mine, it is of what I let speak the founders and workmen. Now, by the way that has been invented to separate the metal from the mine, a part which is the most fixed remains by work and the other flies away and flees. But trials which are skilfully conducted do not yield little profit. However the mines which are growing cannot be dealt with nor experienced without great expense and expense. And to find the electra and to attract them outside their mines by separation, that is much more difficult, as much for the melting as for the experiments which it is necessary to very industriously make. Also crafty and shrewd workmen can very easily make people believe that iron and copper will turn them into silver. Yes well, if there are any first, as for example in Sweden, the Osemund always has money when and so: they have only to get it by hunting and burning iron, and so on. they deceive the world. But will they do the same to Meyer's province iron? I challenge them. And therefore, beware of such deceivers.
Know and observe that nature willingly remains in the order close to its work, in that in its ascending and descending it always has two mines, even sometimes three, one quantum and the other, by which it gives to hear the work of imitation. And yet people here above want to imagine other ways of working; so we can't find anything. Now take care of almost all the mines that are in Europe, and you will find a quantity of impure mines.
That is to say that several of them are close to each other, or mixed together in a mass or in a heap, because thus nature wanted to generate them in our neighborhoods, as much as we can. see through the mines that are discovered and tested there. And if you show me more, I'll change my mind and believe what you taught me. So here is the second foundation, that the metals go up and down and that they come and go one in the other for their perfection. For if each had a very particular work and instrument, one would not need so much work and pains to melt them, as is required to make a good separation one from the other. Because stone and wood are difficult to add together, because they do not agree and are different instruments. But these, that is to say, the two mixed metals, agree and are quite easily appropriated together. However, it also takes pains and labor to draw them separately. Therefore always carefully consider the bodies in two kinds of ways, and you have not one of the least instructions. First, how and with what kind of fire you must separate the ashes from the soot, and [you] have already learned to separate two kinds of metals; then the earth with the color, and you have again learned the separation by a second kind. And so with others. Second, beware of the flow you make; and to do it well, stir it with the cold fire with the hot, and with the hot fire with the cold, and you will be able to separate the bodies from the mercury. And thus you have already separated the metals without loss and without waste.
Be careful to accustom yourself diligently to remember the names of all the mines and their affiliation, except the names which the miners and workers themselves give to things, for the names which they give to the mines are falsely given to the corps. . Because such people who build, dig and work in other caves and passages, have the instrument or tool of the bodies according to the places of the mines and make a distinction or difference there as one observes in the song of Bimsen, and this, uselessly . But as for you, give the names according to the property and manner of the seven bodies and learn how to prepare the instrument of each body well so that you make more profit from it. Great expense is employed in making and composing etchings, acute or dissolving, in order to detach and extract the finest and sublimest substances one from the other. We also make some waters which we use in the washing place and which have their own name. They are not to be esteemed, any more than the etchings, for they all bring great venom to the work. It is better to use strong and penetrating lyes, which are not so dangerous as strong waters. Let us therefore learn to make good detergents instead of these etchings.
There is also another kind of impure mine, of which I have made mention here and there, near which are the mires or scums of the mines as may be seen in the Sinter. But there is [a] difference between Sinter and mud or scum, because mud or scum is somewhat more grainy; however, they sometimes become the Sinter itself. Cold fire is caused by this mire, as hot fire is caused by Sinter, or vredines metallorum. Now this fluid mire is very difficult to cut off from the metal, because it comes from the cold fire flowing or coming from the exhalation of mercury. For as Sinter proceeds from bodies, so these mires, dregs or scum come from mercury. Now it should be noted, when one wants to have the mire with another instrument than that which does not belong to him, that one collects the mercury from the bodies, which is in this work nothing other than Schliess and flux. For when you can comfortably drag away the mire, you can perfect and finish something with Mercury by dispatching it with his fire, because to use cold fire is not so much in use nor so artificial. Some of the workmen who work in the mines call this mercury of the bodies mispickel or nodum aeris, that is to say the knot of bronze, and usually call it by this Latin name. For it is true that it is very tightly knotted and very hard, so much so that it is difficult to detach it and pull it out of the mine to have it and enjoy it.
Spiessglass or antimony is also very difficult to detach from all metals, except gold, without suffering damage. However, you will have much profit and advantage if you behave generously in it by following only the property of antimony, which it is necessary for you to know well and all that depends on it, as also it is necessary that you know the property and nature that are found in other metals and minerals, such as tin, lead, bismuth, magnesia, and that you can recognize the difference between tin and iron and nodum aeris, i.e. the brazen knot, and between iron and copper. This instruction is good and advantageous to you. And I know that it is enough for a person who knows how to handle cast iron well.
Who would want to boast of knowing what the gold and silver of the mine contain, if not when they are recognized in their perfection? Because we perceive them in their goodness when they are perfect and when they have their color, their weight, their suppleness, their flow and their hardness. Nature has produced this first perfect metal which is gold, which is also quite dry. But there is found in Hungary and White Gwarts a gold of such beauty, perfection, purity, and value, which can soon and easily be broken, plucked, and gathered, as well as silver and copper. And here is the difference between those who are perfect and pure from others: it is that the metals are not perfect until they are cleansed. And, therefore, there may well be some metal which is not pure and clean, as this defect is very often found in several of our metals, which however we meet sometimes in their perfection as quickly as many other nations. ; but I do not say that they are generally so pure and clean that there is sometimes some fault. Now, it must be observed that a metallic body must first be perfect or brought to perfection before it can be said to be fixed. And it is very important here that we know well what it is to be fixed.
When a metallic body has its tint, its weight and its graduation as it belongs to [it], it nevertheless does not allow to remain to it still sometimes many impediments, impurities and filth. But, after that, the work continues, so that nature comes to conjoin these two tinctures and graduations, and thus restores and brings the metal to a great purification. This purification is fixation, because what is pure is fixed. And know this, that the foundation of the first is the body. But here is a secret: the tincture and graduation must enter into this body. And if I strip gold of its tincture, as may well be done, then it is an electre; it is a water, for it dwells in a water or in a watery body. Then from this I take from it or take away its heaviness or weight, and reduce it and bring it into an oil or a sulphur. And yet the body remains. For in crescent, Mercury lays there the body, at first in semblance as of a young child; then comes the gravity which makes it, so to speak, beautiful; and if the lubricum or the flowing substance arise there, and then after the volatile substance and the tincture join it, all the rest of the body is accomplished and perfected just as much as it needs for its perfection. And who would be right to laugh at such a thing here, despising the routes, the maxims and the process of nature, and taking heed of nothing? For here nature brings and causes the color on the copper in a strange and so astonishing way, and makes it brass or yellow copper, but which is not fixed. Because that is neither her end nor her intention, especially since she does not proceed there by a straight path. And it is only a foolish, weak and volatile color, which, moreover, other metals willingly receive, but which is not fixed. And we even chase it all away, easily, over a wood or coal fire. This is why it is very important that we learn to recognize bodies. For in their resolution one learns nicely the property of a pure metal and what is its tint, its body, its salt and its weight; and above all when we carefully ruminate and weigh the division of all bodies in the manner of chemists, how very well and skilfully we divide them. Now we name and call the abortive spirit a spirit of mercury; the finished and perfected tincture, a sulfur or a soul; and gravity or weight, a salt or a body. Because following this, the work of imitation testifies that by a constant fixation one has a perfect body and not only fixed to the fire, but also to all etchings, especially to that of Saturn, which is not of so little esteem and weight as other etchings, but better for being workable and soft or forge-fit, without Schliess or, as it is called, a quart. This perfect fixed metal, or gold, also resists cement, because it is stronger.
It is surprising that so often we speak so strangely of the works of nature and that there is no one who can give any assured reason, how and by what way she produces and engenders metallic bodies. But the cause of this ignorance is that one listens to the other who is rude in everything he says, so that he does not remain more learned than his companion. Now if it happens that the works of mineral or metallic nature come to deteriorate or change even slightly, these ignoramuses are beyond their ordinary knowledge, and [they] are well prevented from advising themselves how to must proceed and remedy this accident. When one intends to undertake some remedy which is constant and lasting in medicine, this perfect metal is of the best there. It is like a grass or root when it is ripe in its season: one chooses it among all those which are unripe, which one willingly rejects. And if you do not keep this progress and you want to use some spiritual and volatile substance by decorporating it, you will be mistaken. For how can one remove the body from a thing which has none or contains none in itself, much less the tincture, before it has come into the body? after which you cover your dye well, but not all the colors of the dyes. This is what you must be careful of, because this is where the greatest science consists.
There is a certain thing which I must mention here, in order that those who aspire so much after gold and silver may easily and easily perceive the mysteries of God on all sides, if this thing is examined well. in scripture. For thus they will have a spiritual instruction in a thing of the world or in a marvelous metal. For when he has been dragged out of the ground or out of his pharmacy, he enjoys another life here above, and takes body there and lives there without any food, because he is not dead, but alive; or if he does not work, he only rests; also he can quite properly be awakened. So we hope that in the other eternal life where there is a perpetual Sabbath, the same thing will happen to us and [that we] will be made happier. And even though God will use us to his praise, he will not wear us out or consume us, but he will honor us much more highly than we here below the metals.
The imperfect metal is the wildest of all metals, for the impurity is still wholly attached to it, as are also several mixtures, one inside the other in a strange way. Also it is the custom in similar meetings to often bring back several pieces mixed in a work, so that one cannot know the form well, not knowing yet what it is. You find in such a work a mixture of prepared instruments and others which are not, and both are pell-mell and of several bodies. Now if you want to wear an instrument of that quality and clean the metal, you must first wash top and bottom that instrument which is not prepared and [you] must not finish roasting it. You must also have a particular fire for such instruments which are not prepared. And you don't have to look so hard in removing the body from the instrument that you don't look and examine especially carefully the metal which is still so young and delicate. Now the perfection of all this consists of nine different points which you must first weigh and diligently examine each of them separately. And if you behave in this as it belongs, the metal or the mine, Erz, will receive no damage.
First, look carefully if the metal or En is crescent or waning. And then you can help him with his color and his whole body. Because it is necessary that it is with the folium of the metal that you support or make have assistance with this metal there which is in crescent. But to him who is in decline, you must do the same in his spolium, otherwise he will fly away, for he has not yet been completed in his true place and in his pharmacy, and such a metal is of equal shape. Thus [it] is necessary for a person to try his hand at imitated work a little and to apply himself to it and behave courageously, being by this means all the more assured of doing well and succeeding in it.
Secondly, you must beware of the meat of the metals which is not yet well digested, as I can tell you. That is why you must help him to help him complete his digestion; otherwise the excrement cannot come well nor be separated from it, which would then cause too much firmness, [of] non-softness and resistance which should not be there.
Thirdly, you must take into account the flow, that you clear it and arrange it as in a rock which is still flowing in the same place. Because if we open two flows altogether, we will not then be able to bring them back or rejoin them together, otherwise very uncomfortably. For there is no appearance of untying or opening a new flow, seeing that the mercury of bodies is already flowing without that, being, I say, Rotte and Gestûbe.
Fourthly, remember the reduction of the metal, but do not forget at the same time in which degree of the crescent or of the decline you must find it, so that at the enema you can give a suitable fire to the metallic body. For one fire is for ashes, another for soot and another for calcining. And so you can become more and more learned and expert if you know well the arrangement and the government of metallic bodies; otherwise you will not be as it should be, because they will become spröd and spoil at work.
Fifthly, you must observe to distinguish well between the two imperfections of the metallic body, for it is from there that the metal takes and receives its name. For one of these imperfections is of the body and the other is of the instrument. But first take the instrument and notice that you must help it with the preparation. But as for the body, prevent it by the help that you must give it, by preventing it from flowing, insinuating itself or mixing into another, similarly driving out the remains or the superfluities. And then his seed goes away with the Ferch without difficulty or resistance.
Sixthly, keep your eye on the fire which nature possesses in itself, and beware of approaching too near that which is in the metallic bodies, for draw up all your work chiefly in the uredines and regulate your fire at all in the instrument of the body.
Seventhly, you have to learn one thing with regard to the colors of the electras, which is that you do not take gold instead of silver out of ignorance about the dormant colors which you must collect in the course or when, in the growing, you must strengthen and guard them. Painters have a background which they call raising and shading. This is what you must hear here in the bodies when they are perfect. This is why the bodies disunite and divide.
Eighth, as you see that painters mix and grind their colors with water or oil, so learn to prepare well the water with which you soak the colors. It is a water of metal with which you can start and dissolve the metallic bodies without the ruin or loss of their colors such as you desire [them] to have.
If you come to use any other water than that which is metallic, all your work will be useless; but refresh it with oil, and it will remain pure and clean, and [you will have] greatly strengthened the folium.
Ninth and finally, notice and take careful care to sharpen the metals well, so that they no longer care or need their ordinary meat. Everything that belongs to this work, you find it abundantly in this instrument, or not very far from there, where you can lead it there easily and bring it to a good end. For since your metallic body is imperfect, that is the reason why you must help it, since even nature has already contributed half of the work to your advantage. We often tire of seeing that such a large quantity of such a noble and precious instrument has often been miserably burned with so much negligence and lightness, instead that it could have been used for many very useful things.
Now to this metal belong almost all the others, for there is seldom found a metal so perfect that it is not yet necessary to give it help by other means. Now whoever knows even a little what must be done, he succeeds in it with a great advantage of utility and profit. And for this, it is necessary first of all to know by what means one must introduce perfection into the metallic body after it has been purified and made clean, and thus one brings into it the fixed, the color and the weight or gravity.
If it were necessary that our superior elements could not also make the metal and that they did not have it all the same at their disposal, as the thing is clear and evident as in broad daylight, who is it who ever would have liked to undertake and interfere with working or producing a metal? In the same way it should be known that under the earth the great ardor and the coldness are the principal cause of the formation of the metallic or metal body, and according as this ardor, or else the coldness, acts powerfully on the metal, it also becomes more or less excellent. And it participates in as many more beautiful colors as the ardor or the coldness is deeper in it or has penetrated more. This is very certain and true. And even any man of common sense must know that this ardor and coldness here below are also attributed to the planets or superior stars. Now, in the first place, when the Ferch withdraws outside and passes through the earth with its seed in its stable, firm and suitable pharmacy, there are certain times that it also comes out of it in case its Witterung can come before it is weakened and cast down.
And all the more so since the Ferch always brings a quantum of the purest metal and the elements here above have this virtue of causing metallic substances to pile up and heap up — for where the elements are and operate they always cause a body there. and pull as if by force some metallic substance — this causes the metal to pile up and come together in a heap. And as it is heaped up and piled up, so it remains in its place. This is why the metal sometimes forms into grains which are of a strange shape, for sometimes they are round and sometimes long. From there also comes the metal which is on earth in the sand, and which sometimes falls into the water, according to whether it has been caught, taken and frozen in a place, where often it is generated in a form pleasant. But it is in soaps that such a metal also takes this name. And these soaps are mountainous springs of earth where the metal stops and sets or lies willingly. These springs well up and flow from below upwards, and often they are found all golden, for they throw up and produce heaps of metal the size of large falsettos of the same color above. In these parts of Germany, around Erfurt, there are such springs in the colors of the mountains. But in some places these springs or soap pits are placed above or at the top of the mountains and it is there that the Ferch is attached which often passes and goes further, being torn or drawn by the air. But all these soap-pits are usually situated at the height of the metallic waters which are dissolved in their salts. Also these metallic waters willingly take and retain for themselves the Ferch or the metal of the Ferch and of the seed that it entails as it is. And that engenders and produces often times the best tin that is found in these soap factories, which bring and produce when and when this tin [and] sometimes some very different kind of iron. But, absolutely, iron cannot be well operated or engendered in this place because it is doubly hindered. First, water is its impediment or desludge, for where there is water it softens the metal, so that it is as if torn and torn, so much so that it is a rare thing to find such metal-soap near or in soap dishes.
Secondly, the Schlich or flux of iron is not here in its true pharmacy either, because this is not in this low air and element, where nevertheless is the particular pharmacy of the metals. And almost in this manner are all the soap-making metals in Europe. But in other countries there is no low or inferior metal, or it is very little. One finds in the country (his own particular) or in the land of the dyke the most sublime metal. Which in such a case is also found elsewhere. But I consider it superfluous to mention it here, it serves no purpose to our work or enterprise.
Metals of this sort from the soap pots are the best, as they are closer to the perfect metal. But if you get too close to the fire, they fly away with the Ferch because of the very thin that is big in them. This is why when the Ferch and the seed which is of great gravity come into the metal with their two heats, especially in the decline, it is powerfully fortified in its consumption, and it becomes a little more soon allied to the superior mercurys of the earth and their instrument. And for this, he docks and approaches it, then again he advances further into perfection. And this is the basis of the advancement and progress of the metal above what it was in its workshop, so far as we can know.
It is indeed a commendable thing to work in the centers, pits and conduits of the earth. Because there is appearance and it is to believe that in there the witterung has its exits and entrances, more than in all the whole earth, around which it does not advise that one turn with so much difficulty and length , since one can enjoy his business by a shorter way in order to find the metal. I also mean that if someone, wanting to go to the fountain, went around the rivers and by all the sources, and who nevertheless could come to the said fountain by a more direct and short way and path. It is the same with regard to the Witterung, for the Brodem, the vapors and the flames which are enclosed therein prevent and attest to the Witterung much more than it would advance. And, consequently, that one does not stop and take heed of dens and passages, and rather and willingly of the Witterung, which passes and goes its way through and through all the earth, because this does not prevent point its walk, as it might seem to us. Because you must know that there are only Erz or metals which [obtain their] Witterung under the ground and these Witterung there. are distinguished in order.
Now this must be carefully noticed, namely that the metals make their Witterung from below outside where they abide and stop. And here is the difference between Witterung and between steam, smoke and Brodem. This Witterung goes obliquely, in curves and across, and so it comes sideways and across. It is therefore from this Witterung. that we must speak here, when she will fill abundantly with her own virtue. For then it makes it appear and recognize, being addressed and sent to the metal by means of the superior rays of the sun, which gives it and supplies all that it needs for its maintenance, for its subsistence and for its operation. And it is this Witterung which carries, conducts and distributes the food or meat which it is responsible for to the metal or to the lower planets and this, by and through the earth, or dyke earth, per cutem term. And then the metal takes into itself the Witterung that comes from the work and uses it and benefits from it, because we see that the elements cannot enter the earth much earlier.
The Witterungs are invisible, because we do not see them in their being of themselves and we can better see and recognize the breath of a person than not the Witterung, which we must recognize in a Rotte when a metal advances in its work. For then he gives a breath of himself and also withdraws it from himself into his center and interior. And it is necessary in this work that the sun helps the metal and that it positively accompanies the Witterung. Which, therefore, must be noticed with skill and subtlety. The place where the metal is produced is a purest land, from which, according to the Ancients taught, man was made and formed. Because a land of this quality has many virtues hidden in it. Then it shows its efficiency and power in the work which is accomplished in metals.
Now this Witterung serves no other purpose than to attract food and make it enter the metallic body, causing it to swallow and engulf it. For you must not think that Witterung allows food or meat to rot in the body when it is brought there. Thus this Witterung is the retentive virtue which preserves, retains and stops all that waters and nourishes the metal. And, moreover, she prepares and adjusts the instrument during all her work in the place that receives her, where the sun drives down all that is heavy and weighty, as is seen in all sorts of juice that is thus driven out and sent to the lowest part. But in this descent below, the Witterung has this way and custom in it that what it communicates its juice to or what it sucks, so much longer and so much more deeply remains with it below; and so it is better and more excellent, so that she can perfect it in its flowers. Now I call here the flowers of the Witterung when it cannot carry a body to a higher point and degree than that by which it brings this body finally into a garment or a body of a true perfect metal.
But whoever knows this kind of flower properly, he has learned something great. And whoever knows by what means and from what the Witterung makes its flowers, he has reached far ahead in the knowledge of nature. Such flowers, therefore, are naturally made of a simple instrument which works by three different kinds of fire, among which the ardor or the very fire of Witterung is not the least, but the greatest. For it is this fire which is closest to perfection. And, moreover, this Witterung is an aerial ardor, holding fire mainly, as being very abundant, because it flames and yet does not ignite, because otherwise it would burn the nutrients in the pharmacy; but she puts them under cover, hides them and rather preserves them; it piles them up and holds them in a heap, strengthening them and driving out superfluous humidity and smoke. Wherefore this Witterung also accidentally causes those wicked fumes, vapors and Brodem which poison the whole mass of the earth from below and which are the subject of many dangerous diseases, as is only too plain and obvious.
Especially since it is necessary that the stirring, agitation or swaying be unceasingly continued in the working of metals as long as the metal takes and receives in it [the] nourishment which is caused by this stirring or movement, this is why it the closest aerial ardor of the living metal must be stronger. For nature has made us know that since these aerial ardors can enter metal, and no longer before, because metal is the goal and the end of work underground, it is also necessary for this reason that the aerial ardor extractor is there and that it turns around or goes around in icelui metal. And by this stirring or agitation the aerial ardor of this metal, which is again made from below above or outside into the natural, true and legitimate metallic aerial ardor, becomes so strong that it ignites or heats up, without however no light or flame; so it burns and burns or cooks without clarity. What makes and is cause that it purifies what is capable of being purified in the work and in the pharmacy, but also in all the instrument, the paraphernalia, the arsenal and the fleshed out, so long as this aerial ardor also attacks and combats the purest atoms of the earth, which even the sun gloriously resolves again into substantial juices and liquors. For the terrestrial atoms are the flowers of the salts of the earth, which cannot suffer them, and also these flowers are not necessary in the earth. But these flowers or atoms must again be resolved in the upper air.
Now this airy, extracting or attractive ardour, however much it always accompanies the metal, one can nevertheless see in its Rotte what it does to the metal. For if this aerial ardor seizes the rod and kindles it or heats it up, then the metal is in its decline and is a dead metal. And thus the fire which was lit or active in this Rotte goes away and withdraws, instead of which the coldness remains at the lower metal, which increases. Whence we see what the uredines do when they take over the metals. Because if coldness has the advantage, it does not fail to soil, spoil and completely degenerate the metal until it is nothing more than lead. But if the ardor or heat takes over, the metal becomes from time to time more raised, more lively and ennobled. Now in this lies the difference between the ardor or the coldness of the fires and this is what is called and named the uredines. And the vehicle of such ardor is the instrument which causes and produces it. If the uredines cause and do any harm, the fire can dispel it, for the uredines can be without fire, and also over fire. The ancient philosophers call the uredines “vires coelestes et infernales”, that is to say the celestial and infernal virtues. Because then we can clearly see that the fire cannot win anything over it, if not only give it flux. But he cannot consume it; neither can it do anything to mercury, except to bring hardness to it, which is a rather beautiful and agreeable thing; but it is by no means ennobled or changed into money.
These two aerial ardors on, under, inside and outside the earth are simply one and the same ardor. And it is not only one of their properties that they can thus show and make known the metal and the Erz, so they cross the earth for this purpose that it does not turn into stone, but that it dwells in a certain light or proper porosity, like the leaven in the dough, for they cleanse the earth as the heat of the sun does the air.
And as this same aerial ardor or Witterung causes us and brings here above wind, clouds, rain, drizzle and snow, so also the sub-Witterung causes in the earth smokes, Brodem, liquors substantial, minerals, metals, sources, etc. And thus is generated the gold of his seed. And whoever has an understanding of these higher and other matters can do any kind of speedy work of imitation, for industry or art immediately follows and imitates the track and order of nature.
Especially since those who work in the mines see this aerial ardor exalted at night, they consider it the only aerial ardor and not any other. It is not, however, a true aerial ardor of itself [and] all by itself, but it is only one that is called assistant or present. And it cannot be named or defined otherwise, because it removes the excrements only by the fire which is in it, however much that is not quite, but what is poisonous and worthless metals. And it also purifies the air of stench. Because where would come from what one calls Schwaden elsewhere than from there? that one must believe to be driven and put out partly by this airy ardor or clear fire and, then, partly by water. Because such a stench greatly waters down and stains the metal, especially the color. Which, however, remaining in its stench, can easily burn or wash away, whether in its mine or earth and in its liquors. Such and like clear fire also helps to strengthen the Sinter, for it does not act in a manner of ardor, but in the manner of fire. And it is not by a way of boiling that it purifies, but by a firm and solid burning.
Now for what the instrument of which this clear fire seizes and seizes is even often found in a place where there are no metals, this makes it very deceptive, but nevertheless often by opinion, because for the most part it comes from a metallic blast. And beware of this, to know that metal never gives off any glimmer of itself, and it also does not burn up, but sometimes it escapes by flying away or evaporating. And yet the Schwaden is greater venom. And this is one of the best demonstrations of the contrariety of a metal or of the poisonous substance harmful to metals. But for what we can discover many beautiful and magnificent tricks that we undertake by fire, I will only tell you that metals must not be entirely melted; then this poisonous substance which exhales and goes away, gives enough to know that it is in no way useful to the metal and that it cannot remain there either, if it were not that it holds there stubbornly stuck.
You will also notice here once again that fire cannot be of service to metals, but an ardor which does not come from fire, which is like the natural heat in man which is endless. Because in what place does nature have coals close to metal? And yet she is ardent. And where is there anything that blows hotter than nature can suffer? But that's another thing, a coldness without freezing, as well as the pearls that testify to it. I call this uredine or a heat without ardor, even a heat without freezing. And this is what makes the fire its nutriment and does not suffer it close to itself. Therefore, when you bring a metal into its own ardor and coldness, from there you have a foundation for the work of imitation. Otherwise without it you have not studied anything.
The second thing that shows and distinguishes metals visibly is color. But there are superior colors which are such that they cannot be known because of their darkness where they are naturally hidden. These colors are heightened and raised by a folium, as, in fact, a dark and thick or non-transparent folium does the same with precious stones in their lucid and transparent body. But here it must be a transparent folium which makes it into an opaque body such as that of the metals. For these, like the moon, shine, which has its light in the opposite direction within the metallic body, as also the folium produces the same outside of the said body. Now there is a way to make such a folium or bluette artistically. But nature shows us that this folium must be recovered and found out of the volatile. For even though it is a real thing that the volatile cannot be perceived or acquired and lodged or enclosed except in its seed or in its body, nevertheless it is soon present or soon appears with the metallic body. And whoever does not know the art or manner of using folium will never be able to attain the right and true tint of a metal, either for flux or hardness. Now the nature or property of the folium is such that it is so thin that no thing or leaf in the world can be thinner; of which folium or foliage a metallic body is assembled, made and composed. The so-called alchemists are greatly hindered with their statum supra stratum, that is to say with their beds upon beds. But what is in question, which is this folium, is thinner and thinner than beaten gold, and this is what is called an opaque transparency, a folium, inserted or reported within, which is not gilded. nor silver. But here is hidden a beautiful secret, a beautiful knack for dyeing artificially with the bluette, or folium, when it is put or brought into the sparkle or folium. Because one knowledge always begets another. And as one sees and experiences in a sticky and abundant splendor of ardor that there is no Schwaden present, so one neither notices nor perceives any Schwaden and not a bluette or sparkle in their mirrors or night lights. And that's when you can prepare such and such a bluette, or spark, that rises and falls down out of its seat and places. For it shrinks and lays down with its worst poison or venom. Thus also the metal stops and rests.
In view of the white soot of metals, which is a coat or garment of silver quite of great price, there is something to be surprised at, only when this metallic white soot is brought into the mercury. , that by corruption the metals and first metallic bodies produce the highest metals, and that from the superiors, on the contrary, the inferiors come from them. Now it is certain that wherever one encounters such soot, there is certainly metal on the road. But there is scarcely one more beautiful and more natural than that which pierces and grows in the province of Steyrmarek, and good steel is made there. And in Wallachia this soot appears near silver. And it is the most certain thing in the metallic and natural work, that this soot works wonders as well as in the work of imitation, which is incredible to people, as well as that what seems the the more uncertain is often times the more certain. And from this disbelief comes that one does not know this better or that one hears and understands it weakly. Those who work in the mines also have in the caves, passages or conduits, a particular state which is called their pendant and their recumbent figure, in which something similar to this soot may also be found. But it takes a lot of trouble to work there to have it and [thus] if one is often at risk of suffering the effects of a poison or venom which is customary there. For although the airy ardor passes through it and carries many things with it, nevertheless there remains a quantity which cannot be cut off from it except with extreme diligence and difficulty. And, after so much work, one [doesn't] get a sufficient salary. The workers of the mines name this fabric or material according to what they like and according to the mines, and this out of ignorance and without examining as it should be what it is. And the avaricious alchemists, when we speak of this soot, claim that it is the mercury of the bodies or the salt of the bodies, and that it is salt like our common salt. They act like the peasants, who name the herbs when they grow tall, instead of when they have their own name. The ash of Saturn is also made by this means greatly beautiful before it comes higher and is changed into its silver. For soon it is accompanied by a lance-glass, that is to say, an antimony, which then has as its own the frozen water and the coagulated Saturns, which is a proof of all the metals that they change and grow mingled long before in the earth.
Later, Saturn also provides pure bismuth. It is coarse and has as such a water of Saturn which is congealed, in which one recovers and finds a very great advantage and profit for the metals which one brings back by its means to their first matter. Then this bismuth goes upwards to the metallic work of glass, and so the work of the ashes of Saturn ceases. Alchemists, for a very long time and still today, have had a lot to do with their salt [to know] how they could make or make drinkable all the metallic bodies that they previously converted into salts. But here, they make a whiteness from the ashes, which ashes produce their salts, but it is useless. For the ashes are garments which show and signify that which is virtue, and in which the metal is hidden and is similarly clothed with it when it wants to appear in sight and in the day. But potable metals are something quite different from what they believe, for they must be made such by natural liquors and suitable to their metallic nature. But that is what is a very strange way of operating and which is not possible to conceive of such people, who seek only to have and amass gold. Nature only gives the clothes to these people instead of the body itself. And as for this same body, it escapes and escapes often times before we notice it. I mean the most noble body, therefore cast your sight and stop it on the most perfect bodies.
It is a necessary thing for nature that she should constantly have an increase and a decline in her work. For as it happens here above that stuff is lost not only in the casting, but also under the hammer, so also it happens under the earth. But to learn to know the waste that arrives under the earth and to preserve it in provision for the future, it is necessary to do as those who collect the crumbs of bread from under a table. And this is also what nature does, which preserves and collects, in the same place where it operates, its waste, and produces it in the light of day so that it can be employed for good uses. And the metal also recognizes itself as being there in the earth, which we see at the Schlich, in the mire, mud and matter that the metal rejects outside of itself. And there is the stone that nature has sucked up in its work, or even the earth, and what falls from it when it is not full of metal, and also that it falls with some metal. Now what falls thus is called, with just right and reason, Schlich, or a rejection and flow, especially since it separates, falls and thus falls down from the work and withdraws secretly. Where therefore such a rejection of the earth is found, throw your sight there, for it breaks from the instrument and from the workshop where the metals work and do what is their function. And this Schlich or rejection is a sure demonstration that there is metal there.
Thus the lye or the metallic water is likewise an assured demonstration of the next metal. For it resolves itself unceasingly into work and withdraws somewhat by gradually moving away from metals, which have Schmede and virtue. Because, as I said when I spoke of the meat of minerals, where there are fossil minerals, there too there is certainly a mine. That is why where there are these minerals, there is always more and more of this lye or metallic water, because it immediately resolves into water or else into lye. And here is the difference between water and lye: the mineral only gives water, but the metals give the flowers in which and from which the metallic lye is made. Now the effect that we learn from these two things—water and lye—is that they conduct flowers or metallic colors in a hidden way. For the cement or lye found in Schmolnitz, Hungary, corrodes and destroys the iron in rejection and flow or Schlich. And if you drag this Schlich-la du fer out of the trough and sprinkle it all around, it's good mercury. There are still detergents of this kind, but no one pays attention to them.
Sulfur too is a demonstration of a greatly pure mineral. For let sulfur be seen at Goslar: it is like pure vitriol, beautiful and white, and red like fine copper. Even there, silver and lead are also found in a few places around there.
One can by means of such waters find and encounter the places where the minerals grow with little difficulty as one desires. For when a mineral is too dried up and dried up, it does not have the virtue or the power to sink or flow out in similar water, but, on the contrary, it becomes courias and dries and hardens by sinking into the earth.
Thus in Hungary, the instruments of waters of sulfur and alum everywhere furnish gold and copper in quantity, as here in Saxony-Misnia the waters of alum, silver and copper and the waters salty. And elsewhere, in Bohemia, are the waters of iron and all kinds of metal, except gold. The mounts in the province of Steyrmarek also have their peculiar metallic waters and lyes, and also have beautiful and magnificent mines, so that all the mounts there are are almost all steel, copper, gold, silver and quicksilver. , and everything you want more is there. Moreover, do not the salty waters of Franckenhau-sen around there sufficiently testify to the greatly rich and beautiful mines therein? And from which we would see many other effects and we would acquire a much greater advantage, if we took good care of them and if they were recognized by the inhabitants of these places. So much the better that these waters run, so much better are they and more clean for all things. And those which are quoted testify to a bad mineral, either that it is embittered or very often full of lees and fumes. But of such a mineral, give guard.
That among all the metallic wastes and which is the external and superficial waste, it is the Sinter, which however is largely good and is not harmful. But I mean the Sinter whose metals strip and undo themselves by their uredines. For the remains which leave behind the assisting aerial ardor and which resemble the true Sinter, is another Sinter which is similar to that one, which the founders and blacksmiths make of the metal, which they weigh and purify consecutively. Yet even though the lye washes, cleans and purifies the minerals, they nevertheless also purify themselves, as is seen in the Sinter that each metal leaves after itself in the fire. Which Sinter is not yet similar to the one I am dealing with here though. Because this Sinter contains metals in itself. And the sinter of the minerals, which the assisting aerial ardor makes, is it not palpable, recognizable and visible, as long as everyone who understands and knows himself in the mines knows how to recognize it well? But the Sinter of the metal is also among the mire and lees, and yet it is unrecognizable there. Where does it also come from that these muds are spröd. Otherwise we could put them in the forge to reduce them to molten metal, as we have tried and undertaken to do. But we could not remove or take away this Sinter. But as far as the Schwaden is concerned, it is quite a fine reduction in the departure of the seed and the work of all the metallic bodies. For when it ceases to work and it no longer has any food, minerals or metallic bodies, and the bluette has shut itself up in the splendor of the spark, it comes to separate. Thus he breaks the link between the bluette and the seed, and this is called Schwaden, poison and venom that is absolutely bad, because it kills everything that has life and especially that which has breath. Because it is his intention to return there. And, therefore, if in the places where he arrives he comes to find something which [is] moving and stirring, he kills it and kills himself as and when, and finally returns to his pharmacy towards the metallic seed, the again helps to cling and water, and becomes its link, and the gold is there in this poison. We also know that there was silver and metal; but there never is in the place from which he came, and so has become quite different. For this Schwaden, after the ruin of each metallic body and its bluette, and after the detachment of a particular Schwaden down to the last, is the most violent, because it lies like a mirror on the water and gives itself or willingly distributes also in metallic nutrients; which causes it to return soon afterwards to the metals to which it attaches itself. This is why the nutrients fester greatly, however against their naturalness.
Now the reason why this Schwaden comes and goes, is because he has in him the seed of the Ferch, and that is his help, because the seed must have something in which this Schwaden can rest. ; and if not in a body of the seven metals, it will be such a Schwaden poison; and there is his remains where he withdraws until the assisting aerial ardor tears it from him and removes it by force; and then that is his death.
Whoever wants to get involved in this kind of rods must not undertake the procedure at his whim, nor bring anything new into the mines that is taken from the meaning he claims to know. For nature does not suffer laws to be laid down for it or anything prescribed to it, for it is from itself that everything must be learned. And so, with regard to the rod, take good care of the aerial ardour. And what is to be noted is that this rod is established and posed particularly on the effect and operation of the aerial ardor which draws it to itself. For if this ardor were strong and efficacious, even though it did not ignite, it would not let its ardor do as its kind and its art bears, and according to what is customarily attributed to it, because, as a great ardor extinguishes another lesser one, either ardor, light or fire in a furnace, thus this airy ardor does the same towards this rod, which must be thrust in and placed lit. This is extinguished where there is no upper air or wind which cannot harm it; for this fire which we have here above cannot enter the earth below; it is extinguished there. Because, for example, if you push or touch a lighted candle against a stone or earth, it will go out, because it cannot penetrate inside. So she attracts to herself the food that makes this penis burn and that's what she sucks entirely.
But it is a pleasure to see in the instrument of this rod, or in the material of which it is composed, that there can be fat which does not burn, as is the Schwaden. For he extinguishes the lights with his poison and venom. However, it does this in another way underground: the airy ardor also does its part here above on earth in another kind and manner. Among those who work in the mines, there are hardly any who have knowledge of this kind of fire; and nevertheless it is the only means of perceiving the attractive aerial ardor.
This fire, or the work and work of this fire extracted from the earth, is proper and useful above all to many things in the mines and to metals in the work of imitation, of which mention is made in its place. Because to know and to seek from one end to the other a fire by another fire, that is to say to learn to know a fire by another, it is not a small point; and yet the lower subterranean fire does not get in any other way. The ancient sages, philosophers, doctors and writers have reported and quoted several proofs of this in various places in their books, when they teach that the elements here above do and serve those below and accommodate them as well as the celestials. . Of what they make known their opinion. For it is necessary that by these middle elements we perceive the superior virtue as well as that below, because they are the spirits which in all works appropriate the gross inferior bodies, influencing them the souls and superior virtues. For otherwise nothing would have its progress in the deep places. And it is necessary, for the operation and effect, that there is also a fastener, a ligature or a medium instrument which serves as a glue, a bond [and] as a band of iron, as one puts to a door. For it is a marvelous thing to hear to bind fire with fire. And yet it is a true thing. For to this also comes the keeping of the fire that never burns, because all three must be together near each other. For the one above is the fire of light; the metal also is the blazing fire and the fire below or the lower one is the burning fire.
This is also what we will see on the last day in the next life, when God will separate the burning from the blazing, especially since when the fire blazes, it burns and consumes so that hell will soon be burned. And yet it will not be bright, but darkness will prevail there. For God gives to his chosen ones the light which is a fire without flame or burning. You must learn something about friendship and enmity from those fires and seek them for your benefit. Above all, you must consider what is hidden in them and which acts or operates without being seen.
Especially since the custom of going after rods or furrows has been abused by some people, it is nevertheless an excellent and fundamental way to cross and seek metals, when using rods properly and naturally. And it is true and it cannot be denied, as I mentioned above, that the metals light up with an aerial ardor and that the Witterung, or this same aerial ardor, is invisible. And it cannot be better imprisoned, captivated and perceived than by means of the rod. Which gives me reason to call this rod "the burning rod" for what it uncovers and shows the attractive or distracting aerial ardor of metals. Which aerial ardor is ardent in fire. And again, though it makes no flame or spark, yet it is so hot that it sticks in its own way, and so sticks the rod in the same way. By what one knows and knows for certain that there is a metal there. If this rod should not stick more, nor burn, it must have a particular instrument which withdraws and takes this fire to itself. Otherwise it could not be useful.
Now, as far as the rod is concerned, it is only a houssine or a stick or [a] stick of half an ell in length (measure in Germany, which in France is a quarter of an ell) of one tight wood like oak or other hard wood, to which the stick is attached the instrument as one makes pitch or wax to a torch. And this instrument must be of a grease or resin of fir tree, or something else that is up or above the ground. Otherwise it kindles this aerial ardor, because it is strong. Whence it comes that neither tallow, wax, pitch nor pitch-resin are worth anything there, nor also any mineral, because a breath or breath from this greenhouse would ignite and burn even the meat or food which serves the mineral or metal. But it must be a lime taken from the earth. That immediately takes on such ardor, and burns, as lime does here above, by its ardor and moistness, and falls thus ardent from the rod below. This lime burned as above by aerial heat is then largely suitable for many things.
This aerial ardor does not, however, attack the oleaginousness or serosity of the mine. Because otherwise, how could meat or food from minerals and metals rise? Which meat comes from it. Mineworkers call this mineral food 'spar', which is real mortar or lime from the earth. But it is not under the earth that this spar is grabbed or buried, for it is provided and filled with a quantity of moisture. But some call it a mine or earth Marmel or an underground Marmel. But it is nothing less. For it does not last or subsist here above to the injury or intemperance of time, for it becomes so dry and arid there as it dries up that in the end it also allows itself to be kindled and consumed by the aerial ardor. In the highest mountains of Norway the filled and charged metals of Schwaden are found and meet with metallic mines which are also full of spar, which finishes the two metals bluish, so that they come quite hollow. And if the workers were to burn or set this part of the country on fire, it would no longer be as it is and remains. Now as soon as the water of the earth comes out of this spar and the air which had dried it also comes out, this aerial ardor and this hidden fire must come to enter it and be found after them.
Since the metal is in its purification, so that it neither rises nor evaporates or exhales anything at all, it has its aerial ardor, which, as it is particular, is what must be noticed and hear to lead it well by a particular rod. This rod is made of two sticks or rods that are held together in both hands. And then where the airy ardor is, then this ardor is put on and attaches to this rod, so that there is no one who can hold it so well and so firmly, that this aerial ardor does not separate the two sticks of this rod one with the other, even so far as if these two sticks were of a single branch, it would have to be broken. But the inside sides of these two sticks which touch each other must be coated and rubbed with marcasite. For the airy ardor then draws the rod from below downwards, just as the magnet stone draws the iron to itself. For this is how the aerial ardor of the purified metal draws the marcasite quite strongly, because the quality and property of the marcasite is to fortify this aerial ardor of purification, just as one cannot work better at the very fine as with marcasite, knowing each metal with its own particular.
Now, in that there are two kinds of marcasites, one here above, the uredine or the superior ardor of the elements, and that below, we take a little Schlich or the fine dust of marcasite, as it was said before, and one puts it at the point of the rods coupled together. And then the aerial ardor breaks or separates the penis in two and causes it to rise. For as, when one melts, it is necessary to add to the metal two kinds of Schiacken, mire or scum, namely an upper and an lower one, so that it can shine better or make a more beautiful eye, likewise it is necessary here that this takes place. do in this purification and refinement. But because also the marcasites—especially those above, as recognizable as those below—conduce the metal of the uredines, they are greatly at work to purify it. For, just as we see that a pure leaven, brought and mixed in the dough, soon raises it, the same is true of metal: it only depends on a small addition that we put it in a very fine degree.
One complains how the marcasite requires and needs so much work before it can be put and brought into a state that is very good as it should be, so that it is clean. But that's because we don't know the real knack. For I call all this knacks with which, by an artifice and advantage, one can help and succor nature. That is why stop for me just one metal and make sure of the one — I mean a metal that is roasted in its rotisserie — which you want to put to the very fine, and see if you will not make it good immediately. I could almost relate here the particular marcasite of each metal; but that is not necessary to be known in the work of imitation. Clever people who even make a profession of the mines should know well and rightly how they should govern themselves there. But such people are often so ignorant that they frequently hold in their hands what they do not know [and] pay no heed to it. Look what iron marcasite is: it is not a magnet for gold, so is lazuli and so with all the others.
Receive this instruction in your heart and you will always come back from it wiser and more knowledgeable and then you will be grateful to me.
As the breath in man goes in and out naturally, so it is with this airy ardour, for it drives all the others. A man's breath hardly smells except when he drinks wine and has eaten some strong-smelling meat. This breath of man leads all other fragrant aerial ardors into itself and with itself out of the human body. Likewise with the mines of the earth, I name and associate this aerial ardor with a living natural breath which leads and leads all the other aerial ardors coming from Ferch and from the seed. Also, for this purpose, another rod is enough, which is only a one-year-old offspring, which is otherwise called a summer slat. The mineworker expertly cuts down his tree according to ordinary custom and thus goes away under the help of God (so to speak). And if it happens that this rod strikes or strikes towards the place, that is good. But if it does not strike, it is then the fault of the unhappy hands of the workman or of the misfortune with which he is overwhelmed and he believes from that point that his manual work is not blessed. For man, by a false opinion, always thinks and believes that his skill hinders or advances this rod and not the particular gifts with which he is endowed by the blessing of God.
The best part of that world don't know which way those rods hit. And yet these ignorant workmen wear them on their belts or on their hats and keep them holy and religiously, according as the person, by a great superstition, hopes in the skill of his poor ignorant and needy hand, in which however there is sufficient gifts and graces, provided he used them in order and with judgment.
Now there is still much to note that each air has its particular operation, especially airy things; for among astronomers the trees and the fruits are likewise attributed to the air, for the upper part of the trees and their fruits depend on the lower air, on account of which the trees draw to themselves the juice which they return. For this lower air is the part which they have in their lower part, as their upper part has for part the upper air by means of which the trees operate the juice of all kinds of good, foliage and fruits as we see indeed. that the blessing of God descends here below first from above. What is apparently known is ents whose fruits occur in their time according to the nature of the trees from which they have been ents. And what gives life to these fruits is only an air or subterranean heat which makes them grow gently and which is above all their fodder, their work, their material and their principal instrument, and also are these all things aerials that are air. That is why if you take this wand from an excellent tree, like hazelnuts, which has a particularly pleasant smell and a very sweet fruit as well as its juice, if you hold it in such a way that it has to drop and knocks, she begins to suck all the flavor out, the rod straight in her train; and it lasts from above to this state. For the rods which remain upright are called the state. What happens, according to the arrangement of the metal, when the rod is held straight as would be a ruler.
Now this rod pulls the aerial ardor naturally by its substance so strongly that it is also necessary that the rod lowers itself and [bends] towards the aerial ardor and towards the earth, otherwise the rod would be too strong and too firm. . But it bends fairly well when the aerial ardor is not properly either the upper or the lower, but that of the middle, which is called wind. And such a passage is useful neither for this one nor for that one, but also pulls the rods of the trees into a heap made of the bark of wood, according as this passage is good or bad; for then he damages or profits from this superior or inferior aerial ardour. And as for this difference, notice it well, because the flows and the hearts tend towards that side, which also do the tops of the little almond trees. But the tops of trees which bear fruit in which there are pits do not, nor the tops of trees which have grains and pips smaller than are necessary for their fruit, as are apples and pears, but the tops of trees whose fruit is all stone and has a hard shell. Because also these shells and even the ashes of these trees, indeed all that they have in them, are entirely of air and fire. What is appropriated to metals, especially for their work. And these trees are also made better coals to burn and [which] are quite light.
Where it is found that the airy ardors and the vapors gather or deny each other above or below, then you must think that it is necessary on this occasion for science and artifice to recognize an airy ardor opposed against this one. For the aerial ardor of the upper element is greatly ; also is the subterranean aerial ardor similarly , as it is seen and experienced in their labors and works.
But the wind is also alike, for it now brings down these two aerial ardors together, so that one hardly recognizes by a rod the aerial ardor which it is necessary to know. However, it can be done in a very artificial way, because this trembling rod shows very well what is needed. But you have to make it out of a sheet of metal, like steel, and stick it like a bouquet in the dyke earth or in the place where the said earth ends. And there the same aerial ardors come together, and then this rod moves and trembles, which otherwise it does not do, for the rays of the upper and lower bodies do not allow themselves to be stopped as in the works, because in the aerial ardor they have their going up and going down. Also their Ferchs suffer no impediment except from this instrument of rod, which is like a knot or a stick of pit in a chariot. And air can enter from the top and bottom of this stick or cane. Now this instrument is made of the electrified. And it is taken from the best in small thin sheets of gold and is put in a head or glass jar which does not prevent this aerial ardour. And this glass jar is made much like a gooseberry that we make in our quarters.
See if in your work you behave differently than you should. How is it that you will be able to overcome it if you do not take an underground instrument, as it has been briefly taught here? By the force which you have noticed in the striking rod when an aerial ardor is present, you will well perceive how this rod trembles, for the subterranean aerial ardor rises and moves, but the superior aerial ardor also descends below. low and stir similarly. For it also arouses and collects the Ferch and the seed to the metal.
Everyone hears and understands well what movements and what alterations are made here and there in the clouds before there is some snow or other turbulent weather, and before the sky is serene and quiet in all its extent. So it happens with the aerial ardours below, which are drawn from the earth, before they can be placed with the aerial ardours above. Because they must first be untied and untied. And then they withdraw a little higher and then become rain or snow, dew or drizzle, and this, before they separate from each other.
Every plant that grows on the earth shows that aerial ardor has a special virtue. It passes violently up and down and cannot be stopped by any resistance. For whether cloud or rain can prevent us from the gleam of the sun, nothing can nevertheless stop this aerial ardor, for it goes and passes right through all things. But icelle becoming weak in its fertility, it is the medium air which is the cause.
For like an arquebus bolt which passes far, it is refreshed by the air through which it must go. Therefore, the ray of the sun cannot operate under the earth when it is there with as much efficacy and fertility as here above. However, it does its function and goes down into the metal, where it preserves and collects the sulfur as it should, and also sends up here. And so this ray of the sun is the greatest and most magnificent influence which must do everything and expedite: not only to preserve and maintain up there by its light that of the stars, but even to share with humans the light of day. The sun, by its rays, gives and causes a scattered and dilated fire in the earth, which also brings very great profit and preserves many things. But this airy ardor from here below passes and strikes by moving all the things which are of its kind, like especially the metals when one has them pure and fine of their mine. And there stops there and leans there precisely the penis at its approach. For just as at certain times you see that the sun attracts water, as the vulgar speak of it, in this way the aerial ardor preserves and strengthens the metals and puts them under cover. That is why one takes a striking rod to which one leaves precisely on the Zwiessel a rod of the length of three inches in the croup. So we take the core out and [also] if we add very fine gold to it. Then the airy ardor that enters pushes back this rod, like metal. And this is done because the sub-aerial ardor of the metal is also in the same place, and even contrary to it, it takes this aerial ardor in this way, and the metal brings it down with it. For this, too, she then presses the metal under her into the rod, as if with the intention of making it fit into the whole heap. For this aerial ardor is the equality and copulation of the aerial ardours which the ray must receive here, on the earth in which it must work. For he brings no plague upon the earth; out of the smoke of the rising earth he makes it rain, snow and drizzle, and brings it down to earth and waters it. So much does he do with the fumes or vapors of the earth which are caused by the aerial ardor of the lower metals when these vapors rise here above. But this same ray again makes them heavy, so that it makes them return to the earth towards the gold to help it in its fertile and fruitful work. When, therefore, these vapors are accomplished in their work, then such a rain of metal has been completed, or I may call it the metal itself, which weighs down and excites the Ferch in its lubricum or flowing substance. And this metal thus pulls the rod as far as itself below with more violence than does the striking rod, which does not touch the metal, thus simply touches the only airy ardor which has not been ennobled by the ardor. superior air. And it would not be without reason that one would name such aerial ardor a fertile rain which restores so beautifully and agreeably. But it is not flowing or watery rain, but only an airy ardor which is entirely ennobled by the noble, high and resplendent sun. Therefore, it is not said enough what some stupid and ignorant people say and these simple people working in the mines who, when they are near their simple fellows like them, advance this speech, saying that the sun, by its influence, operates and engenders gold. But they do not show what kind, as I have just mentioned. And therefore, they themselves have not yet learned it.
As the planets which are in the firmament have no regular and constant course — and for this reason the planets are called erratic or wandering — and as, moreover, the minor planets remain in their state and assured course, so it is metals with their bodies. For they do not remain in their bodies, but rise and fall from one body to another. Which thus are associated with the strange movement of the upper stars, because they also receive different bodies which they penetrate and taint with the seed of their Ferch which draws its virtue and power from the sun, like also the planets, which likewise have a particular communication with the sun in the movement of their light, which I compare with metal. And in this consideration I call it lubricum or flowing substance and volatile substance of the body.
Now this rod is divided and applied to metals, which have and possess bodies full of seed, in such a way that the great aerial ardor of gold obeys it peacefully and lets itself go, as it should. also suffer somewhat when it does not please him to shine on the ground for the rain, cloud or snow as long as it pierces.
So these metallic bodies are subject to destruction into these higher sulphurs, as much and rather than lower, in their work. This is why a similar rod is needed, which I have called the superior rod, so that it renders above by the bottom the opposite aerial ardor, where are the reflecting rays of the metal, which it has received from the sun and which it has fortified again to the supreme degree one can imagine.
Now it is also a rod of a sucker or plant of hazel tree which likewise is hollow from the Zwiessel to the trunk three fingers deep. For it is necessary that the core be emptied of it and, in this hollow or vacuum, it is necessary to put there metallic mercury of the weight of three grains of barley. And then this penis stirs and moves the aerial ardor from the bottom upwards towards oneself. This is the virtue of this species of rod.
You know that metal sometimes has a weak body, that is to say that the superior planet of the sun, the body of the moon, is not ennobled enough, because it still lacks ardor and virtue of the planets superior to the sun and not of the inferior ones. Therefore, there is more mercury down in the mines. This is why the aerial ardor of the lubricum, or flowing substance, better touches the mercury in the penis and does not want it to have its own, thus pushing it back above itself. Then he is not necessary for his work. And so the planets have their work and influence more in imperfect matter than not in the perfect body. For gold does not put on mercury a body, but the planet accommodates itself to mercury, which then holds all other metals in the work, to which or near which they are ever nearer, except gold and the money. So I take those out and tie them to this rod. For although these are also planets, they must be conceived to be filled with a perfect aerial ardor attached and arrested to a particular rod, as to the lower rod. For they have a presentiment of the work and do not show the material of the work which makes the beginning, like the mercury of metals.
But to recognize what to do is a great instruction. I want to expose it in this way: it is that one must know the metal before one throws oneself at the Schurff to know what metal it is, to know how far and how deep it is, and what work one must undertake. for this subject. And when I know and have noticed in this rod that it gives me the sign that I desire and which suffices, I see it and recognize it at the top of the rod. For if it is a metal of Saturn, it jumps much stronger than it would by the manner or application of the body of Saturn; for then the rod neither hunts nor pursues the body, but what is still for the greater part in the body, namely, is the mercury of the body; for he can extricate himself from it a great deal, with complete facility, and clothe himself afresh with the body of metals. And so then: if it is pewter or bismuth or magnesia, the rod does not jump so much but it goes more slowly, like Saturn, Venus or Mars it goes even more beautifully. But it must be remarked that there is no aerial ardor in metals if they are not under the earth. Because if they are under the ground, they are in their work or work. And whatever they increase or decrease, neither can they do without airy ardour. This is to inform you next or according to the rod.
Mines also have their impediments in great number and of various kinds, like everything else above the earth. For it is indeed true and experienced that all things are subject to diminishment and abolition. And it happens, as regards metals, that they suffer in their cold and in their heat, in such a way that they are often exhaled, evaporated and burned. So when their vapor or exhalation becomes heavy and can only rise a little above them, no one whatsoever can on that account dwell in the earth or under the earth — no other than in a cave in which the wort of the beer which has finished boiling there and the Brodem do not allow a lighted candle to continue its flame there — on the subject of the gravity of the Rho which cannot come soon enough through the earth, so long as let this vapor or exhalation become lighter and cause its weight to drop. And this gravity or matter thus falls, attaches itself and is like a hot flour which I call bunt, and is very different from the marrow of stone, because stones have that naturally. But this flour or bunt finally resolves into sulphur, which the marrow of stones does not, which remains continually in dry powder, which is however heavier than the ash of the mines, which ash is light and also resolves into salts, which does not arrive at that flour or bunt which remains a continual sediment or melt, having been thus created. For it is a stinking and unwholesome exhalation, so that the metals suffocate from it and become corrupted and rotten from it, for they cannot sprout out or increase or grow naturally, either up or down.
Such vapor comes when there are sometimes stones so hard that sulfur must be used to break them. This collects the bad vapor which rises above and remains lying in a place where it becomes heavy and increases there. For as for that which is worth nothing and which is wicked, there is always amassed a great deal, as one sees when one purifies gold with sulfur and leaves it there to rest. For then the impurities of the mine separate from the gold and sink to the bottom, especially the excrement of the metals.
Now, when in the mine the metallic impurities become a little bluish or sticky by the aerial heat, then they cause and bring an absolutely nasty vapor beyond measure, so that the workers are immediately suffocated to death.
Bad weather, as it is ordinarily called in the vulgar fashion, is bad salt which does harm not only to workmen but also to metals, because it brings down their aerial ardor. It is a fortuitous case with metals when they are thus arrested in their natural works. But it is necessary to notice how it is that the aerial ardor can be beaten down. Because it can be compared to an eclipse as we see it appear here on earth. For even though this ray which surmounts retains its gait, its step and its trace, nevertheless the aerial ardor retains it so that it cannot turn around that place. But before this is done, the Ferch and the seed withdraw and it leaves the work to flow, as on its walls or partitions. And from there come the flows, furrows and ruins, and this is their origin. But we see many kinds of flows.
Now it is well to observe that what we call time is so called because it is not only pure air like here above near us, but [that] it always has a certain substance which is thicker and more harmful to man than the air above us. For to dwell under the earth is something that has not been commanded to us who are free. But the one who, by the necessity of his work, is forced to do so must take it for granted and commend himself to the Good Lord, because he will not come back without being afflicted by the bad vapor that reigns there and by some wound or evil. — This word plague is here put in the same sense as this evil which reigns at midday of which David speaks [in] Psalm 91. Now this air becomes heavy because of the steam and the stones of the water, because that this spoils and loses all trace and passing through, and it is called a temporary salt. And one notices here in this vapor that one cannot hold there any lighted candle, because this heavy vapor extinguishes it like water and finally also suffocates the man. This is why as soon as we see it, we must hasten to go back upstairs, because it does not mean anything good.
When the air is entirely in the whole of a piece of pure earth, there finally comes a stone. But there are various kinds of stones, also depending on whether there are different bodies in the earth, not considering that the whole is called earth. Now, the more this matter is recumbent and at rest, the harder and greasy it becomes and is formed into solid stone. And one cannot lift or break such a stone except with fire, which then thickens in the earth and finally consumes it. And there is made there a stony foundation of the earth, in the same way that the scales and bones of a fish or other animal are its foundations and supports. Which earth, God will consume and cleanse in the end by fire likewise. And this is what gave subject to the ancient people to burn their bodies. For though the flesh being in the earth rots forthwith, yet the bones lie still longer. And their corruption is the fire by which they become ashes, and it is grounded ash. Now this salt, or stone, harms the metal so much that it does not allow it its ordinary operation, without which it cannot remain alive; but he must come out of it, that is to say, he must perish and die, for he can do nothing that way. But here is the difference between stony salt and stony flour. It is that the salt rises when a stone or earth wants to harden, which before was noble and precious. And where it is that this air has been able to pass, it begins to harden within it, becomes an angle or cornice stone. But stone flour or bunt, when it is ready to dissolve and decay or when it has reached its old age, it becomes all powder. And upon this depends the story of the distinction between the above and subterranean stones, which in this way are partly injurious and partly advantageous to the mine, so much so that for their work they must increase it in the earth. But in the work of imitation no stone is of any use, for the stones have no nourishment in them. Therefore they must perish through lack of maintenance.
It is this that is so bad to suffer as the peril of water in caves, passages and buildings. For it is unquestionably evident that the caves, openings and passages of the earth lead the waters from one to the other. By day there is sulfur in it, and the bottom is all sulfur. If one only opens these passages and if one opens them for last passages, it is the ruin of the good looks. This is why one should not begin in these places to make a way to go towards the metal: it is hardly otherwise than like a man to whom one would like to dig to the heart, and whether we begin with the artery or the pulse of the arm, cutting it like a butcher all through the body; for then we would see a strange massacre.
Now then, at the mines, it would be much better to go the straight way towards the fountain and not follow the crooked and crooked one, and one would arrive there much sooner.
Now there are two kinds of water in the earth, day water and bottom water. The water of the day in no way harms the buildings, but rather helps them because it swallows up many things; it relieves by art even the water of the bottom. And that we don't let it sit again in the water at the bottom, because the water at the bottom is harmful in such a way that it cannot run off, either it streams or flows from below and splashes up again. high, coming out through its cataracts, and thus it damages the metal as also does fire, for these two harm the metal as also all that is in the expanse of the world.
There is still a grease under the earth where the metals grow, in places which have no Schwaden. Also this grease is by no means some stone of oil, petroleum or naphtha, but it is hardly anything other than mine soap. Yet it differs very much from it, for soap does not burn, though it has hidden sulfur in it, and not such a sulfur that is burnable, but only one that is exempt from fire. Therefore, it does not burn clear or in light, nor in the manner of a flame, nor does it attempt anything against what is around it, except that it makes the metal pure and clean. And if this soap could not be maintained, the metal could neither rise nor fall. But this fat is consumed first. It is, for example, like a man whose fat melts and consumes first, and then the flesh. And this grease is not far from metal; and when it piles up and gains the upper hand, it consumes the metal and obscures it entirely or subdues, by its vapor, the aerial ardor similarly. And as the oil is of such efficacy and virtue that it does not let out of the goose, or vessel, the subtle, or spirit, of the wine or other drink, when this oil floats, so this fat can also constrict the body. metal, so that no aerial ardor can come or go there. Moreover, this grease has a great suitability and friendship with iron and with its closest soul which is copper. Of which alone one could write several books.
It is in the mountain of Wackersberg, in the county of Schwarz, quantity of this fat. It's like quicksilver: it bursts and shines like a beautiful red and shines like a pole. It is also in it that there are these colors imprinted and we can draw them out. There are also quite beautiful little sparks in it. And [it] is also called by some a body of quicksilver, or a splendor of tin, lead, bismuth, or "lancer-glass," or antimony, that there are.
And if it happens that this fat does not give its fatty nature or substance to the metals over which the seed has the prerogative, it becomes a powerful volatile matter. This fat is a completely oleaginous earth, greasy and shining like a red ointment; and sometimes also it is brown and shiny just the same as if it were frozen quicksilver, full of shine in all its mass. In the stony places of Bohemia and Transylvania, there is an abundance of this fat, similarly at Goslar and Schiakenwald, and where there are mines of quicksilver and lead, as indeed it is found in various places here and there.
When it is necessary that the Ferch and the seed withdraw from a work by the paunches such as they are and that they do not leave there naturally, the metal is converted into stone. And this retreat and abandonment is what mine workers call sinking, although they don't know where it comes from. And of such stones nothing excellent can be done. It is true that there are quite good ones, but nothing can be introduced into them, for they do not receive any air, nor from what is in the air which could ennoble them further. For it is a strange thing in nature that when something good is driven out of a body, it no longer wants to re-enter it. For a man whose life would have been taken away, neither can it be given back to him; the body no longer receives it, although it died naturally. But as for God, he can do that. But for what I have not undertaken to describe here supernatural things and signs, but of what is only natural and which I have experienced with great difficulty and labor, I rightly disclaim this and gladly leave it there. now these things so elevated.
Isn't it therefore a subject of great astonishment that the metallic body which is dead and ceased is so beautiful, where the other vegetable and animal bodies change into rot and nothingness? as indeed as much happens to the above body per length of time; but in his death and rest he is as beautiful as any glass whatsoever. It also still retains some color, especially when it's held marcasite. Hence it is that the colors of the marcasites are recognized; for one finds its flows green, blue, white as the flowers of metals have been, which also are generated from three bodies.
There is still something else, besides that, which can be seen in this air where we live. It is that no steam or wind rises uselessly, because it is reduced once more to another work. And there go so many meteors. And the lower earth likewise has these same meteors, because the vapor which rises from the aerial ardor of the fire of the metals, it is this which makes this flour stony. In the place where it falls, there it grows more and more, up to a great quantity; and it renders or produces a harmful salt when it places itself in places where there are metals. Especially when they engender and grow, it prevents their color. We see this in the matter of slate, at Mansfeld, when it is put between the Spdche of the metal, so that it cannot be easily removed, for it spoils and greatly consumes the brilliance. and the bluette. This is what is caused by this stony flour which, besides that, is reduced to hard matter with the marrow of the stones and makes a matter of marble which is called pot stone, which is a stone with two rows, dark and extremely tight and firm, so that it fires when struck, for it is very full of it.
The juices should be in this rank; but as far as I shall mention it elsewhere, I now part with it. However, these juices are also a kind of flour, but different from other flours, because it inclines more to the cold and melts there like snow, even the other similarly. And it does convert into water rather than flour, but the other becomes rather flour than not water, and [also] if it is water that comes from a body.
Now this flour, when sometimes there is less than marrow, makes a very beautiful, transparent ice cream, which is called Alexandrian glass or Marie's ice cream. But she is not subject to being tamed in the blazing fires. And yet it is lost and annihilated in cold fires and is greatly harmful to metals, so that because of it mines wither and decay into starch, as is seen at Stolberg.
The bladder is such an instrument that it restores the best beat or transposed tune. For a transposed tune forms no stone in the place it would be. But it will stick and form where the air from below attracts and dries instead of the air from above. But it does not turn on. That's what you see when you knock down a splinter, a Hauch, how that air jumps out. Whence this Hauch thus protruding teaches us how it makes stones. And so likewise nature makes metal; only the precious stones have another access, being drawn from the gifted waters.
Now in this instrument thus made there is fire and air all together. It takes and draws its material and virtue from bad weather. And there what is heavy is consumed by fire, and then this fire illuminates and perfects the remainder that is there. M.-is this bladder is made of a ball which is of copper the size of the head. It is closed, welded, neat and closed and clear, so that no air can enter it. And one leaves so small a hole in it that nothing but a splinter could enter, and one draws in water — just enough for its effect. So we have a stove with coals that we light and we put the bladder or ball on it, so that the water comes out through the little hole that is outside the coals. Then it blows the opposite fire with force and violence, because in doing so the water enclosed boils there by the heat of the coals and it comes out with such impetuosity that it strongly blows the fire in front, which thus maintains and maintains itself. increases and heats up violently as it would with bellows blowing very strongly from outside. And by this instrument one has and possesses great advantages. It is there this manner of ball and its external arrangement to be employed here above. But down there you can't do that. But nature itself has a similar bladder for her fire, as above.
This is a salt, which commonly comes from bad smoke. So it is characteristic of mines to exhale in this way. But when the mass of stones is hard, a wood fire is made and the smoke withdraws from it and enters the stone fire. It becomes thick and then afterwards, if the vapor of succins or ambers and similar things joins to it, there comes from it such a poison that it is necessary to go to the aid of the metal. Otherwise it would annihilate and evaporate, for the smoke puts such a sooty confusion on the metal that it consumes it. It is necessary here to have a ball which is round and hollow and which it has a hole of such an opening that a large feather pipe can enter there; and that it be so thick that no air can enter or leave it. Fill that ball with good gunpowder, then surround it with cotton wool that has been boiled in saltpetre. Then dip it in distilled pitch with some sulfur mixed in. Light the ball and drop it into a Schacht, or rush it into a Stollen when you throw it; and so it blows the steam out not only with the smoke contrary to the lower, but also with the stoss or violent blow. A ball of this sort can be prepared for water. For one can bring it into the water, being attached to an instrument, when one fears the approach of some large, horrible and monstrous fish which make such a strange demention under water that, if they do not turn away and withdraw, we suffer a great damage, and many people are slain. We also have another instrument that we put inside these mines, which does not grow but only burns completely, and which damages this salt and lifts it out of the mine. But it is necessary to make a difference and to notice, when one wants to use these two instruments, if the buildings above are old or new, so that one does not harm them. Afterwards, one can make and prepare the instrument of these balls described above.
This fire needs nothing for its meat, but it glows in darkness. It is already very good and clean. It is a singular fire and an aid to the mine. And one might well be given the leisure to prepare one by counting the expenses which are employed in the tallow or in the work of Bromith, as the oil in many places which one buys at a low price does not also gives no smoke and dissipates vapor; it is brought in a beautiful glass ball and [it] is placed under a little box surrounded by hedges, so that neither water nor sand can harm it. And in the work, this fire gives light and clarity. This is because it is very necessary to know this fire, so that the worker who works in the mines knows and knows the background to regulate himself on the nocturnal or metallic mirror, which is a particular knack, because there render the aerial ardor of metal and those that come after all together. This mirror also has its particular instruments by which one can recognize these aerial ardors when they come together. And if the aerial ardor of the day holds its place there, the aerial ardor will complete by day what is of its doing. And a glow comes from the earth: it is what mine workers call an aerial ardor of metal, and this ardor is good. But there is one that is only half aerial ardour. Now if the aerial nocturnal ardor holds its place there, we see it in this mirror and in this light in which it gives itself to be known and is then in the making. And so the metal is recovered and found. Metals shine, although it does not seem so to our eyes, as rotten wood also does. For they do not rest, especially when they are after to work. But they must have a light reflection of the work. Now this light does not cast any rays, like daylight or rotten wood, but it receives that of a dark light.
Now, one sees, in these mines, very beautiful aerial lights. But the light of darkness is quite a strange light. For you can see there clearly and another who is five or six ells far from it does not see it, neither you nor your light.
Cats, dogs and wolves also have similar eyes, so that they can see you even though you cannot see them. For the night has a light, as can be seen in those bodies which receive these lights from this nocturnal light. For if they themselves had this virtue, they would shed rays. But they do not do so because experience testifies that in the earth fire is dispersed.
Now this light is of two kinds: the first is clear, accommodated in this way in a ball by the juices of some fish or worms of wood or plants. Which juices being distilled, they are poured into this glass ball. Or take a clean crystalline glass: it will give a beautiful light under the earth if you put in it, in this glass, a certain water of mercury. And this light greatly overcomes these waters of insects and plants in this darkness which is called night. It does not, however, let the light of day shine; but such does it] much better in the darkness of the earth, where the fire is hidden that must be awakened by such materials and instruments. But the second kind is of the mirror which receives this light and gives to hear hot or cold fires, of which the peasants and the workers of the mines do not hear and know nothing, because that is not of the knowledge of each peasant or minor. For as those fires shine in the mirror, so also does the fire of metal. We feel these fires in the human body and according to them diseases are named, but we do not seek them.
And such is the distinction between the ball and the mirror as I said above. I can see all my limbs well, but not my face: so I can see the light of the sun well, but what the sun is that gives this light, I cannot see.
The best expedient and refuge that one can employ to oppose the peril of water are fountains and springs, for where they pierce they carry water when and they when it does not. Also there is none better than the kitt or pitch, so that one proposes the day or daily waters, to prevent them from advancing and resting there for many advantages and prerogatives. For it not only retains muddy, murky water, but bathes it and also causes it to flow and flow. So that by this means we divert the water to make it reach another place of exit, so that we are delivered from it in this place when we do not want it or when it is not useful or of service in any way whatsoever. Here, therefore, the daily water is pitched in this way, so that it cannot flow into the swamp. And so one can immediately cleanse the earth under oneself and the water that has stagnated by withdrawing it and exhausting it. And the more before one cleanses, the more run the sources of these bottom waters. They also come sideways, as long as they come in daytime water or allow themselves to be transmitted like the passages of daily water, and they still come sideways where the building does not prevent it. And where one has no work in all these places, one can pitch the places where the buildings are which are visible in front of the eyes, especially the passages, caves and mines. Thus they must be accommodated with that pitch or resin which is called kitt.
Especially since there is almost nothing that brings more hindrance to minors than water, one cannot resist it not only enough by means of this pitch called kitt, but [again] when it is almost all passed through the place it has forced and pierced, it must be diverted by supports, foundations, buildings, as with Stollen. It is a great and perilous work and very painful to secure the passages, which if it is necessary to break, it costs many people and great expense. This is why it is necessary to think of the means how one will be able to burn them. For one can compose such a fire which with its virtue ruins these passages and passes all through, by crumpling and gnawing the stone so small that in the end the water can pass and flow without damage; so that the workers are no longer in fear, as before, of ending their lives there by an unexpected death, of drowning and perishing there.
By means of such a fire, one can also knock down, ruin large stones which are in running waters, so that one can easily blow them up by this means. Because it is a deromption fire which is made of resin or kitt of which one can rub the top of the stones, and pour this kitt in the work by a suitable channel from top to bottom, so that the water cannot cause no damage or impediment when it would pass and float joining over several fathoms in height, this mine fire ever advancing more and more and even [it] takes its strength from what burns there and which s burn with him. It does not make much smoke, because it escapes or evaporates at the same time with the fire which is a fire, as I said, of decomposition, which fire is also flowing.
There are also certain juices which, when boiled, become hard. And if they are mixed with quicklime stone, they ignite and burn so strongly that they break there and pierce the rock stones through a hole which they pierce [as] so large and [as] so deep as desired; through which hole the water flows to the intended place. But it is necessary to put inside a small pipe of wood, or some other fabric, and push it firmly to the bottom, at the same height as the water had risen, and plug this hole from below; then pour pitch into it [so] that no water can enter, and put the pipe in from above in this way, or [some] stuff in small lighted balls; and they will gnaw below as long as they enlarge and lengthen the hole, as long as it reaches to the Stollen and passes outside and is as large and wide as the upper little pipe or hole. And then when we dig and drill this hole again and we make room for water through it, then it flows and passes easily. This is a fine invention and subtlety for the passages if you understand it well and know how to practice it with order, because it will have a good effect with the help of these real knacks.
It is a thing that one experiences that the weather or the disposition of the air holds or governs all things, not only the artificial ones, but also the natural ones. For one experiences in artificial buildings that which does not hold and does not last over time, it cannot also be stable and solid in such a way that it can remain bare and thus resist wind and rain. Also there is to be redone daily to the great edifices and buildings.
Note well: in Tsips, there is a place called the Tobschau where the dry steel rises during the day. And in the same place, there is a mountain as of steel and [there] is no instrument by which one can cut down the least scale or bark of it. But when that mountainous steel has been left and abandoned there one winter and one summer hot and cold, a scale or shell the thickness of two fingers is knocked down and dropped. By this we see and experience that the air weather can also lift and ruin the Stollen at leisure. What wouldn't he do to the stone? as experience shows when snowballs fall from the top of the mountain downwards, in the neighborhood of Salzburg and in the province of Steyermercq, so that very often they remove and throw from top to bottom large splinters and pieces of rock, the size of houses, which have been softened by the heat and the frost.
When Hannibal had passed the mountains of Italy, he poured into them stronger hot vinegar, by means of which he destroyed great stones which became so soft that in no time they allowed themselves to be worked and broken.
Oil also does the same thing, when you know how to do it well. That if it were necessary to use sour fruit like beer, wine and other simple things, it would be very precious.
This is why one can provide oneself well and serve and provide oneself with a good sour or very strong acid to succeed in this purpose; a sour one, I say, taken from cistern waters, boiling it with a little honey and pouring it hot on the stones. He chases the fire behind him; the fire, I say, which is in the stones, for they are usually cornice stones, fire stones, and [it] thus softens the splinters.
Stone oil is also made, so that there is no need for olive oil or any other oil, not even naphtha, but only stone marrow or of burnt pebbles, if one pours this sour water over them, or rather water of horror or etching, by which one surprises and makes jump all the largest stones, especially the stones with fire.
Nature teaches us this, [and] to proceed in this manner with regard to stones. For consider and see only what the resin and the Kitt and the clearing water can do to a stone called tuff put in a heap with dung and coarse gravel or pebbles; and how it is that it greatly breaks up the stone of Bims and softens it like beeswax; and also pot stone like even marble of various colors. But take a good look at the white stone and the Schlich the Bims is in and you will find that some kind of lye will cause it to boil and break.
We find countries in the extent of which we find a lot of nitre salt where there is and cannot grow any stone. How quickly can such water be heated and poured on the stones? Now this fabric, called the instrument of this composition, can always be found among mineworkers and close to them.
It is the greatest penalty that is imposed on men who work in the mines, to pull out and extract the stones and all the baseness which is of no use, in order to be able to dig deeper. We call these stones and rubbish up here Schutt. Now it is a non-small constancy which is required to untie and dissipate this Schutt by means of water and rupture. This, however, does not cost much, if only it is applied properly and in the right order.
As for the first work, it is applied to remove and separate what is easiest. And then we proceed to cut off and clean the other coarser materials that are in the earth of the mines. But we must not consider the earth like the grass, because it is in the earth that there is the least earth; but it is full of all kinds of things like salt, mineral substances and stone; and the earth is the least part of the earth and yet it is the most noble because of it all metallic bodies are made. Now there are things much sharper and more penetrating as to taste, but they are not all found at the same time. So this is done when the superior cannot be used with the inferior. It's also a simple thing that saps. And is it not the sulfur which breaks them which is the poison of the juices? This is why miners and those who meddle in the same work must be aware of these things and practice them. Because one cannot sufficiently inform in writing what is more necessary to be done by each individual in the one and the other thing, with the deduction of all the dexterity which must be observed in each work.
Especially since for the work of metals it is necessary to have in it a great fire and sometimes also a small fire, it is necessary that for this subject the species and the kind of metals make and be the rule, and not not the refinement and melting of them.
But it is necessary beforehand to have well learned the properties of the aforesaid lights which are necessary.
Since it is already the duty and the fact of a founder or man of judgment to order the fires according to the right knowledge that he must have of each material and in this way, as it is said above, that nothing damages the work, but that it benefits it in the highest degree, it is useless for me to add to it my explanations and descriptions of each point apart, which otherwise would require much trouble, great prolixity and therefore therefore a great volume or book in which to notice and note down all things properly. I content myself with recommending to each one this difference of observable fires in various metals to practice it himself, to learn it well and to think carefully about his work and work, and to apply his judgment to it well.
What is prone to ashes and soot, especially the excrement of metals and the remains of bodies, the founders imagine removing and undoing without loss by means of grate fire. For they kindle a great wood-fire under there, and thus grill and roast the metal, so that they think it strips itself of all its soot and impurity, and the copper also of its sinter, mire, or dregs. But when the fire terrifies or is too vehement, it plunders and consumes the iron of the grid. Which makes one praise the gluer of the fire when, as happens in Mansfeld, one puts a heap of metal on the grate and then lights the fire; and we let the coals stick one among the other very gently so that what is above the grid sticks quite as much as we want. This is what is done to metal in Sweden also by the ardor of the sun in summer, because it flows beautifully together and purifies itself so beautifully that it becomes good at the whim of the very fine. And we should have more esteem for this gluer of the sun than not for the grilling, which is done by the fire of a flame.
Now it takes a sticky fire of two kinds to glue the metal. One of these gluements is like in Mansfeld: you take a straw stopper that you light under a pile of Schiefer, or metallic slate material, and you let them stick on their own and [they] stick like a pile of coal and the metal that should stick becomes sticky. Secondly, the gluement is also very necessary on the body of the stones: it turns them into lime. But the glues which, in the beginning of the glue of the fire, reduced the metals to lime produced only remains of lime. This is why the workers have no need to wonder if they have had nothing worthwhile.
This fire must be placed among the cold fires, which consume. And it is up to him to consume in the cold fire. For cold fire has just as much the same manner and power as burning fire which shines and burns. Now the burning produced by this cold fire is better in this respect than other fires, in that it does not reduce the bodies completely to ashes, but only puts them in Schlich, which otherwise one would have had to burn. hard to do in small parts by dint of filing. The closest suitability of this fire is that which sticks, of which I want to write a little and keep silent, for the present, of this one.
This fire abuts and aims principally at the bodies of metals, which consume them by their own matters to that inclined by the property which they have in them. This is why one must have esteem for this fire, because the bodies which remain there for some time become very supple and their remains remain there behind in the square. And so the best metals are separated from them by this freezing and are withdrawn from the impurities, leaving only what is good.
But all that can be said and done is useless at this time, for the world considers itself too learned to want to learn anything from others, although it was previously hidden from its knowledge. For the number of those who consider themselves wise and learned is great and each has his own particular sense by which he claims to have much knowledge, instead of not knowing where to begin to bring it to light. Hence, he rather holds it in a heap and yet remains a clumsy, as he indeed is.
Some might feel that I meant to speak of some etching by one or other of these Erz fires. And if they believe that I understand it thus, that is not however. But how uselessly hundreds of barrels of precious and expensive water are used in one day to separate, as is done in Goslar, and this, because of the resin which one could profit from alone; which water it is necessary besides to acquire and to make by great expenses of wood.
This fire serves and is good when one mixes with uncovered and seamless metals; and we use it for fear that the metal will crumble into dust and that the best will flow out, for you have seen that it is worthless in clarity.
Ordinary lamps have their vessel of glass which is placed in a bowl of clay made of ashes and sand; thus this lamp gives back of itself a sweat sometimes, in which sweat some think that the metal receives its body or that a metal receives the body of another metal. I leave this transmutation aside and cannot praise it. But as far as heat is concerned, it is not to blame and all metals should be treated like this.
In these two fires of the metals and also of the lamps, there is much virtue. And if we wanted to use them in medicine and [as] drugs, they would be much better, in my opinion, than in the grill or flambe. Because they would be worth nothing there like with this slow fire. One must also hold a certain rule of equally continual ardour, if otherwise the art is to produce profit. For I have seen that some artists and workmen have had these lamps in their furnaces or stoves, where all has been entirely lost. For sometimes their fire was too hot and sometimes too cold; this is not called a very equally burning ardor, and also engenders at the end an imperfect work which, moreover, has become nothing by the lamps, because they have not been well governed or led.
This fire is absolutely marvelous and not much can be written for those who have no understanding of it yet, either through ignorance or through despair of being able to reach it. And that we are so little aware of it, that's what surprises me. For this fire is just such a work that in many places is called "coagulating", because it cannot consume the other fire. Because to melt it can well, but to consume, it is what it is impossible. For it has its operation in the air and exerts its power and strength on metal, and is the only outward proof of its flow. Mercurial metal is flowing with a cold stream, as the other flows are all hot fires. If you don't want to believe it, put your hand on it. The hardness of a hot stream is called coagulation, because one is contrary to the other. If one hardens, the other softens. You need to know this difference and know it properly, even anyone who wants to mix metal cast iron and flux. Now it is a truly beautiful secret to know how to hold and govern such a fire or carry it like stones to the balance. It is not, in general, quite so straightforwardly artificial.
What is cold by excess is the death of the temperate body. But where do animals live in a completely cold and hot fire? And if one wants to speak and approach life so strongly, it is just as impossible as wanting to speak too much of God.
And, therefore, do not look so hard at the definition of this fire and try to understand it as much as human reason can. Thus is there [t]he writing of philosophy which demonstrates and makes known this fire, which, although it is the coldest, nevertheless does not stop living and continuing its course. Now it is likewise true that when it has reached its highest and most perfect or purest crescent or degree, it descends down again—I mean the above-mentioned mercurial metal—and becomes silver, and the silver becomes copper. . And conclude thus and by you that if the fire and the ardor from below do not do this, it is consequently necessary that the cold fire do it. This is certainly true, for the metal resolves itself by means of this cold fire once more into its mercury which is the flux of cold if it seizes upon it. For then it must flow into all bodies. And if it flows there, it strips not only the lower body, but also the upper or higher one. Think about this carefully.
I have already spoken and written of this fire, knowing that it may be arranged and made in various ways and manners, and as one must now engrave and build in coal, sometimes in wood or pitch or oil, and finally in everything that allows itself to be burned here above. Now I think and understand this operatively and in effect, how much that here I would like to speak of the only heat which is profitable to metals for their flow; for they purify themselves in it fire as you have heard above. That is why I do not consider it necessary to mention it again and say nothing new. And here is all that I wanted to insert in this first part of this book and to deduce concerning the underground work or previous work that nature observes and executes, by which it makes us and shapes the metals and minerals that it gives us. offers in sight and by hand.
He who conceives and understands this work properly, and applies himself to it from the heart, will work with great advantage and profit. And he will likewise know afterwards the means to better arrive in the alchemy which always immediately follows this work, which I wish to be conceded and granted to whoever will take care of it.
Praise, exaltation, honor and glory and magnificence be to the Sovereign Master and Regent of the mines by whose word and will everything was done and ordained and everything was formed. So be it.
From the Books of Secrets, or Testament, of Brother Basil Valentin of the Order of Saint Benedict where are repeated briefly and in few words some of the main knowledge and sciences of the first book, however not only according to the procedure of the nature under the earth, thus also as consequently metals are generated there and come to light, like gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, quicksilver and other minerals; likewise also as jewels, as well as species of metal, are colored, tinted and accompanied with the salutary word of God.
Firstly, it is very necessary for every worker in the mines to know and probe in the mountains the traces or veins of the metal according to their turns and gaits, and that he imprints well in his memory the arrangement of everything so that in all the places where he arrives he is certainly well informed of all that there is and this, by the quadrant, even by the magnet, so that he knows which side is east, which is west , the south and the north. It is also necessary that he be experienced, after having probed, to know properly one and the other stone in its turns and gaits, and similarly where their exits lead; let him have and remember for a good instruction to examine and remember both the length and the shortness of the mountains, how they extend the most in height in the same form and attitude. Now the forms of the mountains are of many kinds. Firstly, they have, on the one hand, a lot of grayish slate stuffing or Schiefer, like mountains of silver and lead. On the other hand, they contain masses of pale stones in which there is little of that stuff of slate and tallow: such mountains can be recognized by their firmness. On the other hand, they have masses of stones in which appear flowers of Zwitter and copper, and also plain and flat beds with slate, in which metal and the mine of copper are similarly engendered. This is why one can very well gather from nature that, considering its many forms, it has also many cities or places of fruits and productions. There are mountains in the south which are more abundant in their productions than other similar ones which are towards the west [and] which are called the rest or end of the mountains, between which there is always a center of orderly perfection.
In order that Almighty God, of eternal honor and glory, might cause men to recognize the innumerable marvels which He, the unique Mediator and Creator, has fruitfully represented to us in all things natural, He has also thereby demonstrated and given to recognize his strong omnipotence in metals and minerals, so that we all learn from him what the twelve sibyls have predicted of the clear, true and unique Sun of justice and truth. Therein rest the twelve gates of heaven and after the twelve months changeably and unchangeably, visibly and invisibly; before the throne of God stand the seven archangels and after them the seven planets, the sun and the moon, etc.; and the stars with the seven mountains of metals and their properties, namely gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, and quicksilver; afterwards, vitriol, antimony, sulphur, bismuth, cobalt, alum, salt; together all other mine plants or mineral growths. So that in these things the right center or middle might be understood by our senses, God perfected and accomplished the first separation, as it is written: And the Spirit of the Lord moved on the waters. And the whole elementary body was water; but the Spirit of the Eternal Lord of hosts Sabaoth separated it from the cloudiness and the depth of the water, and formed from it the earth and together all the fruits of the metals. And all those who were ever created and born in the earth were water and can also be restored and changed again into water or into the form of water. So it is with all things in all places where the elements cooperate both in the earth and outside the earth, with all their fruits, both vegetable and living, with trees, herbs and plants, with all kinds of animals, brute beasts, birds, fish and sea monsters, etc. Indeed all things come from the first water according to the Spirit of the Lord and from the first perfect Being proceeding from eternity, by which all things were made, colored or not, hard, small, large, soft ways and natures, as according to the twelve stones of Aaron's breastplate. The man Adam was created in the likeness of God and the Holy Spirit by eternal Wisdom and this, by and in him alone, following the order of Melchizedek infused into all men. And Almighty God, who is the first and the last, the author and custodian of all things, has laid down his gifts in due time, days and years, when and how they must come and be done according to his decree decreed in his eternal counsel. He, I say, likewise blessed his most holy Middle from then on, as he had blessed Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as Moses, Aaron, and Melchizedek, and many other personages. And as he had thought of these from all eternity in order, according to his good pleasure, to change a term in them, so this faithful almighty God, by his counsel and unscrutable will, has also, for our good and maintenance in this valley of miseries, laid down and created at the same time good mines in the earth, which he corrects, enriches and multiplies without end, so that we have great reason to praise him for it, by rendering and testifying to him our thanksgiving.
Now the clemency and good-natured foreknowledge of God cannot give to the race of men anything better and more profitable on earth, after the knowledge of himself and of his word, than knowledge and understanding of things, as also the Jews piqued themselves and pretended not to miss any. But as the different kinds of mines are not well known to most of those who work there, so the Jews knew neither the Messiah nor the Holy Scripture.
This is why the best stones and mines of the earth, with all their temporal and perpetual riches, have come from the land of promise of the Jews to us who are the last who have inherited them. And so we have become the first and they the last, as long as the sky is opened to them again to recover then the interior enjoyment of grace and the exterior of the creatures of the earth, such as are the mines and the metals.
When one finds a few fertile stones in these mountains, one will also recognize that in such places there is reason to profit greatly from them. And just as we find gums and resins in the trees of the earth, some of which are always more beautiful and more transparent, harder and softer than others and [that] we recognize their virtue easily by the By smell and taste, likewise, you mountain workers must constantly aim and seek in simplicity the means of approaching as near as possible to the mine in which God and nature have placed such straight paths.
Gold is worked, averaged and operated in its own mass of stone mounted, increased and pushed by the most beautiful mother or nature of the purest and most stable or solid earth, of the most perfect and finished salt, and likewise sulfur and mercury purified and cleansed of all their impure faeces and spirits. This perfect metal is thus naturally accomplished, for it joins and couples itself with the very pure natural sky or very pure substance sublimated and exalted with a yellow white earth and a red sulphur, according to the naturalness and influence of the sun. And gold is so very constant that there is no body among all the metals which is so heavy, so high or raised, so dry and so fiery as this one, having aureous matter in which there is no has no moisture that can be consumed and destroyed by fire, not even by any aquatic moisture, because in gold all the elements are very equally bound and conjoined, which, because of their so close connection and union, worked and ennobled such a body with a constant and enduring fixity and dyed it furthermore, to the very depths of all its parts all at once, with a permanent citrine color by the sovereign bond of its clear and pure land, as also of its most perfect sulfur and mercury. And know that one does with his essence of vitriol, with regard to the imperfect, all that the sun does or operates between all the stars. For by its nature it is all aureous in all its parts and dependencies, and it even occurs and is easily found in the roads and passages of the best and softest stones.
And there is nothing in this world that compares to this noble golden stone, except the virtue of the sun. Moreover, this gold stone sometimes comes darkened and soiled in some places, because of the natural mixture of the mine which remains attached to the outside. So that often the stone where the gold is is found filled with matter of slate of bad sperm, and this matter is of its nature very harmful to the gold. And although he is endowed with the virtues of God, his creator, in a very high degree, yet he finds himself much lowered in his dignity in poor and weak stones which are almost of no value, where he loses much of the degree. of the color it should have, as can be seen in the touchstone, which is sometimes mixed with silver, copper, pewter and other stones, which however can be subtly and skillfully driven out and separated , so that, by a very simple means, this stone is restored to a being and state so perfected that gold is extracted from it as nature commonly engenders it in the mine, pure and clean, and as she brings it all dry and solid to the day, making it evident and palpable on some places or passages crossed in a cross, in the depth of the mines.
And as gold has a great advantage in its constancy over all other metals, so [has] it much greater power and virtue in those vast depths of the earth, into which it finds means of slipping and seep into coarse gravel, and even into jasper which is a fine stone, sparkling or eyeleted with several marks or traces. Also, ordinarily and not without cause, there are gravels containing vitriol in abundance, which vitriol is also the best of all the others. And for this reason the vitriol of Hungary is preferable to all others, as one could sufficiently recognize and learn by very certain trials. Sometimes also there are in the mountains flows or metallic flows of different colors among the stones in some passages and paths where they stay. They are furrows or veins of gold which are found increased under the stones, as does the moss against the stone. And these golden furrows hold there so strongly that it is often necessary to detach them by the force of the fire, which it is very necessary to dispose of by the means which I have taught and written in the first part of this book. And these stones are usually Zuritter and Zimsteine (or Zim stone) which, having been pitched, are reduced to Schlich, melted and softened. Gold is also formed and engendered as veins which are all straight on others which are flat and united, yellowish and askew in the mountain and in its sand. And these veins grow there and grow like iron. And [they] are of yellow color and cross in the sand and in the stones of the mountain, in such a way that the gold is or [meets] all formed, attached and as if stuck in these stones where it grew . Nevertheless, it always happens in places and places where one works in pebbles and gravel, sometimes also in hearth-colored jasper, or in similar firestones. Sometimes it is found in some large white stones or pebbles, or golden white in color, or silvery white, or similar to white copper mine, the gold also being found attached therein sometimes. in the manner of flames; where he is found even hairy and chained in mustaches or twisted hair.
Gold is also found fully formed in limestone and in spar, which is a kind of soft, late, serotinous stone, and which, according to Lanciolus, is speckled or marked with gray by blackish carnations, as it is also found in the beautiful and firm gemstones from which it is cast, having attached thereto and as graininess. It is also found to be completely wrought, completed and accomplished in routes or passages of iron which, by their gentle flows adorned with beautiful yellow and blackish colors and endowed with an ardor or aerial heat, push the gold outward into bringing it to light. It is also found in the places where the slates are born and this, in beautiful pure roads and even mixed with a horn stone and blue slate material; likewise, in the paths of pebbles and gravel or clean and dazzling arena, where it becomes hairy and where it ends and perfects. Also it is found in places or places that are shaved, flat and smooth, in which, as well as in other places, gold is found there withdrawn and well worked [and] which is attached to it. fluttering, mixed and marked with stains of iron, green and gray. Sometimes it is also found in a square iron mine and in other square and drilled mines further afield. It is also found all made and formed in brown and blackish paths, and even some paths are found where there is gold and brass, and also metal or gold mine greatly mineral and vitriolic, of which Hungary in such a case will know enough to speak.
The mine of silver works and forms also in its own stone, being likewise of a perfected nature and proceeding from a noble earth, from a constant and clear sulphur, and from a salt and a mercury, which have joined and bound together with such an effective mixture that the silver which springs from them is but a little less than gold. Hence it is that among all the others it is the most constant and fixed metal, and the best after gold. So that it suffers very little waste in the melting by the fire, whence it emerges triumphant, either by itself or when refined by some other. And although silver derives its birth from stones naturally produced in the mountains, it nevertheless follows the celestial influence, but especially that of the moon which is none other than the light of the night. For this also there are in most northern countries traces and conduits or passages of fine silver. And just as the moon on the right obtains the sun and receives its light from it, so the veins, traces and stones of silver have on the right the veins of gold, so that one compares to the queen Lunaria a root whose vein of gold is increasingly fortified and covers or obtains in its mixture great faculties and prerogatives which come to it from the bounty of the mountains and their roots. Also the Ancients who discussed and philosophized about it attribute admirable virtues and praises to it, as well as to a fertile lover and wife of gold. Which can justly apply and be expected from the work or operation of the inferior metal towards its superior, especially since after gold there is nothing more constant than pure and perfect silver. This is also why the veins of silver are surrounded in the mountains with flowing veins, clearer and whiter, as well as more excellent and precious mineral dispositions and complexions than not the furrows and passages where sulfur grows and is born. of yellow mine and the red and yellow liquors, flavors and substances of noble gold.
The metallic cuprous mine of silver is most often worked, operated and fashioned in a being or matrix of red gold. Which means that this one disgorges better than the other; thus one can well draw from it and have a certain testimony, if one proceeds as it should be with order. Likewise, the white lead of gold is colored naturally only with the white splendor or glow which comes from the copper which is found in the mountains and passages or places therein because of the nourishment which it sucks from the solids. mineral substances or causes. For in the gleaming brass the black vapors of the mountains, magnesia, lead and tin are introduced there only by devouring it, gnawing and consuming, where the minerals which pass and frequent by the roads and furrows of the money are recreated at will. Thus from there comes the metal of silver, which is the most constant and dry of its purest, cleanest and only unmixed stone, where it begets with the ennoblement of evil places or places and its means and instruments. Which silver metal has many considerable virtues in its finest attire and adornment which come closest to those of gold. And afterwards, by means of the influence of heaven and the change of the various natures and species of the stones of silver, this same metal of silver then degenerates from its sovereign union, goodness and perfection which diminishes and [is] destroy. After which these stones of silver bring and produce not only mixed materials, chambers and cases of soiled mines, but also many brasses and hard, wild and falsified metallic mines by a disproportionate mixture, and works of stone or pebbles, as also metallic flowers of yellow and black copper. Thus one finds one for the other, as nature forms and colors it. So that of these substances, one is naturally harder than the other, wilder and rougher and pulling more on the slate matter. And some are wider or narrower in shape, whiter or more bluish in their beginning and middle. And even then these silver substances and fruits are found to be very different, for some are of a blue form and others of another dissimilar form according to their places and matrices, one more arid and dry, or more beautiful. , more dazzling and resplendent than the other. There is also in certain places, degrees and echelons, dry gold and silver and copper, as it happens in Cronach.
The same thing can be seen in a similar way in certain steps, steps, alleys, passages, roads and furrows which meet in the noble mines of metals or metallic limes, as even in those of lead, iron and copper artistically mixed after their union and conjunction. And also one often finds separately on one mountain the mine of copper and on another of the stone of iron. Why, then, is it not necessary that there should be notable differences between certain mountains or stones? And this, according to which nature and the idea of God have so gloriously given to know and have represented so well to the workers who are in the mines? As, indeed, there are also some paths, roads, or furrows of silver in their own hanging or lying natural stones, and also some other furrows or passages of silver in the manner of greyish-blue flowers in running streams, or starchy and stagnant waters, where they must sometimes be dug and searched from the depth of a pike, in stony places and thick pebbles, with great work - and thus one meets them and discovers - also some of these furrows of silver appear in some places from the mountains, adorned and embellished with beautiful and pleasant colors all silver and a beautiful yellow mixed with green, as we see the variant colors of young goslings. And these silver mines are so much more variegated with various colors the more they have been advanced and matured.
There are also furrows of silver in some mountainous places which are tied together like the rainbow. And one of these colors always operates and advances by nature more tightly and more liberally than the other. And in this nature works cautiously and with beautiful order, as indeed we can see and recognize if we consider exactly those silver furrows which issue from their roads and places with all their beautiful colors, some of which also issue from their subterranean streams, their secret bridges and their hidden or secret chambers, according to the particular nature that each particular silver furrow has acquired in each mountain.
The copper metal is wrought and begotten in its own mine, where it is made and composed of a pure and good salt and a little fiery and burning sulphur. And it receives the celestial impression and influence in all its parts, from which it becomes colored with a beautiful red in all its parts through and through. However, it does not remain free, nor entirely untied from all humidity and moistness, which it possesses equal to that of iron. For these two metals, copper and iron, are very close friends and allies to each other, which is why the latter is easily transmuted into the other.
There is a great deal of this lead or brazen metal in the workplaces, filled with bridges and streams which are naturally formed of slate material, which is of greenish clay. And often this copper metal is seen in a red-brown form and representation. It also appears like lime in workplaces where it mixes with the material of slate, black and yellow. In the same way, we meet with it, in passages and paths of greenish and mucous earth, of two kinds, one of which is a copper which is found, by steps or steps and by streams or bridges, diversified in different kinds of red colors. and brown variegated with green; and the other kind is a copper which is met with in the coals of the earth, of an azure color and of a bronze gleam like mucus, and which even seems to derive its origin from iron, being surrounded by whitish matter as being its food.
The mine or metal of copper which is found in the seams and passages of the mountains is often rich in gold and silver, according to the goodness of the place, and where it is surrounded by a stone called escot or escotain, well assorted and conditioned, pregnant and surrounded or embedded with certain other stones worthy of producing good veins or passages, in case however that near there are no other metals or minerals, which would eat and consume what there would be better.
Also the copper mine is often engaged in the matter of slate and in the stone of the mountains representing foliage, which by simple melting is drawn out only with difficulty. Also, there are copper mines which hold a lot of iron, so much so that there is coppery material in these mines which is not yet mature, which makes the copper firmer and less workable or fusible in the melting of a great fire. But it is in the East, in Hungary, in Bohemia, and in Silesia, that one finds the richest and most lucrative copper mines, as similarly in Thuringia, in Hesse, and in the Land of the Provostship. Similar copper mines are still to be found around Frautte-naw, where there are some that pierce all the mountains like waves. Other mines of the metal of brass lie in the sands mixed with slate matter which these mines break and penetrate violently. And although they contain silver, however they have very little as they are poor in this noble metal which can only be separated from these mines by burning, roasting and melting. In a few places and places is copper mine, which is quite frangible and is pure, clean and of a bluish and brown or reddish eye, of a copper luster with a mountain green, sometimes of the color of a white gold; and this is called a coppery white metal. But it is thus only white by its effective mixture which has drawn to itself a quantity of silver and lead. Such a lead breaks easily and is also sometimes yellowish and azure in color or stony green; and one finds some on waves, bridges or passages, where it is sometimes suspended. It is also found in stones, in aerated limestone rocks and in large passages, traverses or crossroads, which is a mine of copper which is also frangible, having a bluish eye, a coppery luster and mucus. There is also copper mine in passages of rough and retorted stones. These mines are red and brown, also mixed with white spar. They return abundantly and well silver, mainly those which are in the stones which one calls green "schieferic", which are all clear and beautiful and which are, in the other passages and open sluices, of green color like the tree frogs or frogs and in the manner of foliage. And some of these copper mines are inlaid with several and different spots, one upon the other in an extraordinary manner, the separate colors of which are rare and pleasant to see. This manner of mine thus graduated suffers half a waste in its trial. There are in these sorts of stones a number of other rather rare remarks, such as small white veins and speckled yellow clay which is mixed among them.
All copper furrows which yield much silver have very few blooms and are more solid and of more constant size or shape and more weight; [they] penetrate and pierce powerfully and ceaselessly the mountains and are mucous and of the color of a red glass; and a few of these furrows have a greenish eye with yellow flowers like goldleaves that draw the squint; and some are greatly covered with green with a white aureous spar, all according to the passage or conduit of the different stones. There is also rich silver from the stony copper mine of an unaured white color, but only a feigned white and apparent as shiny and lucid. And this kind of mine is in dry, hollow mountains that contain a lot of slate material. Of which mines of copper, some are mixed with some species of iron and bismuth, or mixed with certain stones suitable for kindling. In one of the slopes of one of these mountains, or the counterpart of it, is a mine which can be seen in a few passages; which produces brass or copper metal of the color of mountain green; and on the other hanging or leaning from this mountain, there are stones of pebbles or pure pebbles, all according to the nature of the mountains. And it is well to remark that ordinarily the metals, brass or mines of copper, have a sulfur mingled in them and readily take from the nature of the sub-metals, or inferior metals, which are also combined in stones and rocks.
There are green mines of copper that are in dry and arid passages or recesses, as also in a material like slate. And such copper mines are leaden, mixed with black color, little or not at all abundant in silver nor in good food. And some of these mines belong to an imperfect iron and a perfect copper metal, if however they are very far from dry and mineral slate materials: then they are richer and more abundant in gold and silver. and this, according as the metallic stones receive or take in the mountain a place which is good and well disposed, because they pass and go willingly against the stones and rocks of gold and lead, or against the mountains of mines or metal of glass-lancer, as well as close to the stones of iron and silver.
There are also nooks or passages abundant in powerful pebbles which have a mineral juice of vitriol and sulfur and even alum. And it is in these places where one usually finds the best mines of copper which are the least falsified of other metals, as also are those which are found in the stones of lime and tuff, into which penetrate black waves containing good bronze. They are also found in Schiefer's stone, or slate matter, which are green in color; and these mines are rather rich in copper, as can be seen around EyssIeben and Mansfeld. The miners name them [according to] their differences and this, very kindly and with propriety, according to their nature. But those who live in Misnie do not know how to distinguish them from each other. As for example when they speak of the upper part of the clay, they name it rot, in which also is the right and true earth of the mine. Then, when they come to speak of stone, they call it daywork; because it is what covers all the other lands which in the end become stones altogether. Thirdly, when they find an easy place, they name it nightwork, because they get up and work it easily one after another and [it] is pure and clean. Afterwards, when they come to a difficult place or place, they call it holework, because it has to be pierced and [it] is the hard stone that has to be broken. Then they come to the slate material called Schiefer and finally to the sandblasted lead or metal which is in the sand under the Schiefer or slate material, how much that sometimes this kind of lead which is in the sand is sometimes found at the opening of the mountain above the Schiefer or slate material.
Moreover, silver is often attached to the Schiefer or slate material with the richest mine of copper. There are also some of those mines which pierce through stony and rugged or horny mountains which, indeed, have gold and silver furrows of peculiar propriety and beauty. Among which mines, we find them of different shapes, each of which is easy to recognize.
In Hungary and the province of Carme, there are usually furrows which give metals and mines of bronze or copper very supple, bendable and malleable; which we willingly pay more than we do [for] those who come to all the rest of Europe. Also, in the same country, minerals are found there better, and especially vitriol has a great advantage over all the others, as also over antimony; for in this vitriol nature has taken pleasure in enclosing her virtues there so abundantly that they are spread there as much in its beginning and depth as in its center and middle, which is quite notorious to naturalists and what experience testified very frequently. I say something certain when I speak thus, for if one had judgment and intelligence in this subject or matter, one would save a great deal of expense, labor and time. For the goodness of this matter comes only from the fact that it happens to have been pierced and penetrated in its near beginning to the gold mines which are in the mountains where the lands are fattened and pregnant with aureous seed; and these lands feed on it as their meat and food in many subtle unions or conjunctions. For the preservation and upkeep of minerals, as well as their birth, are derived from perfect metals; and so much the more the metals are better and have more value and eminence, their operation is the more virtuous and effective towards the two imperfect metals, Mars and Venus. And in case we want to follow the traces of nature properly, as many have done, we will find a quite notable difference between the minerals which come from the mountains of gold and silver and between those which come from the mountains of copper. Because, whether mineral or metal, each kind has its nature and its particular being.
Among the minerals, some are greenish and whiten by day, and grow or penetrate close to the metals. Now their stones are for the most part almost similar to lead stones, some coarser and more massive, others more liberal, soft and temperate, and one harder than the other, similarly more cloudy or more verdant and dim. another quality.
The stone of iron or mine of iron is operated from its scree in the mine by the collation and aid of the celestial impression or influence of the planet of Mars. For Mars thrice great is a mighty warlord, as also he is a means by which many others are coerced.
Iron contains sulfur which is earthly and impure, rotten salt and gross mercury; which three principal substances falsify its composition and introduce into it a quantity of earthiness. Iron, therefore, is difficult to soften in the fire, and carries much impurity and grime on account of its bad sulphur, as also it has on all metals a quicksilver or spirit of a very high red. , which if removed, is made of iron, which then is abandoned and neglected as a rotten terrace.
Iron also cannot be easily mixed with other metals or joined in washing or in cast iron.
The iron stone has three kinds of ways to push out or drive out the different parts of its landmine.
First, then, the mine of iron produces the magnet stone, which is a living metallic brass or copper, which has in it the nature or property of a living mercury. Which appears in that the magnet has a particular inclination and familiarity with iron, and even it is restored, renewed, and refreshed with the splinters of ferruginous ivy wood in which it lies hedgehog-like. Moreover, the magnet stone is endowed by nature with the influences of the sun, by means of which it partakes of glorious magnetine prerogatives and virtues, so that the magnet attracts iron to one side and repels or rejects it from the other ; which virtues can be strengthened and increased in him. Finally, the magnet is a true pattern and model of fair judgment; for it is by its virtue that a magnetic needle shows the sun the true hour of the day such as it should be, whether on water or on land.
Secondly, from iron ore or iron metal is made steel which is much harder, purer and more flexible than iron — steel being excellent when made of clean iron and endowed with 'a fine and clear substance which renders it supple and tight and well bound in all its parts, which steel is ordinarily put on the front or at the point of all good works of iron.
Thirdly follows the lead or common metal of iron which is filled and compounded with its earthly sulphur.
Which three substances the first naturalist Thubalcain, very expert masters of mines, has very well known with great advantages; who worked in these three things, following which he also measured all along the mountains in three different parts, where he found these three kinds of metal mines.
Stone or rock of iron happens to be in four ways. First, therefore, the stone or iron mine which is colored begets on passages and bridges, catches and own stones, in furrows or Burps, and imitates the colors of the four elements or the rainbow. This mine of iron has blossoms under every stone according to its kind, and can be burned and melted and used by means of certain proper and proper implements. And so the iron is made in a constant state to be sold well. Because being in his mountain, he is full of savagery and superfluity which prevent him from being able to be implemented. And there is that mine of iron which has several figures, one pointed and sharp, another lumpy and coarse like the test of a brain, and some others are in the form of shells or like little thorns. white resembling the wood on which Abraham wanted to offer his son Isaac.
Secondly, there is an iron mine which is of brown stone, which is made of iron-colored glass.
Thirdly, there is a grained iron mine in the work of bridges or waves which is so hard that it is all that one can do to break it with great pain and great force to do anything with it. When the stone or mine of iron reaches its perfection, it is broken into pieces through its rock or mountain. And there are mountains all filled with paths of iron stones as in the province of Steyrmarck, where such an iron mine can still be seen. But the best ironstone is black or red-brown, alike sometimes also yellowish, and some are cherry-brown on bridges or streams; others are partly black, and others are yellow, having the luster of bronze, or are of a black-brown, or else in the form and color of driftwood, which are shed all over. along the mountains. Fourthly, there are iron mines which are found in fields of clay or mire or in the sands, which blasted mines are least useful for gold and even by the iron which therein is too impure and miry. There are other iron mines which occur in gray clay where they are hidden in the manner of Schutt; and these give the most flexible and malleable iron, but a little brown in color, just as the little Schlich is. There also appears in the Limestone and Tuffstein Mountains good stone or iron mine, and that which is most readily found there is in straight paths among gray sand. But in other lesser places, there are stones of very coarse iron in small heaps in Schiefer or slate matter, and even in some passages of these mountains, towards the part above, there is finds there silverstone and also quicksilver; and, in some other nearby mountains, there is found silver fully formed and pure under concave spots like dark cellars.
There is no mine or metal so common everywhere as the stone of iron. It is found in some mountain which penetrates all through the rock; and this stone or mine of iron is there of different nature and dissimilar color. It is also found in mountains of certain stones or earths such as Glasstuff, hematite or sanguine stone, brown stone, O.semund, bowl, red stone and Eisenschal, all of which derive from the nature of the iron, as likewise the stone of iron receives or contains in itself the nature of the sovereign metals, gold and silver, and of the other metals, copper, tin, lead. The latter cause the iron to be rough and discontinuous; but gold and silver benefit him greatly and render him very flexible. There are rocks or mines of iron which yield a quantity of copper and others which are mixed with species of simple or lesser metal. Also these sorts of mines go away and fall easily into stone or dust, as also do those which are filled with stony matter or with mucous earth or full of eyes. Of this nature also are the mines of iron which are interlaced with Schiefer or black slate matter, for these mines give a coarser, opaque, and rougher iron than the others. Tubalcain, first master of the mines, said and observed that the stone or stone mass of iron is good to benefit from it in transmutation or reduction for important and considerable reasons. He also noticed that iron mines which are in the limestone, one can draw the iron from it and make bars to strengthen the walls which one builds with the limestone or other materials of tuff.
Limestones which hold together with iron render utility and profit when passed through a smelting fire. And all sorts of metallic stones of iron are sociable and friendly with all other mineral or metallic stones, of which there are many at Mussbach—among others, mines or metal of lead, one moderately good and the other which holds iron and gives good copper to cast iron, which one must know how to make and conduct well. The lords and superiors of various places are very careful that their subjects are very well instructed in it for the common good and that they are experts in recognizing and working well in the right places of the mountains to draw from them and bring to light the very iron mines. useful.
Also iron is the first and last of all mines, for it is an important metal and like the principal of all, from which very few creatures can dispense as very necessary; with which one can force, compel and acquire all things inside and outside the earth. And there is no one who can fathom and describe properly the use and service which iron usefully causes on all sides, for there are still many occasions every day on which iron is needed more and more. . Iron also acquires by the industry of the workman a suppleness and malleability of great service and use, of which some of the Ancients spoke very well.
Finally, iron has this property of being attracted by the magnet stone and [it] does a number of profitable operations with copper because of the friendship they have between them, being both very close allies. ; likewise with gold and lead, for by this means the most magnificent alkalis take their being and are made. Other creatures are aided by iron with great benefit, in many consequent encounters, as the poets have written of him, imputing and attributing to iron many parables and wondrous likenesses of different kinds, so that if one would to make a speech which understood and encircled all the virtues of iron, its nature and all its effects, it would be necessary to fill whole volumes of it with prolixity. But now the stones or mines of iron have greatly diminished and diminished in some countries where they have been excavated and used for the most part, as also, in fact, many stones of metals are daily decreasing, except gold, silver, copper and lead which keep and retain in their mines a quantity of their substance around the earth.
The mine or metal of lead is equally engendered by the celestial impression and influence of cold and black Saturn. It is composed of an uncooked aqueous sulfur and an impure mercury and [a] salt.
First, the lead is operated in general in the mine of a leaden color, beautiful, subtle and of a good day or luster. It penetrates and pierces many stones rich in gold and silver. A number of lead stones are found in very large and closed masses and very wide and thick, insofar as the brilliant metals are mixed there with force pebbles and marcasites, in parts vitrified and colored with a silvery white red, vitrified, coppery and in manner or manner of copper. Some leads are like open-drilled, or having several holes, and blue in color and also white. A few other lead mines resemble stone salt and alum; others are dark green in color, similar to green Flossen that lie in grayish or yellow muddy mire; others of these graphites are brownish black or yellowish red like a Menning color; others are pure, dry and arid; others are inlaid with light and airy markings. Many lead mines are in lumpy and thin stones, which are mixed with foreign impurities and superfluities. There are mines or lead stones which pierce and penetrate the mountains in straight and smooth furrows, sometimes hanging and flat. And some of these mines are formed by heaps in mountains where grows the slate which is the Schiefer, where even there is some white lead scattered among the stone. Other lead mines also come with a fine luster in the lime stone and are often abundant in silver on strong places of spar. There are two kinds of spar, for the silver furrows have earth spar coarsely mixed with white or aure red and [which] is heavy and ponderous; but the furrows of lead have a subtle, simple, light and mire spar, which lead has an appearance like the splendor seen on mines or mountains of gold. And the spar where this lead is is also in a beautiful way, of a splendid or resplendent white.
Graphite is operated and engendered variously and changes in its color according to the form of the mineral mountains, especially in different species, according to the nature of the mountains which causes the lead more or less splendour. For when the lead is beneath other mines to which it is subject by dependence, then the splendor has no power to imprint itself on the lead except in an imperfect manner. That which comes from the mine or the mountain, which is too hard or else disproportionate by the bad stony mercury which is tightly and firmly enclosed in a dry, arid and aborted place. But the splendor of the graphite comes from the softening or softening which is communicated to it by a water of which there is some in the aureous juices and in the mountains of tin, which produces the generation of the brilliance of the splendor or mark of the iron, however hard that thing befalls that metal because of its earthly nature or its earthly qualities, the splendor of which the middle holds, being neither too soft nor too tight, and which is radiant or white aureous in color. But it happens that it is from the best mountains of metal or mines of gold that come the true and upright splendours of lead little mixed with other metals. And if there be any of the other splendorous metals, they may have and retain the preference and the upper hand over the mere furrows of lead, though often the lead is united and joined with the gold, so much that the lead stones are mixed up. Because the stones of the mountains of lead are much more astonishing and marvelous with all particular cases and events than many others.
Thus are endowed by the Sovereign all metals like here particularly lead by its splendor and its brilliance, according to the imagination or celestial impression, so much so that the other metals must be subject and subject to lead, which tests the superiors with their essential fruits. Because lead does not willingly mingle naturally with another metal, nor does its stony qualities mingle with the trunk, [the] roots and leaves of the other stones of the earth. So that thus the lead is the sovereign, according to its degree and power, with a singular mipartement in all its works, in which it shows itself clarified with a noble and transparent soul. Moreover, he runs and flows with his gentleness into the deepest antimony, going there to purify the gold he loves only over all things and this, however, not without a just cause. And though lead is of great weight, yet it furnishes the easiest and easiest remedies for all things, and among others for melancholy blood.
Just as the celestial bodies are unequal or dissimilar in their influences and the clouds below them are of all kinds of colors, so also is it with mines or lead metal. Because one is more flexible and better than the other, as evidenced by England and also Villach, which has these particular lead mines. And some of these mines are mixed with other stones, especially with silver, copper and iron. Other lead mines give and return a quantity of light stones and a lead too hard for ordinary works.
But there are lead mines which abound in gold, as in Hungary, where the most worthy and excellent metals are found. And these mines give less trouble and labor to pull them out than any other troublesome and badly conditioned mines, being full of metallic pebbles and raw and unripe juices which join with the sands and bonds of the lead mine.
The splendor of lead, or the lead that has splendor, gives the earthenware potter the wherewithal to make a beautiful green lead without mixture, so that it does not melt all into lead. Now when one finds a pebble mixed and hard and of the color of half-leaded iron, one can make beautiful works of it. This is why the most flexible and manageable lead metal is made into very beautiful glasses. And it is also used to test and to melt and to make flow in the cast metals, brasses and mines which are raw, harsh and rough, [and] which otherwise would not melt or flow.
One can also by the means and artificial mixture of lead prepare and implement the flowers of metal and reduce them to a splendor and appearance equal to that which is natural to fine metal. As also one can by lead draw from metallic pebbles their magnificent virtue and property from their containing of perfect metal, which is useful and of great service to all men.
Now where the lead is met with in heaps and mixed in the slate stones, there it collects and arouses again the most constant and lasting coppers; as vitriol and Gallmei are also derived from such stones, as Goslar similarly made resin. But of all the pellets, it is that of England and Villach that we like best.
As man cannot do without any of his bodily limbs, so, according to God's prescribed order, the mountains can hardly subsist without metals. And if men made good use of the use of metals, everything would be faultless and we would enjoy all these necessities and needs. And if one ignorantly dissipates and loses such convenience or treasure, one will no longer benefit from it. For as by industry and good judgment one makes a suitable chain or instrument which draws gold and silver out of their crevices or furrows, so one can by art distill and draw from metals and minerals a particular spirit, invisible and then visible, rising through the spout of the still.
And it is this same spirit that nature reduces to water and then hardens and makes into ice in the earth on its furrows and streams or passages. What one may well believe and imagine to be a sure mark by which everyone must recognize that this metallic spirit is a wave or lead water, and a certain proof that the lead furrows are made and engendered by it, whether they have infusions of other metals or they have none; for so much the more agreeable and the better the lead.
But among all lead furrows, the best and most constant are those which are found in a water stone in certain places which are filled with Schiefer or scaly slate matter of blue colors or which are grayish and marked with matter formed in long squares or formed in tortuous and coarse circles, among which pass suspended leaden furrows, resembling ruined edifices, as little different from those of the silver mines. Some mountains of lead are also composed of Schiefer or slate material resembling tallow and filled with round, poorly united balls. And in these mountains, there are lead mines abundant in silver.
The mine or the metal of tin operates and engenders itself in a stone of sand with equality by the influence and impression of Jupiter.
Pewter has a black, dark, brown or purplish-colored, grayish, shiny black sulfur and mixed with a little salt and quicksilver, with which are usually intermingled the Brodem sulphides, coarse and discordant, which incorporate with each other and bind the tin in its mine. From which Brodem unsuitable each tin becomes crumpled and full of fractures, so that it is because of this that tin degenerates and renders frangible, frail and brittle all other metals which are melted with it. This wrinkled pewter is found in three kinds and of different colors, namely, one which comes in furrows, which is merchantable and sells well; the other is cloudy, and the third is coming in pieces. There are also three kinds of Wilidnuss tin: one full of lumps and bumps, another full of splits and crevices, and the third mucous or filled with pebbles and marked as scars and iron marks—which is the cause that the work that is made of it is hard and rough. And of this pewter, there is some which is black or of a Schiefer brown or of slate material or else yellow. The mountains of sand have in their enclosure many furrows, ruins, passages or rays of tin metal in flat and united, straight, powerful and wide spaces which are discovered or appear to the day by their tin sand. And of this tin one is fit to be ground into works of paint, and is rich and good. The other is full of pebbles and is mucous and [it] is necessary, to use it, to separate it by melting. The other has plenty of talc and is like tallow and silver in color, and there it feeds and stops or lodges willingly. The other pierces the mountain and looks blue or sparkling and mottled with iron marks. The other passes through hard stones with open holes that can only be detached from there by the fire that is made under these stones. The other comes in gifted and soft stones, from which it is easily taken, and has a very beautiful eye or brilliance. And of this tin there is more abundant one than the other, and these two kinds seem close in the same place, piled up like clusters in which are accumulated the operations, effects and natural virtues of the mine. , from which one can draw salary and profit very quickly. So as much as Jupiter is the powerful master and lord of tin, so he has a powerful seat, which is a great and powerful mountain from which tin is drawn in apparent heaps.
For tin has that nature and property in it which ordinarily it reveals itself and causes to be seen outside by the visible flowers which it produces and by the work or soapy matter which it pushes out by its germ or virtue, whence come the places to be washed by the tin soaps. For the metal of tin does not grow in the sands of the earth and, moreover, it is because tin is abundant in those mountains where his body is seated and posed as on the seat of his throne and as on his footstool, where he enjoys two kinds of government, lordship or regency.
First, then, the pewter confines itself and holds its abode in the Schiefer or slate stone and in the other heavy stones lying around it, whereupon its authority and virtue increase. So that it is not wrought nor shaped for a little, but often times in quantity and fertile power on bluish stones in veins and furrows, like those which are plowed on the earth, which accost and join together in their own center or Schiefer, where these tin furrows tighten and lessen as they sink. But other furrows appear dark like clouds or cloudy air, which then darts on all sides and pierces or bends the stones and then ruptures and breaks them to come into view. Which often happens to tin, for it has in it this benign virtue that it despises no place of retreat or lodging; and however poor or inconspicuous the stones of the suitable places, whether they be reddish-brown, fresh or rotten, wide or narrow, he adds himself to them and hastens and thrusts himself into them pell-mell and does not allow himself to be chased away by his fellows, thus he becomes coarse, small, large, gentle, private, subtle and manageable or malleable; and we choose it as we desire and want to have. And all this happens naturally as can be seen at Bruhriich where pewter of various kinds is readily available. Secondly, tin is confined or willingly engendered also in the mines or stones of silver and iron; so that tin and iron are alloyed in some particular mines, as also tin is found in a powerful and constant metal of silver and copper. And so it may be recognized and found among such mines by sure and proper marks. Now, in these mines of silver and copper, the tin which is generated there is the best and the most flexible, according however as it is far from the stony veins or pebbles and less mixed with marks of iron and especially copper stones. Because then it can be separated by fire only with great difficulty, and even the works which are made of it are rough and hard and cannot have a beautiful grain or a beautiful look inside.
Afterwards there is some sort of tin, which is so soft in the pebbles or stones that, by fire or ordinary tests, it only sheds something. That is, of some impure sulphur; because the sulphurous matters which are in the pebbles are prone to exhale, not being able to support the great fires; and when they have been exhaled, then the metallic tin remains and remains pure and clean.
These impure sulfurs are recognized by the white and coarse smoke which is attached to the iron grills of the furnace. Because one cannot make these pewter castings without the fittings being all roasted, grilled and spoiled, because of the great force of the bellows which are driven by the violent movement of the water. Which is very often the cause that the tin receives much more waste from it than it should, [which] the workers are often surprised at when they notice it. If, however, they have excellent mines or little sulphurous tin stones, they gain much in their smelting, which gives them and produces good tin metal in the day.
The quicksilver mine forms in its own mountain stones, and is of the nature of saline beings or substances, and of subtle, nimble, and volatile earth, and of oily, moist, watery, fattening oleaginousness or matter. and loamy, which comes to be mingled with the most subtle and sulphurous terracotta, red, with a weak and easy binding, as well as a pleasant and unripe fruit of all and one each of the metals. Quicksilver shows its virtue in many subjects very marvelously. And by his nature, virtue and effective or efficient operative force, he has communication and familiarity with minerals and with metallic sulphur, as well as with the metals which are confined or found in the stones of lanceglass or antimony.
He is also willingly found in the places or places of the mountains of tin which lie higher than the veins of silver. To get quicksilver, a number of efficient and laborious operations are required, as well as in other metals and mines of brass. For it finds itself embarrassed and multiplied in other strange stones where it is hastened and even mixed through the juices of minerals and metals which are mutually friendly. And this mixture causes and produces many strange monsters of nature or marvelous growths and births, which makes mercury agreeable to metals and causes goldsmiths to amalgamate it with gold to gild it. Quicksilver is also made, clean metallic colors in oil and distemper, and a sublimate for health and to remove the worst poison. And [he] is a real lecher and thief by his skill and vivacity and [he] understands in himself many virtues which are interior and natural to him and advantageously rewards the trouble and the expenses that have been employed after him. But if it can be surprised according to nature, either dead or alive, it obeys everyone. Moreover, quicksilver does and is of great use in medicine, especially for wounds and ailments which are external. He is mean to bad people and good to good people and is not everyone's friend, although he does what is wanted of him. The ills of his stone are of the same kind of naturalness, of a pure earth, of white Schiefer verging on blue, with white cubes or squares, fresh and mixed with bluettes or sparkles; or sometimes it is found in a greyish muddy matter, resplendent and full of holes, which lies below among the Schiefer or slate matter like little waves or harbours, and which near the veins of the metals is mixed with marcasites. which were generated there with a substance like white tallow, the most subtle and the most delicately nourishing that can be said. These marcasites grow, in two ways and manners, in straight veins and in others which pass askew against the waves. And in them is formed and engendered the mine of quicksilver most beautiful in color and glow, red, not unlike the red sulfur of the mountains; and this quicksilver sometimes runs, wrongly quite dry and arid, out of the other matters which proceed from veins or metallic furrows and meet near each other in marshy or watery mires, in its ordinary form of quicksilver as evidenced in this way by its living or dying natural seed.
The bismuth forms in its own stone in the mountain and is not fully untied or detached from the silverstone or the tinstone. For it is truly from unperfected quicksilver, clean and pure, from tin salt and most runny sulfur of silver, as also from brittle earth not subject to mingling, and partly of flowing raw sulphur, and partly also of sulfur fit to be mixed very dry, according as, according to its birth, it still covers a mother or womb. Afterwards he becomes a bastard and of a rough and disruptive nature.
Bismuth readily joins with quicksilver, and is or naturally forms of two kinds. One is flowing and metallic as soon as it is melted in the forge hall with dry wood, closed, enclosed or mixed with loam; and this bismuth gives and returns a quantity of arsenic. But the other kind of bismuth is loose and subtle nourishment, for it dwells in an unripe substance. It also gives arsenic, impure sulfur and a constant and firm matter. And [they] are all of a silver bismuth.
Antimony or Lancer-Glass is operated and made of perfect Mercury, a little Salt and a flowing Sulphur, greatly watery, though of its nature it appears black, and appears to be Lancer-Glass in its outer form. However, it has the property of enhancing gold and purifying it to its most noble nature. It also does a lot of good to man in a quantity of man-made works. This is why, without considering the color of antimony, it must be confessed that it deserves much praise because of the powerful virtues it contains in itself; for an excellent master or artist can so clarify and refine it that he will naturally derive very good gold from it. He can also extract red oil from it like blood to serve for many great diseases, and also he can reduce it into a beautiful transparent glass. And for this, antimony can be said to be a black metal formed from a raw and unripe smoke or vapour.
It is like the glorious majesty of God who has no regard for the appearance of people and gives great virtues and knowledge to people devoid of all appearance.
Mountain red sulfur is found in the provinces of Tyrol, Tonawits and Engadine. It breaks, pierces and penetrates a stone of blackish blue Schiefer, and it has innumerable virtues, properties and singular and permanent effects, and holds hidden within it a great purity and is by its color almost similar to the metal or mine of silver or cinnabar red with gold or aure, the redness of which is quite beautiful and agreeable and shines from without.
Salt has its particular virtue; he pierces and penetrates, and counterguards from [the] rot, for he has a noble spirit in him. And [it] would be very necessary that some were not most often so negligent in salting and not allowing the materials to stink and rot, when with so little care they take heed of the noble gifts of the dear work of the mines, which the the saltpetre of the old moldy walls approaches, spoils and invades.
Talc is raw sulfur that grew in the mountains. It shines inside and out. He is not subject to burning any more than gold and silver. It bends and curves and is very transparent like glass. It is called sulfur and clay. It remains in the fire without being able to be consumed there like plucked alum. It is generated in rocks or mountains and stony places of work. It is used for the graduation of metals.
There is a singular advantage, profit and artifice in using each metal, mineral and salt, which are separated, discerned and distinguished each by name separately, as the master who makes the glasses knows how to give the particular name to each and form them. differently, making table glasses, flasks, bottles, Kûrbis, Kolben, capital lids, Vorlagen, pelicans, cups, gondolas, bowls, wine glasses, funnels and many other kinds of vessels which he forms and shapes at his pleasure, either bent or arched, swollen, small, large or long, as he pleases.
Just as the celestial glory of God and the Sun of righteousness has enlightened us and has appeared to us spiritually or spiritually in his dearest Son, our Lord, and only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, for the advantage of the redemption of human nature, which glory the prophet Isaiah saw and foretold in the mind of the Lord many years before, beholding that glory as two cherubim and seraphim having six wings, from which they flew singing before the face of God: “Holy, Holy,” Holy is the God, the Eternal Lord of hosts, “sabaoth, his honor has filled everyone. "Which prophet saw the Lord, the almighty of mighty over all lords, and recognized him as a god in one essence, triune in persons, and that from a noble chaos Jesus Christ was to flow like a fountain of life from mercy and justice, as God made happen in the tree of the holy cross where from the side of his dear son flowed blood and water; to which the Lord adds fire, smoke and vapor in the Apocalypse of Saint John. This bond of trinity grew in the divine Word from the beginning, in all creatures; and what God, the Holy Trinity, ever created subsists in its trinities and essences with God in eternal trinity as the last and invisible. There are in humanity alpha and omega in water and blood for an eternal memory. It is the first and last letter. As in the celestial, so in the terrestrial the attainment of alpha cannot be divided as long as everything is accomplished from the beginning until the end. And the Lord Jesus Christ purifies his friends again for eternal life, by the water and the blood: “Your sins are forgiven you, your faith has saved you; no one is saved” except that he is born again, that is to say by “water and blood. Which purifies and cleanses not only human creatures, but also the whole limb on earth. For it is not blood and metallic water, it is not also in any way mercury and sulphur. Also does not form, shape or operate without earth in the body of her no silver or gold in mine or blood red metal as it is seen with the eye.
This is proved by the nature of the blood and water which came out from the side of Jesus Christ and shed for the salvation of man.
Thus come all the stones from the mines or metals, that is to say from a simple element of the earth. And the spirit of all stones comes from a divine essence, as also the celestial spirits are filled with it. The throne of God is filled with angels and divine spirits in praise of God; also is the earth filled and created with jewels, veins and furrows, to the glory of God and prosperity of those who walk according to divine wisdom and it provides [them] with infinite and continual fruits.
Where, then, would men come from the waste of the labor they employ in the mines? Not otherwise, except as when the eyes were restrained to the dear apostles, so that they did not recognize the Lord in his clarified being or body. So men are not so able to know the mines well. How does it come about that Saint John in his Apocalypse speaks of fire and steam? Certainly he had not heard of steam, fire, and smoke from the oven or stove; thus the fire, clouds, smoke and celestial vapors which rise from the moisture of the earth in the clouds have been declared to him and discovered to him; as also in the works under the smoke or vapor of the metal and in their fire and coldness from which the operative virtues proceed, the exhalations and spirits are awakened that they may attain perfect union.
But does not the earth contain a vapor of fire and smoke? Also many natures must be plentifully extracted and produced from it; otherwise there would be no metal in the earth.
As the element of fire enters the air and the sky is surrounded by clouds and the earth filled with fire, and one element is surrounded by two others, so is it in the first creation by which the earth is filled with its furrows and veins of metal like fruit trees full of fruit which God the Lord has planted in the earthly paradise or the earth, which is also filled with operative fire from which smoke and vapor are accompanied with mercury , sulfur and salt, to the waters of the sea where the earth is enclosed and restrained or hidden, as the sovereign throne of God is surrounded by other celestial thrones and mansions.
Now as the four Evangelists of the New Testament are witnesses of the divine covenant with mankind, so are they the type, form, figure, model, exemplar and sure witness of the four elements and that the earth is created according to the holy heaven. Because thus teaches us the pater noster to pray: “as in heaven, so on earth be done the will of God” which is everywhere, and above and below. Everything was done by him and everything is before him, just as holy David could not hide from his face.
As also holy and blessed God placed in four qualities of elements his creature in the earth, so those who work in the mines must, if they are heard, open their eyes and bind their judgment to know the roads and the caves of the mines , minerals and metals and they will acquire honor from them with great praise and perpetual fame. Gold as the metal of gold appears in its magnificence and splendor when it is drawn, extracted and set apart from its stone or mine, so can one make of this gold an oil which is better than all balms and which keeps man very strong in perfect health and long life, because the gold thus reduced to liquor is [a] real vegetal gold, drinkable. And even though it may be that from gold excellent medicines or remedies may be prepared for man — because gold is the best substance that Almighty God has created in the mass of the earth from which also the human race was created, like also the whole universe -, however gold is still only a mass or a reducible body, from which a learned philosopher can extract and make a notable and sovereign medicine. more efficacious than all the common medical doctors could do, in which medicine one must perceive a very good and sweet odor, like that which God allows [to] come from the two luminaries which he causes to be extinguished on his altar for an offering, according to his will, by the skill of men.
Is it not clear that no one, even blind doctors, can see anything, nor recognize the way to make this noble medicine that they do not deny being able to make gold? For even almost all physicians, when they despair of all things, and see that no confection, syrup, plant, herb, and potion can replace or restore health, they resort to metals which they did not use before in their ointments. And this is what I am mentioning here in honor of those who are the most knowledgeable among the workers of the mines, who know very well by their profound science to draw from gold an incomparable medicine.
For it is only gold and silver that are worked and beaten into florins, melted down and made into jewels. But they are also useful for several things to serve usefully for the health of the human race. Thus, according as the metal is more noble, as is gold, its virtue is always greater and operative than in that which comes after, as is silver, and so consecutively until the last. It is in the same way with regard to minerals that their virtue is greater in one than in the other, as first to vitriol, then to antimony or glass-lancer, then to sulphur, alum , salt and the like — these mineral things being also the meat of the metals, as well as the bread of heaven to those who were in the desert. But as these doctors withdraw and do not easily take the metals to use them, it happened to them, as well as to the Christian pagans, who after having received the bread from heaven and with it the kingdoms of the earth and the gift metal mines, put themselves and exposed themselves in the market or public place, to adore the golden calf there, as well as at the beginning of my book of mines or mountains, I amply described when I treated earth fossils.
There is a coagulation and birth of the species of precious stones in their cells, sticks and furrows, without smoke or moist or damp materials. These jewels come from the substance of the most accomplished, most illustrious and noblest earthiness of the earth, with the mixture of a very rich mercury, sulfur and salt. And it is from this, I say, whence proceeds this coagulation of the various sorts and species of precious stones, as much of those which are round or orbicular as of those which are knotted or interlaced with bumps constantly well connected. And so most of the precious stones are found round in figure or in the form of Zinke, otherwise of whelk, some of which are transparent and lucid. And all of them meet in different colors.
Now you don't find many of those mountains in which these noble births take place. Also these precious stones do not push their way in the form of furrows or veins. However, they are engendered in their centers and milieus, which are innumerable, with a quantity of monsters of nature and marvelous, rare, extraordinary and delicate births or growths. And that is why all the precious stones come in slivers or small stones, because they fall and flow by drops in the hardest, cleanest and purest stones or earths. This often causes a small skin to be formed and raw around it, as one sees with the stones of animals. And so much the more noble are the precious stones, so much the less do they meet; but the more coarse, crude, imperfect and mixed they are, the more we find, as can be seen below, generation or genealogy of pomegranates. Who has hitherto taken care to inquire and seek after these glorious benefits of God from his other natural creatures which are living and corporeal spirits? Here is what it is: it is the Pygmies or dwarfs who in past times made their home in the caves or hollowed places of the mountains and led there and lodged all their train or household. They lacked neither science nor skill; they frequented all the corners and hiding places of the mountains.
Now these precious stones are and must be considered more noble than metals, especially since the places where they are generated and grow are in a situation closer to heaven than the stones of the metal. For the mountains or places from which the said precious stones come, are confined or border on paradise in India and other countries of the Levant, according to the anchorites. And in some of these mountains that cross into the countryside there is also gold with precious stones; and even there grow aromatic plants and expensive groceries, of which no one wants to think.
The faithful God wants and requires in all things only fidelity and truth, according to true and right justice. To which have submitted some of the ancient lords, kings and princes, well trained and fearing God, as also some ancient sages, patriarchs and archfathers, who had and carried a great love and zeal for the works of the mines and sought them and cultivated with proper judgment.
Thus the workers of the mines who are people of honor, good Christians and fearing God, must and can elect the best and well recognize their pearl which is the spirit of the Lord, which the word of God has made grow. And [they] must also consider and contemplate, with unshakable constancy, the means by which they must lovingly praise God, who has subdued and subjected all things to them, whichever way [which] they turn, and who has given them and abundantly and excessively distributed his pure grace and mercy, and who also, by the innocence, virtue and merit of his dear only Son, gives to them and establishes in this transitory life, for the good of them all, every kind of bodily and spiritual prosperity, health of body and soul, and adorns and adorns them much better than gold, silver, precious stones and pearls are adorned.
This chapter is a summary of all the colors, figures and forms of the mines and metals, as they are introduced, adorned and clothed by means of the celestial operation in the subterranean works; nobler places of the mother of metallic mines, according as shines or enlightens us the eternal light of the true illuminating sun, the divinity, the day of joy, and what is of gold most enduring, most permanent and most beautiful, which singularly for the most part is yellow, beautiful, red and pure, closed and closed to all other metals white and undyed by the constant and enduring citrine color of the eternal illustration of heaven and the glorious and constant paradise, of all the stars, and according to the created natural light of all creatures, accompanied by the very beautiful dawn of the mineral earth of the best binding, the most subtle and the tightest, I say that the gold is enclosed and closed to all white and undyed metals.
But here is how gold, which is of a very noble essential substance, speaks for itself: "I am, he said to himself, the lord of all lords, the king of all kings, the prince of all princes, for I pass them all in virtue, power and perfection. I overcome them and am neither defeated nor overcome by anyone; but they are subject to my person and my essence, the more so as my reign is supported, strengthened and confirmed by a power and by a disproportionate and invisible honor. By me are strengthened and justified all metals, minerals, animals and plants, all plants and trees, as well as men. Because I give to everyone who recognizes me in my natural green, blue, red, and everything they want from me flows from it like the four noblest capital rivers, Pison, Gihon, Hideckel and (Eu)phrates: knowledge is the noblest substance of mercury flows from me in the form of the most transparent and clear crystalline water, and the noblest and most subtle or penetrating substance of sulfur by its great activity, and a clearest crystalline salt, the finest and most astral and from true vitriolic salt; all of which matters penetrate and pass through the mountains and tend ever upwards into the jewels of minerals and flow there richly with fertility.
“I elevate in degree, and raise alone, money. It is I who give light and brightness to the moon with all justice. All these naturalistic mages and wise writers speak of my virtue and red property; they talk about it all over the world from the east to the west. And I am lord over all celestial garments and colors clarified. It is I who adorn the firmament, who give the temperament of the air, and the rainbow is clothed by me according to the will of God my lord. I give and elevate all the noble jewels or precious stones throughout the earth, all that grows therein, all creatures and finally all things. And all that I cannot cross, transcend or penetrate internally through my course, I separate and separate to accomplish it in the luminous stone of nature by means of my friend and lover, the moon. She receives from me the best part or provision of my most agreeable and subtle virtues, as India, Hungary and Carinthia sufficiently testify. For everything that has life and shall receive life rejoices because of me and of none other after God, because of him alone is honor and eternal magnificence, and I find no lord or potentate greater than him. But as for me, I do not rest and also I do not desire any rest, and I dispatch and do willingly all that the Creator of all things has established, installed and ordained me. Which is why I find my suppleness so magnificent as in a wax in precious stones, which however, by their hardness, can give enough fire when they need it.
"I am hidden from fools, but I am fully exposed to people of intelligence and judgment. For I hold my lordship superabundantly in quite a well-known mineral, as well as in Mars and Venus, and the utterly base things in which I have hidden myself. And in all these things is a double spirit, which is sufficiently known as a most near and pleasant thing. It was this subject that God caused Moses to raise up to obey his people in the desert, below Mount Sinai, namely the serpent of brass which resembles my color.
"My best and fairest color appears and shows itself according to the vitriolities and transparent juices which grow, pierce and penetrate in due time into their mountains in my fashion and way, whence they are raised from smallness to greatness, with abundance and pleasure. , in a lovely pleasing stature of growths green as seal-wax, green as goose-dung, some of which are only all green and some of which are blue like the color of a beautiful sapphire; but among all these growths, those which have my color red with white are the best and most desirable to seek out and preferable to others, such as those which sometimes grow out of a shady color like a river pebble. I gladly light up in vitriol and make it advance and exalt, after the reduction of its green meat which it has in itself, to the sovereign degree of a red, magnificent spirit; as also from which, after its laxative purification, comes the desired and longed-for true and straight water of Saturn, which is the true sure and sharp fountain from which I myself take and receive my coming and my life, as well as all others metals, animals and plants. For from there come and well up uniquely and only all the metals and minerals having their beginning and origin from it vitriol, which contains in itself that life-giving water without which no substance can advance in any way in the mines or bowels of the earth; which living water is very well known to true sages and philosophers.
"Now vitriol, by its spirit or life-giving water, works and perfects minerals and metals of different kinds and species, as in the shape of a falsetto or pyramid, rising in their seed or grain from below upwards, into a white and dry body. like a sugar loaf, and [they] grow in the Schiefer or blue slate matter. It is a mineral of all colors, singular and greatly pleasant. But the salt mines are the most distant which by my attractive change are found on waves, bridges or canals, passages or furrows. Which salt mines often come to light by means of the waters which produce them or conduct them to various places, so that by day there is often found a dry and arid salt, and shining like a clear flame on the earth, as in the great cold pushes on some clear stone the flakes of snow, roughly worked in the manner of step or degree. So it is with the other precious stones which all hold a certain order or figure according to my enlightened celestial stone, which I divide and distribute in the operation and virtue of these precious stones which are enlightened and ennobled in dignity and in the state the most constant, and are endowed with an enduring spirit and finally are forever distinguished by various colors, such as diamonds, emeralds, carbuncles, sapphires, rubies, crystals, chalcedonies, jaspers, beryls, chrysolites, onyx, carnelian, turquoises , stones of azure, daisies, corals, earth of Lemnia, stone of serpentine and pomegranate, all and each separately being of colors or higher or lower, illustrious however in their own and natural colors, by a celestial order created , arranged and preserved by nature in places and mineral places which are suitable for them.
“Hence it may be rightly said and concluded that all these things, together all the magnificent fruits or growths from off the earth, should serve the good of man, both in body and in spirit; as nothing is hidden from me in my illuminating power and everything is lightened with my splendor, by which it grows in maturity and increase, and can no creature establish itself by itself; whereby there are so many different matrices in which everything takes its birth through me, for all things in the universe have and have their beginning and origin from me alone and from my spirit which is hidden in my interior and that no one can fathom or know perfectly, if not Eternal God, Creator of all things, from whose divine word this spirit of mine has come.
"Concluding here all my words, I am amazed myself first of all at such high and profound mysteries and in my God I testify and certify in truth that I am not only the gold or the present sun, but [that] I am a compendium of all the virtues of underground spirits. Because Arisleus and Onizon are subject to me, especially since I am the alpha and the omega. God be eternally praised. »
Here I conclude the second part of my book of mines: I have faithfully shown all that is as much as I have been able to know and fathom by my diligence. Let another do more, if he can, and give ample knowledge to the day, so that the light of the noble nature may continually have its full and complete splendor and gleam to shine always without being able to be extinguished, and that thus all humans, and even the enemies and boring ones, acquire a spirit and [an] inclination and disposition to solicit daily, without ceasing, his Divine Majesty, by fervent prayers and thanksgiving, may it please him to grant their wishes and good intentions; also for the subject of which I have written these two books of mine, and have preceded them with my knacks — which otherwise would not in any way have been well suited nor belonged to them — so that, by careful prayers and thanksgivings and also cordial invocation of God the Heavenly Father, one each exercises carefully and recognizes visibly and may also conceive and understand with reason and judgment how it is that nature has so magnificently instructed us; we, I say, who are created of Almighty God and established in preference to all other creatures to carry out and bring to a happy end all the works or operations which we undertake industriously in the deepest earth, and to produce by day its noble growths and fruits from which we also derive our nourishment and sustenance; which must oblige us above all things to recognize with all our heart the abundant grace and the infinite mercy of God for which we cannot sufficiently thank him according to our weak capacity. However, let each do his duty, as much as he can, and with his sinful heart and his filthy tongue, let him pray to God with a pure and devout heart to acquire his grace, his sapience and his blessing, to search his great and wonderful creatures with the spirit of truth and justice, that he might possess them from the beginning of their conception, and use them for good and charitable effects to the glory of God, which be exalted above all the heavens and resound with immortal praise through all the universal earth.
Or part of the Testament of Brother Basil Valentin of the Order of Saint Benedict, touching the universal of all this world, as also the solution of all his previous writings, which he left to all his successors and other brothers in science. And now, after being urged, we've given the public that impression for the first time.
Now follows the third part of this design of mine, where there is a true demonstration of the origin and matter of our ancient Stone, with full and perfect instruction or indoctrination of the practice by which one must arrive to the inexhaustible fountain of health and abundantly rich maintenance of nourishment: an enlightenment which lays bare my previous writings, and which I leave also after me, in writing clearly and plainly uncovered, to all my successors and brethren of philosophy. You must know, my friend and amateur of science, that it is not uselessly nor in vain that I made the beginning, by this mine work that I proposed to myself, of the knacks, with regard to the first two preceding parts, the first treaty of which stops strictly at the mines and in what depends on the minerals and metals, together with their mines themselves. For well have I considered quite necessary to present, and as if to put it, to demonstrate there to the ignorant a pure light and clarity, to train them to recognize that all the creatures of the said minerals and metals, like also brass or the body of the mine which by one and only spirit are represented and painted here below, take their origin from above and are formed in the earth where they are produced and come to light by generation, For the earth is in ever ready and willing to receive within herself and embrace and retain within herself this spirit, thus emerging from the virtues of heaven, until she produces and retains true form and perfection. But the way it is done and how it is, has already been sufficiently amply and sufficiently mentioned in my previous writings. That is why I will only repeat it in a few words in this way.
Know therefore that all things come by the effect of a certain celestial impression and influence, by the elementary effect and operation and by the effect and operation of an earthly substance. By or in consequence of which the elements are produced, deriving their composition from such a mixture as are water, air and earth. These three elements, by the aid and succor of the element of fire which is hidden therein and consequently by a hot cooking, produce a soul, a spirit and a body. And these three are the first three principles, which finally by their copulation are formed or resolved into [a] mercury, a sulphur, and a salt. And when these last three principles are conjoined together, they render or give, according to the species of their seed, in whatever kingdom of minerals, vegetables and animals, a perfect body. For all the things of the world which can be encountered, recognized, or noticed by sight and touch of the hand are entirely demarcated or divided into one of these three kingdoms. Of which I have written much above. The animal kingdom includes, means and implies all that has the breath of life and that which flesh or blood has produced, such as are men, beasts, reptiles, fish, birds and all that comes from them. approach. The vegetable kingdom generally comprises all the plants of the earth, trees, herbs, seeds, fruits, roots and similar things or species whose property it is to grow and vegetate. The mineral kingdom includes and contains within itself all kinds of mines or all bodies of mines, metals, minerals, marcasites, limes, bismuths and stones, whether precious or common.
And in these three kingdoms is included all that there is to see in the world.
Now, first, animals have their particular seeds of sperm substance and quality, which, after their assembly and conjunction, beget or beget flesh and blood. And this is the first matter and original seed, which God created from the celestial elements and influences; this, I say, given of God, operates by nature. Everything is reported and quoted here according to the tenor of my previous writings. Now, like the animals, so the plants have obtained from God, but in a particular way, their seeds according to their properties, qualities and forms. And this by means of a celestial and sideric influence and of an elemental growth and propagation. Which vegetable seed lodges and insinuates itself into the earth which receives it and acquires it fruitfully in its entrails, where God has left it, so to speak, the order to grow, to vegetate and to produce the vegetable . Minerals and metals have no less than these their principle and seed also of God himself, almighty Creator of the heavens and the earth; and this, by the property and disposition that God gave them to draw their seed and virtue from the celestial sky by the influence and sideric impression, this metallic seed coming from an aerial liquid substance by means of the attractive mineral spirit, also coming from 'a sulphurous soul and finally of an earthly salt which are joined and as if grafted or inserted together in each mineral body, as doubtless you will have noticed in similar instruction that I gave you word for word in my preceding writings, abundant you must notice that if one and the other of these metallic and mineral generations have to continue their propagation and growth by art, they must be restored to the state of their first seed and original matter.
So much so that when you want to change the metals, increase them and bring them to be able to produce and make some tincture or the philosopher's stone, you must first of all know how to skillfully destroy them, by spagyric science and knowledge of the tricks of the hand, the metallic and mineral form; break it, I say, and break it, separate it, and disunite it into a mercury, a sulfur, and a salt; and it is necessary that these principles be particularly each separated in all purity and then, as has been said, restored to their first matter and beginning. But this separation is in no way effected except by the mercurial spirit alone, as also the sulphurous soul and the white salt, which three substances must be united together by the true order which the natural knacks require, in order to render in the most sovereign and perfect purity that will be possible in such a conjunction. But you must first be careful and take care of the weight.
And, therefore, when this conjunction is made, all substance is nothing but an essence or liquid being and a true philosopher's water, in which all the elements—first all the celestials and then all the elementary and terrestrial— are locked up; that is to say, all the qualities of both of these last two are enclosed and hidden therein. And so much so that the mercurial spirit is cold and moist and that, on the other hand, the soul or sulfur is hot and dry, this aforesaid liquor or essence is then the true first matter and seed of metals and minerals. Which, by the science of Vulcan, can and must be carried, pushed and brought to its greatest perfection, that is to say, made or reduced to a fixed medicine; and in this point it must surpass everything else in firmness and solidity.
Therefore notice well and take heed that all metals and minerals have only one and unique root, by means of which they all took their birth and even make their ordinary generation. And he who knows this root need not destroy the metals, nor ruin them in such a way that from one metal is taken and drawn the spirit, from the other sulfur and, finally, from the other, salt; for there is a city or fortress in which all three are sooner confined: spirit, soul, and body. And it is in a single and unique thing that we find them - which is however well known - by means of which we can obtain and acquire these three mineral essences whose extraction gives us with great renown their happy possession. This is something that I will briefly name hereafter and make several remarks about it.
He therefore who learns to know this aureous seed, or otherwise this aforesaid magnet, and who diligently probing it discovers its property, he possesses the true and right root of life and can reach the goal to which his heart yearns with so much languor. It is true that in my previous writings of the Douu Defi, I have made known my plan from one end to the other to my successors and descendants, when practicing my fifth key I have parabolically demonstrated and done to see how one can make the great philosopher's stone by drawing from sulfur and salt the best and purest gold, and this by the aid of mercury, which it is particularly and above all necessary to hunt and push out of a raw mine and not melted.
Now what has previously moved me to admit on metallic gold the work of the Stone has been so that the simples - to which the other or second body or subject in which all the three principles can meet is all unknown, although common, and also too high for their brains — may they acquire and draw more intelligence from it and have so much greater knowledge and light from it, since even several ancient philosophers who have lived before me have acquired by this way the true universal stone of all secrets and health, [and] myself alike, following the demonstration of the books which I had read at their invitation, after that with great pains, great expense and length time I had fortunately prepared for the first time in my cloister such a celestial stone, and it obtained according to this practice and method of proceeding on purified gold, as is mentioned in my first key. At last the sovereign God of heaven has given me greater grace and blessing to think more deeply about making this stone better, until then he has enlightened me more and more to think and ruminate on what thing or subject abound most the colorful and lively spirits, which Almighty God has laid and enclosed in this thing. Therefore, no one should be ashamed to learn and peel what was most hidden before in science. For the earth still reserves many things in its secret bowels, because it cannot be entirely discovered by men in its depths, because of their too stupid understanding and even because of the brevity of their life. Wherefore, as I have received such great gifts and presents from God, so I have shown and represented to my companions in Christ the same thing in my treatise on the Twelve Keys.
But he who is endowed with greater intelligence and judgment than the vulgar will apply himself with all his heart and with all his mind to the careful and exact research of this profound science, in order to arrive straight at the goal. And so that one will find a second and easier matter, which is known to everyone, almost named and as if pointed out on the finger; and it is endowed with a very efficacious power and property, as the Ancients before me remarked, who by careful exercise and deep speculation have come at length to know the one aim and purpose to which all things have to go, which I myself have very well conceived in my mind more than once. This knowledge or science has acquired for them, with much less time and difficulty, the possession of the great stone and consequently of health and wealth, especially since in this known matter and of little value, the The mineral essence, the sulfur and the color are there still much more effective and filled with more excellent virtues than in the best gold which can be found, although very well prepared and open;, also, the mercurial spirit and the mysterious salt there are much more free and open and even have equality of domination there and can get out of it or extract with less difficulty in visible form.
Whoever has taken careful note of my twelve keys and carefully considered what they contain by frequent and repeated reading, he will have perceived and found that the entire preparation of our stone is described from the beginning to the end without any defect, however only as it must be made on the basis and foundation of prepared gold. But we have in nature or matter which was created and ordained by God the creator, a much better gold and which requires a profound and learned personage to know it. And especially since this last gold is foreign and unknown to novices or schoolchildren, I did not want to teach anything about it above for just reasons, having contented myself with describing and explaining only the matter in which these people want to seek their seed.
First in my Twelve Keys, I have, in imitation of the philosophers, made mention and story by similarity of the property and work of our stone or balsam, how it was prepared according to the tradition of the old masters who came down to me and which I possessed as a special inheritance; I also taught you the direction of fire, the conduct and change of the main colors of the planets and the end and accomplishment of all the work with all that depends on it.
But after this general discourse, see my twelve keys, because each includes in itself its particular work.
The First Key teaches you to seek, if you will, your seed in a metallic being or substance like gold; how it is that you must cleanse it in a sovereign degree, stripping it first of all impurity and leprosy, so that nothing filthy mingles with our fountain, except only what is of its pure and spermatic property; and how this purification of gold is effected by antimony, which is allied by a very close friendship with this perfect metal. And hence the sulfur of antimony can cleanse the soul of gold and bring it, as to color, to a very high degree and excessive splendour. Gold also can reciprocally amend and improve the soul of antimony very suddenly in very few hours and time, and fix it constantly, so that it can elevate antimony in dignity, value and virtue; and these two may be reduced together not only to a white metal, but also to such excellent medicine for man that his health is cause for rejoicing, as I shall hereinafter say when I shall speak particularly of the antimony alone. Moreover, I give you this instruction, which is that although antimony has promised Saturn at the same time brotherhood and companionship — for the qualities of antimony agree in some way with those of Saturn, in some respects in a harmony alike and equal to each other--yet after fixing the high and exalted sulfur of antimony by means of gold, his nearest friend, Saturn, cannot attract or acquire any spoils from him, especially since the king took this antimony for himself in his golden room and made it part of his triumphant kingdom; which means that henceforth he is able to suffer ardor and cold and to overcome them powerfully. And so he remains victorious and triumphant with the king and great glory and excellence. The purification therefore of gold is done so that it is beaten, well loosened and thin, and, after this way, that it is poured and passed three times through antimony; [that] then the king who, falling through this antimony, is seated and posed at the bottom, be recast before the blowing with a very harsh fire, and then driven out and purified with Saturn. And then you will find the highest, most beautiful and highly brilliant gold that you could desire, like the clear splendor of the sun and most pleasing to the eye. Subsequently, this gold is disposed to give its interior out, when first it is reduced from its strong fixity into a form capable of being destroyed, which happens when, after its breaking, the sea of salt has drowned it, of which then afterwards he must escape and make himself visible.
The Second Key But notice, my friend, and take this thing to heart as very important to your work, which is that you skillfully arrange your bath in such a way that nothing is added to it except what is necessary, so that the noble seed of gold is not spoiled by any contrariety or heterogeneity which would be capable of destroying this seed, which being destroyed and demolished, it would be impossible to put it back in good condition. Therefore take heed and notice carefully what my foregoing key teaches you, and what material you must take for the bath consisting of clean water for the king who is to be slain therein and his outer form demolished and broken, so that his pure soul may come out of it immaculate. You must serve for this purpose the dragon and the eagle which are nothing but saltpetre and salt armoniac, of which two, after their union, must be made a royal etching as I want to teach you in the last turn. of my dexterity, when I will describe therein particularities of gold as well as of other metals and minerals. When the king has been opened, as you will hear at the place above remarked, by the amalgam that must be made of it with mercury and sulfur which seize it and quickly attach themselves to it by untying it and uncurling it of his tenacity, afterwards he must be broken in all his limbs; which is done by dissolving it in this salt water, in which it is slain and completely mortified, so that it is converted into a beautiful transparent oil, luminous and of haughty splendor.
However, you must know that such a solution and unbinding is not enough and that the king for that still has no intention of letting his soul out of his fixed body, as you can experience. For if you come to separate your water from the resolute body of the king, it is because you will only find it reduced to a solid powder of gold, from which you will be able with great difficulty to extract the soul which still clings to it. attached. Follow therefore my instruction and doctrine here, and bear after me the yoke which I have borne and experienced with great pains and care, and do as I will now teach you.
When your gold is completely dissolved in this aforesaid water and it has been reduced to a beautiful yellow oil, then leave it in a well-closed vessel to digest for a day and a night in a bain-marie which is very mild; and if some faeces accumulate there, separate them and put the pure and clean solution in a strong curcurbite or other vessel and adapt a capital and a well lutes receptacle to it. Digest and distill this solution to moderately hot sand, sometimes stirring and agitating the vessel where the gold and water is, and repeating this up to three times. Then remove all the humidity through the bain-marie and you will find at the bottom of the still a beautiful powder of gold which you will keep in an open vessel on the sand fire for the space of an hour, so that all the wateriness goes away.
The Third Key. Take then of good spirit of nitre, one part, and of common spirit of salt, three parts; pour these two spirits together into a cucurbit being a little hot on the powder of gold above written, then adapt a capital and container to it well lutes as it should be; then having stirred and agitated your gold well several times as before was done in the sand, and repeated the distillation so much the more so much the better, you will perceive that the gold will from time to time become more volatile and that, finally, it will distill and come above. For by such repetition and distillation of all thy gold, the firmness and fixity of his body detaches and divides into all his limbs, which are thus broken with each other, and are made so open that this gold thus mitigated then lets his soul go to a particular judge. On which my third key will instruct you sufficiently sufficiently. But observe that after this work is completed, you must separate with assiduous care from your gold which has been distilled all the saline spirits by distillation in a bain-marie and this, as gently as possible, so that it distils nothing of the color of gold and that your gold suffers no waste. Then, with care and judgment, take your gold or the crystals of gold from which you have separated the water and put them on a small test clean to reverberate, and place it in the fire under a muffle and give it first a slow fire and gentle for an hour, until all the corrosive has been entirely removed from it; and then you will have a powder of gold which will appear to you in the color of a beautiful scarlet, as subtle and beautiful as you can see with your eyes.
Put this powder of gold in a clean vial and pour over it the powder of the recent spirit of common salt, which before has been reduced to a great sweetness following the order of which I have instructed you in my tricks. Cork the vial and place it in some gentle heat; for thus the sweet spirit of salt can no longer dissolve and break up the powder of gold as it had done before, especially as its corroding and acrimoniousness have been cut off from it by the spirit of wine which has caused it this great sweetness. So leave your vial in this non-violent heat as long as the spirit of salt is colored in a color of a sovereign degree, beautiful, transparent and red like a ruby. Gently bow your dyed spirit and put it back on your gold and do as before so many times that the spirit of salt can no longer be dyed. Afterwards, put all your tinted spirit in a still and separate all the moisture from it in a bain-marie at gentle heat; and at the bottom of the still thee will dwell the sulfur of gold in a beautiful, delicate, and subtle powder, of great merit and value, which is a matter with which one can, by means of a prompt and short procedure, color silver in its highest perfection and change it constantly by putting it in an unchanging state, as my following booklet of the Twelve Keys makes you hear.
Now someone, already endowed with a little science and good judgment, could here torment himself and be in trouble to judge this affair well and ask if this soul, if this sulfur of the king thus drawn, extracted and dry, is precisely the same soul of which the philosophers discourse and speak, saying that their work, by the philosophical work or preparation of the so precious stone, requires above all three things, namely a moist, volatile, mercurial spirit; a sulphurous, moist, volatile soul and an astral, dry salt. Which salt, after its unbinding and dissolution, must be recognized at the same time in a humid form with the first two which are of an aquatic form.
But, he will ask himself, how can this be done? since in this procedure no instructions are given from any mercurial spirit or from any volatile soul. Thus it is said there that the soul of the king or lion, that is to say the sulfur or the soul of gold, remained at the bottom of the still in a subtle powder. Now I want to hold such a man in suspense until he learns from himself to recognize the difference which can be encountered in a subject by reading this book of mine, which I will clarify and develop according to my intention, in such so that I will gladly show him, without omitting anything, the truth, instructing him according to his ardent desire and strong torment, as well as a faithful father towards his dear son, and making him understand all the purpose and purpose in which is understood and enclosed in our mastery, without the knowledge of which the most smug personages, for the most part, have fallen dazedly into the nets of error and have rushed into a bottomless abyss and at all lost in the desert of ignorance, especially since, submerged in their profound ignorance, they have not been able to reach this point of being able as masters to discover or to imagine with truth how it is that all things are born into the world and how it is is that each soul must have a spirit, as reciprocally each spirit a soul natural to its fellow, nor how these two, spirit and soul, are spiritual substances, and that these two must also have a body in which it is necessary that they maintain and preserve and that they erect or establish their dwelling there. But as to gold as well as silver, above all principally gold, [it] is annealed and transmitted in the most sublime fixity that can not be imagined by all the degrees which have been conceded and distributed to it by the nature, so that all its substance is found to be entirely fiery, being only all fire and much dried up, to the exclusion of all phlegmatic moistness from which the silver is not quite deposed, yet though it has reached a degree of sulfuric fixity; for it still remains with its natural quality in a lower degree, and this, until the king has warmed by his burning seed his cold body, which depends on the particulars who are part of this operation, as it will be done. mention when I deal with them clearly in their place. And so there can be no moistness at all in gold that is watery, except that it should be returned to it as vitriol; but that would require quite useless work and inexhaustible expense, if it were not that one wanted to make the stone of it vitriol of gold, of which however it would be necessary to have a great quantity. And then one could easily find in such vitriol a convenient and naturally required spirit, endowed with a white property and quality, as well as a soul and a magnificent essence salt. But one cannot understand how much mighty wealth has been dissipated and lost from many people by this way. This is why I do not want to make any mention of it here. But I urge my followers, since nature has left them a shorter way, to keep it and follow it now, lest they be thrown into abject poverty if they amuse themselves extracting mercury from the or when it would have been reduced to destruction and ruin of itself, which was never practiced by the Ancients for what is quite against nature. For although gold has by this way truly a humidity in itself, it is nevertheless only a bare element, pure or simple, and an aqueous humidity, which appears after such a resolution and which is proper to whatever it would be; for the water and the other principles are not held in the other elements, but the elements rest in the principles and seeds of the metals, of which I have also written above.
For this, there will be no one who is so masterful that he can only make our stone by extracting it from dry and fully annealed gold; for all its phlegmatic moistness is heaped up and concentrated in a dry, arrested, congealed and fixed coagulation. Which is not met with in the same way with other metals, notwithstanding that they are similarly subjected to a hard coagulation and passed through the fire; they are not, however, yet cooked through and through, nor brought from their natural and original root to full maturity, which is well to be noted. And that my previous writings do not offend you and do not scandalize you in any way, because they could seem to you full of annoyance with regard to this present book and treatise.
For how much I have made you see that the spirit, the soul and the body come at the same time from the same essence or metallic substance which must be prepared and extracted from the metals, and which among all I have named gold for better, yet I have done in it as befits a true philosopher and as the ancient Sages did before me; but with my protest, you will no doubt have noticed very well that I have made known to you that there is in nature a subject or [a] particular matter, which will give you occasion to meditate and think more carefully about the research of nature and to examine well the origin, the principle or the beginning of this particular subject, seeing that, above, it was not allowed to me to declare more about it than what I have. said, nor to inform one as it is that the gates of nature are locked from within. For at that time particularly I had not yet intended to write so intelligibly, clearly and openly of those things which it is customary to conceal, even from the most benign and best friends, until the Prince of heaven changed my mind and enjoined me by his command not to bury in the ground the talent which I received from him, as it had happened to me, but to leave it after me to others who likewise be worthy.
But it is necessary that I offer you here again a rule on the points that I wrote to you above, of which I will mention to you here presently so that [you] accuse me all the less and that I do not fall in the reproach of him who, after having approved a thing, would like to refuse it immediately. Consider therefore now all those who, since the beginning of the world, have learnedly written metals, and you will find that they have been of the same opinion and have all agreed in the same sense, when principally they have said that the first metal and the last were only a metal and that the first metal had already acquired and covered by its metallic property the advancing, producing or growing metallic seed, which then does nothing else but to advance the production incessantly and relentlessly. and metallic birth, which no other seed does, as I have already depicted and described the minerals and metals in my first and second part of Mines, and as likewise shown in various places in this book.
Many have named lead gold and gold lead, especially as not only have they been found of the same kind and weight for some respect; but also a certain stone or substance of high luster and splendor unique and alone holds and receives the beginning and the first form of its metallic and universal perfection from the planet of Saturn, which is such in itself that it greatly surpasses the understanding or the design of humans for reasons that are unnecessary and too long to deduce here. And it is precisely here that wisdom and science are required to discern and carefully seek in our noble metallic subject and other like it the secrets of God and of the nature which is discovered and offered to us there; but especially since by the fall of Adam man found himself engaged in a strange blindness, there is only the smallest part of men who can reach the fundamental solution of such great secrets and other hidden things.
But especially since the hardness is so great in the hearts of the avaricious that they seek for the most part these secrets and mysteries of God only out of avarice and to satisfy their pride and vanity, this is why the Ancients, carried and impelled to declare them to their successors by the inspiration and command of the Sovereign, had for aim and purpose only to write of them only in such a way that the unworthy could not understand such marvelous secrets, but indeed those who deserve [to] notice and observe them, being for this subject enlightened with a sufficient light, which however is not acquired without the special will of God. Now these ancients often spoke in their writings of a single thing by which they understood or understood several things at the same time and, on the contrary, they often mentioned several things, although by these they simply did not want hear only one and the same thing. For this reason, some of these philosophers demonstrate that the stone comes from various sources, for some want it to take its origin from an animal thing, some from a vegetable seed and others from a mineral seed. But there are others who say that it is made of mineral, animal and vegetable seed at the same time. Of all these opinions this alone is true, which teaches us that the stone only comes from the mineral or metallic seed, because truly it must be held as constant that the stone does not depend in any way on the diversity of the seeds. What has made science rare and obscure, so that of several thousands, only one can hardly reach it, and for this reason the stone is called science, together with the fact that a clumsy person comparable to an ox could not bring it into his head, and so it is useless to him. It is true that if the science of stone were so easy and common, as brewing beer and baking bread, great inconveniences or misfortunes would arise from it; and then many vices would reign in the world, as everyone can easily think and persuade himself; and this is the reason why it is necessary to clip the wings of the one who makes the companion and the sufficient and who looks only at the magnificence and the worldly glory, by not giving him the very clear knowledge of this marvelous science of which God sheds quite clear and significant light on whomever it pleases to choose and admit for this subject. But in order that I return to my purpose to instruct the restless disciple in what manner one may benefit from the gold after his soul is mined, I say truly that it is saying a lot if I find out all the truth clearly enough. secret of the king. And therefore, I urge everyone to use it well. So take good care if you have the king's purple coat to thank God for it highly and do not be carried away with an evil inclination towards your neighbor. Therefore, after you have this soul or seed of gold, open it by virtue of the third key and make it water, because in our science the body, the soul and the spirit must be reduced to water.
For then they flow together into their inner root and one grasps the other there and improves it through and through in its entire and perfect quality, so that there arises the creation of a new world and a new earth, which then receives its splendor from the soul that elevates it to a virtue inconceivable to each one. It is therefore necessary for you here to know how you must infuse your golden seed into the new body to make it become a flowing substance. Here look around you for everyone to see if you will be able to find there what you must have to help you in your operation. And if you don't find what you need, ho! hey! do not despair over this, but take courage and be strengthened. So think of ways how you could take advice from the god Saturn and he will not dismiss you or abandon you without resolution; therefore, he will present to you in your hand a mine of august splendor in sacrifice, which is believed in its mine and which has come or originally produced from the first matter of all metals. If this mine, after its preparation which he will show you, is transmitted or mixed with three parts of bowl or brick earth and then you make the sublimation of it, it will happen to you that a sublimated noble will ascend to the highest of the mountain in the form of plumettes or alum de plume. This sublimed water resolves itself in its time like beautiful water, which becomes so effective that it will immediately transmute all your golden seed into its first volatility, by means of a little putrefaction, provided however that this mineral water is added to it as long as the golden seed is entirely dissolved therein. And it is here that the sucker or twig joins with its stem, so that both of these ascend one when and the other over the highest mountains and dwell there inseparably the soul and the spirit, or mind and soul. Now it is necessary that you have more aforesaid water to dissolve the body or the salt and to coagulate it with your water into a new clarified body, and that one never separates from the other in prosperous or adversary times. , especially as they are of the same nature, birth or character; for they have always been such from the beginning and all have their origin and birth from the virtue of this flying bird.
But notice above all that this mineral spirit is in other metals, although it is found equally quite and incomparably very effective in a certain mineral from which it can be taken and prepared with much less trouble and expense. However, it does not matter where you take it from, provided you can purely and simply learn to recognize by separating the principles, which is the mercurial spirit, which is the soul or sulphur, and which is the astral salt, so that you do not hear and take one for the other; otherwise you would be making a big mistake. But you will find that the nature of the sulfur of gold resides only in all the metals which are comprised under the redness or red color and which have their dominion in the same degree as a certain mineral by reason of their spirits of colored fire. And as for the magnetine virtue, you will find that it is in his spirit of white mercury, which binds the soul and unties the body. And, therefore, the star of gold is not found only in gold, so that it is necessary that by the addition only of the spirit of mercury and auric sulfur, the philosopher's stone can be made. For she can in the same way be artistically quite prepared from copper and steel as from two unripe metals, both of which, as well as the male and the female, contain in themselves the properties of the red color peculiar to the fixed tincture as well as that of gold itself, whether one undertakes to operate by virtue of one of these two only or of the two conjointly, having previously passed into a close union one of the other. Moreover, as well as of these two, the stone may be made of a particular mineral known in Germany by a name which is as much to say as copper water, as even of broken verdigris or common copper previously reduced to vitriol; in all things the soul of the best gold is quite magnificent and can in many encounters serve as a helper with great profit, which a simple peasant will not believe. Therefore notice here what you need to notice.
Expand your senses with all your power, perfect your thoughts and do not cease until you come so before you can know the conjunction or secret composition of nature, as well as its solution, and you will find what you need to know, for what give thanks to your Creator, use it to his honor and serve your poor neighbor in his need.
I tell you now that this white spirit is the true mercury of the philosophers, which has already been before me and also will come after me, without which spirit the stone of the Sages and of the great mystery cannot be made, neither universally nor particularly, yet minus any particular mutation or transmutation. And is such a spirit the only excellent key for the opening of all metals as well as their closing, for this spirit is associable with all metals, which all proceed from the blood and seed of it, whence they came forth. and born, as I have already told you several times. Now this white spirit is the right and the true first mover so sought after by many thousands of people, but which has not been found by not a single one. Everyone desires it and looks for it far away; however, it is found very close, since it flies and moves before everyone's eyes.
And know that if you nourish and replenish this spirit with sulfur and metallic salt, it is necessary that from these three there should come a matter which is not very unequal to the great stone of the ancient Sages. It is necessary, however, to act skilfully in this operation and to proceed with order from the beginning to the end; for the corporeal salt must dissolve in this spirit and be opened therein, so that it may thus be returned and put back into its first matter, that is to say into another matter than it was. was. Then these two, this salt and this spirit, are one and the same substance of uniform equality and birth, which can, by means of the coagulation of the spirit, become by the direction of fire in constant fixation, and be born for the third time in a white, clear and transparent clarified body. And after such whiteness, sapience or science is perfected, the soul which has been unbound or dissolved can again seek its rest, that is to say, enter its similar body in purity, unite with it and to erect its dwelling, so that these three, the spirit, the soul and the body, come to dwell and be a single essencified body or an eternally glorified body.
But in order that you may be informed of the manner in which you are to make again bodily and constantly firm your two seeds [namely] the spirit of salt of gold, which in this science is called a body. Then you will notice now that instead and instead of it you take nothing strange. And if you want to know what you must do, read my fourth key, in which the truth is exposed before everyone's eyes, with singular testimonies and examples. But you, who perhaps do not understand this key, hear and notice at the same time on everything this clear and true advice which is that not only do you take care until then of the body of gold, as if besides, you had no other benefit to expect from him than his soul alone. I therefore tell you faithfully that you are careful not to impute such weakness to this noble body. For when you have drawn the sulphur, that is to say the soul, there remains within that body the magnificent salt of glory and triumphant victory, without which salt your spermatic seed cannot be brought into being. no coagulation or hardness. And it is properly this salt of which I have now discoursed to you throughout, telling you how it is that you must work it by extracting it from its corporeal form by means of the spirit of mercury in one first material being, and then how afterwards he must again return to a supremely purified and elevated body. Wherefore take the golden earth after thou hast drawn from it the seed, soul, brimstone, or otherwise the true blood of the lion, and by the reverberation reduce it to a fixed powder and a subtle and impalpable ash, of which then you will extract a salt greatly subtle, fine and fine, clear, shining and white as ivory; what [you] will do in the way I want to instruct you on the end of my sleight of hand, when I teach you to prepare the body of gold for individuals and when I teach you to reduce it into a soul or sulphur, into salt and quicksilver. Then go on to the practice of conjoining them together and be careful to have regard that in the assemblage or conjunction you do not put too much of one or too little of the other; but take heed to the disposal of the weight and the division of your seeds, and, to lead you well according to the goal or the assured measure, my sixth key will regulate you. And further continue all the practice and procedure begun, governing yourself in this operation according to the order which you will find in my seventh, eighth, ninth, [and] tenth key, as I once commanded you, so long as the king of glory and honor appear to you in his sovereign robe of purple and in clothes all of linen of gold, who is then named a lord and monarch triumphant over all his subjects from the East to the West. Then give thanks to God. Be careful to return your prayers and wishes to Him. Don't forget the poor in everything. Work on being a close observer of sobriety. Be restrained from talking too much and keep silent, because to talk too much is a greater sin than you think, especially since it is by this way that you could declare this science to some unworthy . The increase or multiplication of this celestial stone, as well as its segmentation, need not be mentioned here, because both are already described and taught without any fault in my last two keys. Do not doubt also that he to whom God has granted so many graces will be made a sharer of his wishes and that he will obtain from the Sovereign the full understanding of these two keys of mine; for nothing contrary should be employed in our being or metallic substance, nor in any way enter into it, either at the beginning, in the middle and at the end, except the mercurial spirit and cooked medicine, according to the content of my eleventh key.
So now that I fulfill the rest of my promise and say more than my twelve keys can and more than they contain, know that no philosopher is entirely bound to work on the metal of gold of which I have now just made a wide and long deduction and discovered the true foundation. But as you saw above, it is that all the mastery and the masterpiece lies only in these spirits of fire colored red of the metallic souls. And all that is red in color and is found accompanied by red sulfur and fire, all this is allied to the star of gold; and when the mercurial spirit is conjoined therein and intervenes therein, one can proceed to work particularly and universally, so that one can average and produce a tincture by which the metals and the vulgal mercury can be enhanced. and exalted, according as one orders and arranges the work or procedure.
But now you must learn that such soul or auric sulphur, such salt and such spirit are found stronger and more virtuous in Mars and Venus as well as in vitriol, just as Mars and Venus can be brought back and reduced as by demotion into a very virtuous and efficacious vitriol, in which metallic vitriol is now found under a sky all the three aforesaid principles, namely mercury, sulfur and salt; and each of them can particularly get out and get with little trouble and time as you will hear when I presently give a brief account of a mineral vitriol which is found in Hungary, quite beautiful and in a high degree.
If [thou] now have [of] the mind, the judgment, the inclination and an ardent desire in your heart to well and skillfully hear my keys and other books and claim by such means to discover and unlock the padlocks of metals hard locked up and proper to our stone, you must rightly have taken heed and heard that in speaking of them I have not only written of the metal, of gold, of its sulfur and its salt, but I I have understood when and when and in accordance with the other red metals from which the occult magisterium can be acquired; and for this, those who claim to reach this end must often reiterate the reading of the books of the philosophers, at least if they wish to have and draw from them a right intelligence which, however, does not occur without the will of God. But for what I hope that those who with a true faithful heart are inclined to devote themselves to science will have a more assiduous attention than not the vain and foolish world, therefore I leave them these writings of mine which will give them a notable subject of great relief and satisfaction, because in them everything has been so clearly declared that it is not possible to do better. For it is fitting that bright, beautiful and clearly purified light be produced, so that the disciple beginning to learn will have a clear gleam before his eyes, without any darkness from beginning to end. And it is for this subject that I undertook with great difficulty to put my plan into execution, in order to discover to each one this science, which all the Ancients have kept hidden until this hour under silence, keeping it tightly squeezed into the pit.
Now all my intention was not to oblige others to acquire honor and glory from it, but so that, by the provident mercy of God, this science would not be held to be false and that it would be by therefore discovered and revealed to some of the survivors, or at least let it be exposed before their eyes and the possession of it make them disposed to succor their poor Christian brethren who are in great need, and thus they are made partakers of the grace and mercy of God the Father. However, how much I am greatly saddened from the bottom of my heart, in my mind and understanding, when I think of what I have done and how I have written so freely and so fully of this science without concealing anything from it, not knowing who will possess it after my death by the instruction of this book of mine, yet I wish to hope that whosoever shall have this happiness will have day and night to commend my foregoing warnings contained in these present writings and in those of ci-devant, so that he uses this book with so much prudence that he can answer for it before the divine Majesty. Now, touching on the advantages which vitriol contains in itself, though for good reason I must mention it in my tricks when I treat and write about minerals, nevertheless, since it is such a notable and important mineral to which no one other in all nature cannot be accompanied, added that vitriol becomes familiar and friendly with all metals more than all other things and is very soon allied to them, since of all metals one can make a vitriol or crystal , for vitriol and crystal are only recognized for the same thing; this is why I did not want to delay or lazily put back its lot and merit, as reason requires, since vitriol is preferable to other minerals and that the first place after the metals must be granted to it. For although all metals and minerals are endowed with great virtues, this one nevertheless, namely vitriol, is alone sufficient to draw from it and make the very blessed stone, which no other in the world could do alone in its imitation, yet though some particularly aid in the progress of the stone by furnishing what is proper of their substance, as one might say of the antimony, which is quite sufficient, as must be inferred in its place. Yet so great a dignity has ever been bestowed on any other metal or mineral so advantageously as vitriol, that the stone of the philosophers of which so much has been made can be drawn and extracted. This is why the Ancients kept this mineral hidden to the last point and concealed it from their own children, which doing so with so much precaution, one should not be surprised if it was not known to everyone, but test] remained very covered and hidden, although however they said that the preparation of their stone is made of one and only one thing or one body which has in itself the nature of the sun and of the moon and also of mercury, which is very true and very justly pronounced by them, especially since it is an indubitable truth.
I find it appropriate here to tell you that you must imprint this argument vividly on your mind and set all your thoughts entirely on these metallic vitriols and remember that I have entrusted you with this knowledge which is that the We can, from Mars and Venus, make a magnificent vitriol in which the three principles meet, which serve to give birth to and produce our stone. You must also know that these three principles or metallic substances, which are spirit, soul and body, are not less also for that reason enclosed, enclosed and lying at the same time and in a mineral vitriol and in a mineral itself, according however to the difference vitriols. For the best, which has shown itself to be the most probable and approved by my experience, is that which is drawn and collected in Hungary; which is of a high degree of color, not much dissimilar to that of a fine blue sapphire, and has little moisture in itself and little bad mineral quality. And the more often thatvitriol is dissolved and coagulated, so much the more does it rise in beauty and in a color so pure and transparent that one can look at it only with astonishment. A certain vitriol thus highly graded is found raw in the same places and places where gold, copper, and iron grow, and is carried in large quantities into foreign countries, so that often times it happens that it is places close to mines it is not found in abundance, but few. And though this vitriol is popularly called only copper water, yet the ancient master philosophers exalted it in praise on account of its unspeakable virtue and dignity, and called it, for this purpose, vitriol or vitriolum, as victriolum or vitriol of victory would say, because its spiritual oil holds and includes in itself the three principles of all victory. When you have covered a mineral of such and such a high degree and which is very clean and pure, which is called, as I said, vitriol, then pray to God that he gives you intelligence and wisdom to continue your purpose. And, after its calcination, put it in a strong and well closed retort. Distill it outside, first on low heat, then on higher heat. Distill [s-]into the snow-white spirit which shall come in the form of a horrible and dreadful exhalation or wind, until it comes no more of itself and is all out . Note that in this wind or white spirit are hidden and enclosed all the three principles, which come out at the same time from their first abode in a way and manner as if invisible. And for this, it is not absolutely necessary to seek these principles in precious things, since by the above means we have a shorter and quite open way to arrive at the secrets of nature and which is before the eyes of a everyone who is able to understand science and wisdom. If, therefore, you now take this white spirit thus extracted by distillation and deliver it from its earthly wateriness, you will find and perceive at the bottom of the glass vessel the treasure and the foundation of all the philosophers of the world before your eyes and in it. your hands, which is unknown to the vulgar; and it is a red oil as heavy as gold or lead and thick as blood and of quite burning and fiery property. It is the true liquid gold of the philosophers, whose assembly is already made by nature alone of three principles which consist of a soul, a spirit and a body. And it is also philosophical gold — except one which is its solution or unbinding — constant and permanent in the fire and not subject to any diruption; or else it evaporates at the same time with the soul and the body; and even neither water nor earth can cause him any harm, especially since he acquired and received his first birth and origin from a celestial water which falls in its time here below on the earth. Now in this aureous water, stripped of its phlegm, is concealed and hidden the true bird or eagle, the king with his celestial splendor and his clarified salt, which three you will find quite naked, enclosed in this one thing of aureous property and will acquire everything your business needs. And therefore take the body of gold which thou hast acquired, and which is exalted above all other gold in dignity and virtue, and put it in its just and proper solution or unbinding, and shall appear unto thee, in certain and assured time, the angel of the sovereign who will announce to you that it is he who is the solver and unraveler and the one who brings to light all the mysteries of the world. Receive it gladly and keep it well, for its quality is more heavenly than earthly. That is why he has a burning desire to be employed or to return once more to the ethereal place above, from whence he also came.
When you have separated this prophet from his matter which he leaves after him, you no longer have any operation to undertake except as my twelve keys teach you by their similarities. But in the matter or substance that he left after him, you must have there and find the clean and immortal soul and then the salt of glory; both of which you must exalt or elevate in the spirit, in order, by this means, to obtain them so that nothing defiled or contrary may come to be mixed up therein. And this operation is done in the same way as I taught you in my Twelve Keys, when I instructed you to draw the soul and the salt from gold by Saturnian water, instead of which also this spiritual mercurial spirit could be employed and put to use with greater advantage and profit. But notice this difference: it is that the salt must be exactly drawn also with the spirit of mercury out of the mercurial body in the same way as the extracted soul; and, on the contrary, the salt of gold is not extracted and acquired with Saturnian water — especially since it is too weak for the body or firm mass of gold — but with water which will be declared to you in the description of the individuals.
Note carefully this difference as greatly important: it is that the salt of vitriol is not so tightly squeezed, nor in so compact a body as is found the body of gold. For vitriol is a body still open and which has not yet come to any metallic coagulation nor passed through any melting or fire. And so such a body has not yet become compact. Hence one's own spirit can enter freely into it, join and fall in love with its fellow man, so that out of it he can follow and be made quite white as snow salt extraction, where on the other hand , as to gold, a sharper and more active mind must pass through it to detach its salt, as you will hear when in the same place I write more fully. Now see, my friend, whoever you are, what inclination I have towards you now and how I have raised my good will towards you; towards you, I say, who would never do the like to me. Meditate well and justly take heed with how integrity and fidelity I turn and uncover all the closures and bands or bars with which all philosophical science is formed, garrotted and bound; which before was never understood in the sense and mind of any man, much less experienced for the work itself, nor brought to light. And yet, nothing at all brought me there, if not the infinite gifts of God, my good will and the love of neighbor. And what my ancestors and predecessors did not do so perfectly has remained with me without their having said it. When, therefore, you have thus separated your three substances or mineral matters from each other and have separated them by certain portions and have separated from them the faeces where they lay hidden, take heed while you lose nothing of any of them by any waste, lessening or reduction of their weight. For if it were, you could not complete or perfect your work without damage and error. Therefore keep and retain all your three substances, each in its own quantity, size, weight and pure quality; otherwise your work will not reach any end as it should be desired.
And this is the purpose for which so many people have erred, even for which they have written and filled so many books. For whatever comes out of our philosophical gold and which has been divided into three substances, it must all come back again and be reduced to a single thing which is a new form or a substance amended and made better, and this, without waste or shrinkage; for nothing must be cut off or removed from it, except only the earthly faeces in which the salt of glory had its abode. And therefore do as I have taught you. Join your matters, approaching, joining and mating the spirit to its body so that such a body may also be untied and elevated into a spiritual and sovereign spirit or virtue. For in this conjunction the body is reduced to spirit and the spirit joins and binds with its body in the depths of its being and substance, so that after the change of all the colors of the world these two mineral substances intermingling and insinuating themselves into each other produce and engender a snow-white body, lifted above all whiteness. Now this is the greatest secret of the world, and a mystery of which there has been so much dispute among the learned scholars and Sages of the universe from the beginning of the world until the present, that one thing which can be touched and seeing may be by demotion brought back to its first matter, and then from such first matter be again, by all-conducting nature, restored and re-established into a new and better clarified being. And thus you created and brought forth into the world the queen of honor and the new-born first daughter of the philosophers, who, after her righteousness and true perfection, is called the white elixir, with which all books are filled.
Now when you have brought your work to this point, you are truly and justly worthy of being received into the company of legitimate philosophers and [you] have brought into your judgment more art and science than any other. have made all the smug others who want to babble much about these hidden things and yet they have never probed the least knowledge of them. And, for that matter, you are rightfully preferable to them, so that with dishonor and shame they deserve [nothing] but to sit at the bottom of your feet and dwell in the darkness of the ignorance, so long as they are made partakers by the nature of its illumination and clarity.
But that you may bring and lead by natural means the new philosophical creature into the true and sovereign perfection — after which your heart has always aspired — by the means which nature has permitted, remember that neither man [ nor] the brute beast cannot turn or move without a living soul and that man loses his soul in this life by temporal death and recommends and sacrifices it to the Almighty, who is he from whom it originally proceeded , and to the mercy and merit of Jesus Christ. After the separation of this soul, its dwelling which is its body remains quite dead then buried and covered in a sepulchre, where it must rot and become in dust or in ashes - misfortune which we have inherited by the fall of our first parents when they were in the garden of the earthly paradise.
But as after such putrefaction we shall all be resurrected and shall come to appear brand new and clarified, and [as] the soul which had left its body shall resume its abode in it, so henceforth there shall be no further separation from the body, from the spirit nor of the soul, especially since the soul will have found a glorified body and, for this, the soul will establish with this body a dwelling place in a union so permanent and perfect that neither the devil nor death will will never again be able to destroy it, being no longer subject to any corruption. And so it is that men who were subject to death will henceforth abide to all eternity like the best and most excellent created creatures of God, which can never happen otherwise than by mortality or separation of spirit, soul and body, and by their union. But let us pray to God for a joyful resurrection. Now this great and lofty example, which is drawn not from human thoughts, nor from any presumption or self-righteousness nor from any ill-founded cajoling, but from the true word of God the Creator — which he declared to us through his prophet Moses —, gives you to know and teaches you what you must now undertake with this newly born creature, so that you can average and attain to his right and perfect birth without any lack or defect, to the praise of the most high Father of light and of mercy, from which all good giving comes and proceeds; who alone bestows upon us his blessings and grants them to us by his grace as being his faithful sons and children, for which we cannot sufficiently thank him at this hour until we enjoy eternal glory.
Do you now want to support your work properly and support it well? Rejoin the new ennobled body with its soul which you have previously removed, so that your compost, being filled in its virtue and in its immense perfection, may appear in its perfected strength and vigour. For then came to be born and was born the red king of all glory, lifted up on earth in a being or substance all of fire and having a body highly clarified above all earthly power, out of which springs and proceeds the fountain of gold, of the water of which if anyone drinks, he will receive renewal of strength in all his limbs, and will be renewed and awakened in him to new life, whereby God is to be eternally praised and blessed.
The increase or multiplication of this very great treasure, together the fermentation of it for the transmutation of metals, everything is given to know as you have already been able to notice (it) above when I wrote gold where I say what to do. So be very careful, for in this there is only one kind of way and procedure from the middle to the end. But still the beginning requires a change. because of the two different materials.
To God the Eternal Prince of heaven and to the throne of grace Jesus Christ be, with mouth and tongue, praise and exaltation from the depths of the heart; may icelui grant us grace, virtue and blessing to use such a treasure as it is necessary, so that after this life we can enter the eternal kingdom of heaven. From what I have now written down this science, it is the love of neighbor that has carried me there. And I have advanced nothing that I have not repeatedly done and learned by my own experience, through the induction and guidance of benign Nature. And so I have become a prognosticator of all natural things, and know certainly when these my present writings shall come to light after my death, as also what shall happen to all my other books, for the subject of which I shall have to suffer and suffer. to endure, even in my tomb, a number of strange judgments; for some will condemn me to the limit and will dedicate me to the devil for having written so clearly and with so much light, and even there will be others who will not willingly want to entirely revise these my writings, thus they will hold them and will describe as trickery, idolatry and diabolical works, as it has already happened before me and still happens today to other enlightened people in nature. Moreover, many will never believe this great operation of the renewal of health against all the faults and failings of human nature, any more than the improvement and amendment of the metals, and will by no means be persuaded that all these beautiful and true effects are found and meet in the thing of the world so inestimable in appearance, whereupon the man of iron and his wife Venus his wife, together with the most resplendent gold, must have and retain the superiority. They will also not be able to believe that this so abject thing is brought and led by science and is aimed at such immense profit nor at such great perfection; because because science is great and, on the contrary, matter is simple and unappealing, that gives so much more doubt and mistrust.
But by the following demonstration I want to give to each one a probable example by which the eyes of those who travel in Emmaus will be opened that they may know that I have written no falsehood, thus discovering the whole thing neatly and clearly. Note that the preparation of the philosopher's stone is taught sub modo preparationis vini. And know that the ancients took pains to describe the preparation of the stone in the manner of the distillation of wine and its spirit, without admitting therein foreign phlegm, which spirit of wine is still called for the day of today among the common artists the true and right secret and hidden spirit of wine or the true essence of wine, where on the contrary one can show with truth and probably make known by a sudden test that such a so-called spirit of wine has in itself still a quantity of harmful and insensible aquosities which are nothing else than its vegetal mercury; for the spirit of wine which is of fire is the right fire and the soul of wine. Now each sulfur has its original mercury hidden in itself, as much as each according to its being and species, the plants according to their species, the animals also according to their species and the minerals also according to their species and their properties. Further, they then taught how one should separate the spirit and the phlegm from each other into two various parts, namely that such a spirit of wine should be poured over calcined tartar to whiteness and then distilled or passed through the beak of the still, in which distillation the right and true hidden spirit or essence of wine is separated and detached from its vegetal mercury, as I want you faithfully and loyally to instruct and teach in my tricks. And from the earth remaining at the bottom of the still they taught to draw the salt and then add it to the rectified spirit, whereby it is fortified and strengthened in its being or substance, so, they say to themselves, that finally the stone of the philosophers can be born from it. But that is strongly contrary to the order of God and of Nature and is as little possible as from a vegetable work to make come from it an animal being and from a mineral a vegetable. Hence, if any learned of the Ancients spoke thus, it must be concluded that it was only by similarity, and truth be said that the work and [the] practice of the stone have been demonstrated and in some way understood under the comparison of the preparation of the spirit and essence of the wine. As therefore all now you have just been taught regarding wine, so our gold — not the common — can in the same way, even by a shorter route, be dissolved, detached, separated and finally brought back to its first origin.
But you must know that this solution and separation was never described by any of the ancient wise philosophers who lived before me and who knew this magisterium; and if they spoke of it, it was not in the open, but only in riddles and figures. That if I do quite the contrary, learn that it is the love of my neighbor which moved me there, which love I bear from the deepest interior of my heart towards all those who will carry the advantage of this magisterium without fraud or mixture of vices, and who will receive all that I offer them, with a faithful heart, [a] right conscience and true knowledge in the fear of God.
And you must here first be informed and take it as certain that our gold, so often denoted and shown, must not be heard and esteemed nor believed by any of those who are our disciples and young scholars in the knowledge of this high mystery, to be this gold melted and completely annealed by Nature. For in the latter is hid the cause of error, together the dissipation of goods as well as the beginning and the end of all that wasted work; although, however, it must be admitted that by the extraction of common gold, as well as by that of other metals, this jewel can be acquired with much profit and advantage, both for some particular wealth and for what affects the health of man, as has been demonstrated to you before. It will be impossible for you, however, to make the universal of the world of such a compact and fixed body of gold without the spirit of mercury, and it will always be impossible for you until the Creator of all things distributes other orders or further means to change his creature according to his will. Now as this is impossible and cannot be done, so it is impossible to act without the creature of God to his salvation and utility. You wait for it with languor; look for it in this one thing that I have told you so many times. And believe me in sovereign truth — which Jesus Christ himself is — that the stone of the philosophers is not so strange, rare and unknown, that it would be common and familiar to many mighty and potentates if God had it. permitted and would have made this provision that it can be acquired from gold alone and that all the three jewels of infinite fixity or virtuous firmness were hidden and enclosed within gold, and that with profit and in addition the stone of it can be prepared and perfected.
But because my intention is not to use prolixity in this book, since without that everyone has their eyes open and is not blinded to seek and to hunt Nature which already makes itself known enough in this book — for he can by true enlightenment and judgment or sound understanding conceive it very well in his mind to fathom his purpose, to command his hands not to pass carelessly over the most important things and do not throw away out of contempt, and so as not to give value to useless things by taking them and using them as a blind man, falling by this means and rushing into the multifold deep pit — I want you to produce and prove the truth , considering you as [a] disciple who learns, who loves art and science, who wishes to suppress all false opinion, who wants to be a true disciple who propagates and imitates and finally who has enough heart to act only with honor and truth. I want you, I say, to prove the truth by this pure and clear proof which follows, and tell you here by this discourse in truth of all truth which you can dissolve and bring back to its first matter, by a very short way. , our gold which is that which has been picked up in a mineral body by nature. Which is done so. Take the mineral spirit which you know well, which is the gold of philosophical secrets in which our mercury, sulfur and salt are enclosed. Pour it on white calcined tartar, little by little or drop by drop, for these two contrary materials will rustle loudly. Let them rest with each other so long that their dispute and debate be ceased and our gold is hidden and made invisible in the vegetable field or in the belly of the stone of wine which is the aforesaid tartar; and then cover your alembic with its cover and [its] well-closed and lute container. And then distil first in the bath, gently and slowly, afterwards stronger and with a good fire, and the bird of Hermes will fly away, which is volatile and fleeing, that is, withdrawing from our gold by a such distillation or sublimation, and [he] will go and sit on the high rafters or pinnacles of the temple to contemplate around him where he wants to go; but it will lodge immediately in the receptacle, which must be clean and very dry. And when you see that it begins to fly slowly, then take your still and, having taken it out of the bath, put it in the hot ashes; give it stronger fire, and the bird will fly faster and more precipitously; hold this fire of ashes so long that it is all gone and that the red dragon hides its redness under a red color which wants to come following a white smoke or otherwise under a sour, burning, nubilely red vapour; so when this dragon wants to start following after his fickle brother, then stop making fire.
Afterwards, when all the drops have fallen out of the screed, take care and squeeze all the water you find into the container like an unsealed treasure of the secret mysteries; for by this way thou hast attained knowledge, [judgment, and [wisdom], together the foundation and desire of all philosophers, and by means of this brief and careful proof thou hast seen in what consists this knowledge and where it is that one must seek, find and encounter this philosophical water; which is not to be esteemed as a simple and common water, but it is the true infallible water of the sky of which I wrote sometimes at the beginning in so many of my writings so often repeated; which water spreads and comes by a spiritual way from the virtues of heaven here below on earth and is that which begins, ends and accomplishes the birth and perfection of all metals; because of which such water was named by the Ancients, mercury; and I call it spirit of mercury.
If now you proceed and do as you should in your work and know how to feed and water this bird with sulfur and metal salt, you will come to the end of a great work which will not be much unlike the great stone. philosophers. Moreover, this spirit of mercury will provide you with and bring you in particular untold benefits and many good events. But you must know and be warned that what I have just said is not the true and right solution of the philosophers, but such a one which only does in individuals what is its duty with however astonishment, and is together a mirror where we see our mercury, our sun and moon shining and appearing, by which we can show in an instant and prove to the incredulous Thomas the blindness of his crass ignorance. But the right solution of the first three masterful and authorizing substances, I reported it to you and described it from the beginning: it is not dispatched so quickly, so it requires time and patience and diligent assiduity for one in do three. What is done only by and in itself without any mixture of strange things, except what is only hidden and lying in this thing; for the fountain of salvation and health, the soul of enlightenment and the salt of the glorified body is all and only in that one thing from one, two and three and is one, two and three that must return to a single and unique subject; which is the golden virtue of all metals, raised above all power by means of the eagle and white body, which are not all found together in not one thing but in this alone, or in this who is closest and allied to him. This thing is held in very high honor by the Sages, learned and learned, but underestimated and shamefully treated by the ignorant blind. But he whose eyes are once opened stops very willingly afterwards at the one truth, and becomes so eager to conceal matter and be silent in the presence of the wicked that night and day he ruminates and thinks of ways how he may hide this matter from the wicked and unworthy. Thus I conclude with this my third book or my third part.
But before I begin the fourth book of particulars, I necessarily want to make some mention of the vitriol, the sulfur and the magnet of the Sage Philosophers. You must therefore know, my friend, by now that my present description touching the essence of vitriol consists properly of the experience of the most exalted and greatest men, the triumph and [the] victory of all, which and the science inherited since the oldest up to me and then reached up to you meet and find their brilliance in the excellent family of this precious mineral. Which is hidden in the earth in the manner and resemblance of a certain mineral salt which is called vitriol, which is ordinarily used for the dyeing of several sheets, being difficult to do without it, because it reaches, approaches, bites and pierces through the fabrics with its transcendent and acute corrosiveness and bite; which vitriolic mineral or salt is distinguished from all kinds of other salts in its qualities and properties; for this mineral salt is greatly marvelous and of a greatly burning and fiery property, as his spirit very well testifies, which is double in him in its nature; which is like a natural miracle, for there are not two spirits in any of the other salts; therefore, this vitriolic salt is like a hermaphrodite among the other kinds of salts. This spirit is white or red, as one asks for it or as one wants to have it. It does a lot in medicine and has effects that are amazing and can perform great thing.
But this vitriolic salt contains in itself a burning sulfur of which all other kinds of salt are deprived. This is why, as I have just mentioned, it also has a much greater effect and can operate and act much more than other salts, and even penetrate into metallic bodies for transmutation; for it helps and serves not only to open them, but also gives them power to operate on others and to make or produce more excellent fruits from them, and this, by its intrinsic heat or its interior ardour. When substances are separated from vitriol by means of fire, then the spirit first goes, passes or rises in form or white smoke. Next comes the spirit of red quality; and in the earth that remains is finally the salt which can sharpen its mercury, which was cast out, and even also its sulfur when conjoined all together. But what remains after the extraction of the salt is a dead earth which no longer has any virtue or efficacy. Let that be enough for you now, you who desire to acquire understanding and knowledge. Justly behold and take heed that the Creator has allowed to be represented before your eyes in the nature of three substances which are now evident and apparent to you.
But know that as you find in the whole body of vitriol three different things, which are spirit, oil and salt, you have likewise in its own spirit - which has been driven out and pushed out of matter without any mixture oil which must pass with it—that is, in its white smoke, three various things which you can extract from it which appear otherwise to the eye only as before in the whole body of vitriol, which should only be recognized and held as a mirror of philosophical science presented to the eyes of men.
If, therefore, thou hast well and adroitly separated from vitriol such a white spirit or white smoke, thou hast in it again three principles, of which alone — all additions excepted — the stone of the philosophers has been uniquely and only made from the beginning of the world until now. For from this well-produced spirit you have cause to expect again, first a white spirit, of clear and transparent form, then an oil of red quality and, then from these two, a crystalline salt. Which three substances after their right mixture give birth to nothing but the great stone of the philosophers; for the white spirit of transparent form is uniquely and only the mercury of all philosophers; but the red oil is the soul, and the salt is the true magnetic or magnetic body, as I have previously instructed you at length. And as now the true aura and argentine tincture is brought to light when it is drawn out of the spirit of vitriol, so from its red oil can reciprocally be made a specific copper tincture. Therefore, these two tinctures are distinguished from each other by a great difference and dissimilarity and are far removed in virtue with regard to the center, notwithstanding that they dwell in the same body and have the same dwelling and a single hostelry. But it doesn't matter; for the Creator thus willed and ordained that these tinctures should be hidden because of those who are unworthy to know them: which you must carefully notice and meditate well if you want to be a philosophical disciple and true imitator of that which you has been taught, for in this knowledge lies enclosed and hidden the aim and goal of all perfection; otherwise one will be weighed down with the burden and heavy weight of great and blameless error, since even the wisdom of the world cannot understand how it can be that the white spirit of vitriol and its next oil or subsequent differ from each other in so much strength and virtue.
Touching the qualities and properties of these two materials of vitriol, learn that purely and simply from the spirit rightly detached and brought into its three principles can come only gold and silver; but oil, nothing but copper, as you will find in the demonstrative test. But learn further, touching that spirit of vitriol, that in its oil which remains after it, copper or iron is found there, and that where either of these two is found, the seed of gold of 'ordinary is not far from it; as also similarly where the seed of gold meets, iron and copper are not far removed from it, because of their attractive magnetine love and virtue, to which as colored spirits they continually bear together invisibly. . And for this Venus and Mars surpass in color all other metals and are dyed with a tincture of gold much more abundantly than they; for in these two metals is found earlier and in much greater abundance the root of color and red tincture than not in gold itself, as my other books more amply demonstrate and teach; which tingent properties are amply found in the mines, principally vitriol which far surpasses the virtue of the metals which I have just cited, because its spirit is all gold and all redness or an uncooked tincture or, if you will, all flood; for I say unto thee truly, which God himself is, that this shall not be otherwise. Now such a spirit must, as has been said before, be divided into certain various and different parts, as into a spirit, a soul, and a body. The spirit is the water of the philosophers, the soul is sulphur, and the body is salt; which, although they are visibly separated from each other, however, for what they bear a great invariable and inevitable friendship, they can never be radically separated, as will be clearly seen in the composition which will follow below. For, because of the various mixtures of these substances, one receives the virtue of the other easily and willingly and, like a magnet, draws it to itself with desire and greed; and finally all are reduced by their conjunction and union into a single substance made better than they were during their unbinding and separation.
What I have just said is the beginning, the middle and the end or the goal of all the philosophical science in which has been found and invented wealth and health with length of life. And one could more easily say and prove by the very effect that this spirit is an essence and a being of vitriol, seeing that both the spirit and the oil are distinguished and discerned from afar; for they have never been united in the vitriolic root, since the spirit first separates from them and then, after the spirit, comes the oil; so that each of them can be acquired and received separately. And this spirit of fire might more properly be called an essence, a sulphur, and a substance of gold, seeing that it is found such in its quality [and] aureous property; and though he is a spirit, yet he lies hidden and lying in the body of vitriol. Now this water or spirit of gold, which is driven out and pushed out of the vitriol, has its sulfur and its magnet contained within it. His brimstone is soul and burning fire, yet not consuming; but the magnet is its own salt, which salt in the union and assemblage of the said substances retains within itself sulfur and mercury, and [they] all unite so closely together that neither joy nor trouble can render them into no way separable. First, in this spirit of mercury, not greatly cooked and therefore almost all raw, is untied and extracted a spirit by gentle and not harsh heat. Afterwards, with this spirit thus liberated, the sulphurous soul draws out and extracts itself, according to the art and the magnetine way. This being done, then the salt finds itself embedded and hidden in the earth whence it is drawn out in the same way with the mercurial spirit as with its own magnet. Thus one is always the magnet of the other and [they] bear such love to each other that one cannot imagine a greater one. And, in this operation, the last and the middle one are extracted by the first, as thus be they are born in the same way, whence likewise they have their first being and origin. In this separation and unbinding it is the spirit or mercury which is the first magnet, testifying to its magnetizing virtue towards the sulfur and the souls which it attracts and brings to itself as being their magnet.
Then this spirit being again absolved and made free, that is to say detached from the soul by means of distillation, it again resumes its magnetizing virtue towards the salt which it secondarily withdraws from the earth. dead, so that after separation from the spirit the salt appears and is found in its purity. But when one has continued the operation and procedure until the end and one has observed the rules and measures well, one undertakes and comes to composition. One therefore puts the spirit and the salt to cook together in the philosophical furnace and then one sees all the manner in which this celestial spirit acts and works magnetically to attract to itself its own salt; for it dissolves and loosens it in the time of forty days, so that it becomes all like water, as the spirit itself is, and likewise the said salt was before its coagulation, in which solution and destruction appears then the greatest and thickest blackness and darkness that was ever seen on the earth. But when after the change of this blackness a shiny and resplendent white color appears, the game is really reversed; for the salt which had just been loosened and was once runny and watery is now transformed into a dry matter and a magnet which, in this solution and alteration, grasps its own spirit, which is the spirit of mercury, and draws it to itself, like a magnet by its strength and virtue, and hides and shelters it in its belly in the form of a dry, clear and beautiful body. And thus this salt carries the spirit when and it by a true union in the highest coagulation and the most constant fixity that can be said and this, by the only moderate continuation of the fire and temperate degree of it. When, therefore, the king of the white crown is thus born, and the exhaustion of all moisture has been perfected, and brought or rendered into a condition of perfect dryness and fixity, there appears nothing but earth and of water, in which the other elements are imperceptibly hidden, though these first two elements retain the upper hand or dominion. And though the spirit has remained on the ground and can never again be seen in its aquatic form, it does not leave in this newborn double body to remain still in its virtue and magnetine property, for as soon as after its white firmness his soul, which had been taken away and reserved for him, is given back and added to him, he draws it to him again like a magnet and joins, unites and binds with it, so that they all come to be lifted up into the highest high color and redness of the world, with clarity and transparent light, pure and sharp. This is how you briefly have a clear instruction about vitriol, sulfur and magnet. Pray to God that he grant you the grace to hear everything properly, use it worthily and do not forget your poor neighbour.
To conclude this speech of mine, I want to make this again depend on it in a few words, putting before your eyes a natural proof with which you can immediately knock down the smug who claims to be wise and snatch his spear or shield from him. Look therefore now and know that one can make a particular vitriol of each of all the metals, but among others and especially of Mars and Venus, which however are quite hard metals and approaching the fixed ones. Here is a reduction of a metal into a mineral, because the minerals become metals; also were all the first mineral metals. Therefore, minerals are [the] next matter to metals and not, however, the first. Also learn that several other reductions can be made of vitriol, such as driving out a spirit by virtue of fire; then when this spirit has been driven out, it is therefore a reduction of a mineral into a spiritual essence, because each mineral spirit retains in its reduction the metallic property. But yet this spirit is not yet the first matter of metals. Who would now be so gross and absurd that they could not hear or believe further that by these reductions and versions this mineral spirit could not also reach and be reduced to first matter and ultimately be the seed of all metals and even of all the minerals, however there is no need to destroy the metals since in the minerals we find their seeds all bare and congealed; which mineral seeds are easily extracted from it to use it for the reduction of metals. Ah! Eternal God! what think or what can think these people who are blind and insane? Hey! it is entirely easy work and for even a child. One comes from and proceeds from the other, all the same like good wheat which can finally be easily baked into bread. But the world is blind and will be until the end. So I want to refrain from writing more and I commend you to the Sovereign.
The Last Testament of Brother Basil Valentin of the Order of Saint Benedict or the Operations and Tours of hand by which is taught how metals and minerals can usefully be prepared.
Take one part of pure and fine gold melted down and passed through antimony three times, and six parts of quicksilver purified and passed through leather beforehand. Make an amalgam out of it, and grind in it common sulfur twice as heavy as the amalgam. Put this mixture into a test pot of earth under a muffle, stirring it gently and continually with a bent iron rod; and take care that it does not heat up too much, [lest] lest the matter bind together or hold itself too compact; and stir until the gold is reduced to lime like a beautiful yellow powder or flower. And then you will have a well-prepared golden lime.
Afterwards, take saltpetre and armoniac salt, a part of each, and mix them with half a part of pebbles, the whole into a subtle powder, and distil them into a water which will distil them very strong. But be aware that to make this etching requires great industry and special application of the hand, otherwise it would not succeed though with great danger. He who is practiced and experienced in chemical operations should doubtless find the method of this distillation without my instruction, for it is easy enough to understand and it is not proper to declare all things plainly and distinctly to the dull and ignorant who do not have taken no pains, by their labors and sweats, in the exercise of chemistry. But however, because I have promised, and this more than once, that I will not hide anything from the manual operation, that is why I will fully teach you everything to do. Take, then, a good lutee retort which can retain spirits and is not porous, having the same shape as common retorts, except that in the upper part of its back there must be a high straight channel, a good span long and wide in such a way that it contains the circuit of two fingers all around. Put it in the distilling furnace, and let this furnace remain open at the top and let the channel which is on the back of the retort be straight up high. Adapt to this retort a large container, which is firmly sealed. Then make a fire underneath which is at first low, then stronger until the retort begins to glow red. So take a spoonful of your mixed material; pour it into the retort through the channel that [you] will quickly plug with a damp cloth. Then the spirits come quickly noisily into the receptacle; and when these spirits are stale, pour another spoonful of matter into them, and continue so long as the matter is all distilled. Let all the spirits sit well until they are reduced to water. And thus you will have a very strong dissolving water, which is called Gehenna water, by means of which the prepared gold lime and even the raw gold in sheets is dissolved in a moment into a yellow solution, beautiful and thick, as I mentioned above in the third book; and note that this water is none other than the very one of which I instructed you in my second key. This water has this property and virtue not only of effectively dissolving the gold, but also of making it volatile and passing it through the still. And then one can extract the soul of gold out of its body thus broken, opened and shattered.
But know that common salt gives the same spirit as armoniacal salt, provided it is pushed as I will teach you below. And if you take three parts of this spirit of salt and add to it one part of the spirit of nitre, then you will have water of greater virtue and much better than the said water of armoniacal salt; for this spirit dissolves the gold much more quickly and is not so corrosive as that of the armoniacal salt, causing the gold thus dissolved to pass through the still, making it volatile and more ready to let its soul be extracted. Therefore, use one or the other of these two waters, as you please choose, taking the one which will be the easiest for you to do.
Now take, of your prepared golden lime, one part, and of either water, three parts. Put it all in a curcurbite covered with its firmly sealed cover and hold it on hot ashes, letting the gold dissolve there. Gently withdraw the solution and pour over what will not be dissolved three times as much of your water, continuing in this way as long as all your gold is dissolved; cool and separate the faeces; then pour all your solutions into a clean cucurbit and strained from its still or screed. Leave to digest in a bain-marie at low heat for one day and one night. If a solution makes faeces, separate them as above, then put it back to digest in a bain-marie for nine days and nine nights. Next, gently distill the water until your solution remains in the consistency of oil in the cucurbit. Spill the water that [you] have just distilled onto your solution and continue this distillation and pouring of water as long as it comes out or distills weak, tasteless and without strength. But the vessels must always be well-read.
Finally put on your solution, which is in the consistency of oil, new water that has not yet been used, and digest it well closed by a day and a night; then put your still in the sand and also distill this water until thick as before. Then, having heated the water that [you] have just distilled, put it back on your solution in the still that [you] will read again well. Then distill while continuing to distill, and put the water back on the solution until all your gold has passed into liquor through the still. Take care, however, that at each distillation you always give the fire one degree stronger. When, therefore, your gold has completely turned to water, then distill the phlegm very slowly in a bain-marie until the consistency of thick oil, then put the cucurbit in a cool place and transparent crystals will form there, which are the true vitriol. gold that you will remove and set aside, and [you] will redistill the rest of the remaining solution in a bain-marie, until a thick enough consistency that [you] will put back in a cool place to let crystals form in quantity . Continue distilling or evaporating the remaining solution until no more crystals form. Take all these crystals of gold and dissolve them in common distilled water, then add to them well purged quicksilver, three times as much as the crystals or vitriol of gold weigh; stir and agitate everything for some time. Several, colors will appear, and the gold will fall to the bottom in amalgam and the water will clear. Gently evaporate this amalgam in a pot, always stirring it with a wire, and you will be left with a beautiful golden powder of purple color and a beautiful red like scarlet; which powder immediately dissolves in distilled vinegar in a red color like blood. When you have this powder you must extract its tincture or its soul with the spirit of wine prepared by means of the spirit of common salt, so that both are changed and converted into great sweetness, which is an artifice of great consequence in this operation; and by this means you will have the tint of gold as high in color as a transparent ruby. And the rest of the gold remains in a white body which can no longer give or communicate tincture to any spirit of wine.
But note that this spirit of wine sharpened by that of salt cannot be well done without special instruction or teaching. And if this spirit is not gentle, it will do nothing worthwhile in this operation and will not be able to extract tincture. Therefore I will teach you here, according to my promise, as a mystery, what you must do to acquire a sweet spirit of salt. But take care to proceed well in its operation or preparation, because it requires a subtle application of the hand and a very expert artist. Otherwise this ill-prepared mind would only attract a green or weak color instead of a red color. So diligently notice the following preparation.
Take excellent spirit of salt well dephlegmated and deprived of all wateriness, and let this spirit of salt be extracted and drawn in the manner and manner which I will teach you at the end of my last part. Take therefore of this spirit of salt, a part; add to it half a part of very good and supremely well rectified spirit of wine, which does not contain in itself any phlegm or any vegetal mercury; but let it be pure sulfur of wine, which also be prepared as I will show you in my last part. The whole being put in a curcurbite, lute it well with its yoke and container. Distill everything together over a fairly high heat, so that nothing remains at the bottom of the curcurbite. Take all that has distilled and weigh it and add to it again half of its weight of spirit of wine, and distill the whole as before at higher heat. Weigh again and do so up to three times, and each time distill it stronger. Then put all your distillation, in a well-closed and sealed cucurbite, in putrefaction for a fortnight or so long as the whole thing has become completely soft by a very slow heat from the bain-marie. And so the spirit of salt is prepared by that of wine, and has lost its acrid flavor, so that it is fit to draw its tincture from gold.
Now take your powder of gold which is prepared in the color of crimson red like a ruby and pour into it your spirit of salt sweetened by the spirit of wine, and let it float two fingers' breadths. Digest with slow heat until the spirit of salt becomes tinged with a strong red color; then withdraw by inclination this dyed spirit and put another on your gold. Fight the vessel well and digest as before with slow heat until the spirit is dyed very red, and continue in this way until the color or the tincture of the gold is all extracted and the body of the gold remains entirely white at the bottom of the still in the form of quicklime. Set aside this white gold, for it contains in itself the salt of gold, which has much power and virtue in medicine, as will be said hereafter.
Now take all your tinted spirits and distill them together at a very slow heat in a bain-marie to separate the phlegm from them, and you will find at the bottom of the still a very red powder, beautiful and agreeable, which is the true tincture or sulphur. gold for human health. Soften this gold tincture well with rainwater, and thus it will become very beautiful, subtle and delicate. Then take this sulfur of gold and also as much of the sulfur of Mars extracted as I will teach you immediately hereafter when I speak of Mars. Grind these two sulfurs together and put them in a neat still. Pour as much spirit of mercury - the procedure or operation of which I taught you in the third part or book of this mine testament, and which I begged you to keep secret in good conscience, even on your soul, salvation and bliss — and that it floats two fingers high so that the matter can dissolve in it; and let them dissolve over low heat until you can no longer see anything at the bottom and until your matter has completely changed into golden water of the color of a ruby. Distil the whole thus conjoined and it will be one thing, as it came or begot from one thing. Keep your material in a well-closed vessel so that nothing evaporates. Then add to it six times as much weight of pure moonlime and cupelle, which has been precipitated with clean common salt, and then softened and dried. This mixture being put in a vessel very well fixed, fix it by fire until nothing rises any more, but that the whole remains fixed at the bottom of the vessel. Then take this fixed matter and melt it in a crucible in a stove with strong heat until it is very well melted. And so you have conjoined the husband with the wife who will be converted into gold of a sublime degree. With which you will render immortal graces to God.
Now, it will not be out of place for me to say here, instructing my disciple, that this operation is of great utility, that great artifice is required to do it well and to extract properly that soul or sulfur of gold, making it appear in its perfection; then how it must be made drinkable so that it gives man great health, strength and virtue, to what also belongs the salt of gold which is greatly useful and effective there, and how this must be completed. Therefore, I will mention it in my last book. Here, therefore, I shall content myself with teaching you only what you must do to divide the white body of gold, so that you may draw from it its salt and its quicksilver.
Here is the practice: take the body of gold, after you have drawn its soul from it, and gently reverberate it every half hour, so that it becomes more corporeal or compact. Afterwards, pour on it reverberated salt well rectified, strong and corrosive honey water. Digest gently for ten days, and this water or spirit of honey will draw the salt of your gold to itself. And when all the said salt will be extracted, distill all the spirit in a bain-marie, and the golden salt will remain for you at the bottom of the still. Soften this salt well with common distilled water, which you will distil over it, adding new [water] to it by repeated distillations, as long as it is well softened. Then clarify it with spirit of wine. And then you will have the golden salt, of which you will know in its place its excellent and powerful virtues for the medicine of the human body.
Take whatever matter you have left after the honey water has extracted the salt. Pour upon this matter the spirit of tartar, which spirit will hereafter be described for good, because it is worthy and excellent for medicine. Digest them together for a month, then push the whole thing through a glass retort into cold water. And you will have the quicksilver of current gold, which many scholars seek, but in vain. Know that besides Nature contains in itself other marvels. It is that the white body of gold which has been stripped of its soul can again be dyed and reduced to very pure gold, which is a secret known to few people. However, I want to teach it to you and reveal it so that you can say that I left you a complete and perfect work, which I declare to you in the name of the Creator.
You will no doubt have observed and retained secretly in your heart what I told you of the universal stone of the philosophers with infallible truth in my third book, where I taught you, in narrow silence, that this universal stone lies and consists only in the white spirit of vitriol and that all the three principles cannot be found elsewhere than in this one white spirit from which they must be drawn and extracted, and reduce each of them to a certain order or state. In order therefore that you give the tincture to the white body of the gold which remains to you and that you reduce it once again to gold so as not to lose anything, take for this subject the sulfur of the philosophers, which according to its order is the second principle which has been extracted by the spirit of mercury. Pour from it sulfur on the white body of the king. Digest in a bain-marie for the space of a month, then fix the whole thing over an ash fire and finally over a sand fire, until a fixed brown powder appears to you; which you will melt with a good flux made of lead, and it will melt or liquefy into good gold as pure as it was before, without it being diminished in color and virtue or there being anything wrong with it.
But note that, to perform the operation in question here, the white body of gold must not be stripped of its salt, which I mentioned in the Repetition of my Twelve Keys to which I refer you.
Moreover, one can by another means make gold a very beautiful and transparent vitriol of which here is the practice which follows.
Take good aqua regia made by salt armoniac, one pound. This aqua regia is done like this. Have a pound of good common aqua, and dissolve in it four ounces of salt armonia, and it will be aqua regia; which you will rectify so many times that it no longer leaves any faeces at the bottom of the still and that it rises or distils nice and clear. Take then after gold in thin leaves, which has been previously passed through antimony. Put this gold in a cucurbit and pour into it as much of your aqua regia as will be needed to dissolve it; and, when the solution is done, pour into it a little oil of tartar or salt of tartar dissolved in common water, which is the same thing, and it will make a noise; which being ceased, pour back again the same oil of tartar, continuing in this way until all your gold which was dissolved has precipitated to the bottom of the vessel and nothing more can precipitate from it, so that let the aqua regia become quite clear; which being done, pour this water out over your gold or gold lime; then you will soften it ten or twelve times with common clear water; and when your golden lime will have settled well, remove the water by inclination and dry this golden lime in the air where the rays of the sun do not give or shine, and take care not to dry it. fire; for as soon as this golden lime feels the slightest heat, it ignites it and brings much harm, for the volatile part of it flies away with such force and impetuosity that it is impossible to prevent it . But to prevent this lime from igniting, pour distilled vinegar over it and boil it in large quantities, constantly stirring your golden lime so that it does not stick to the bottom of the vessel, for example. the space of twenty-four hours; and so she will lose her fart or noise; take good care, however, that harm does not happen to you here through any negligence. Afterwards remove by inclination the vinegar from your golden lime and, having softened it, dry it well. This lime or powder of gold without any corrosive can be distilled by the still by some particular means in a red liquor and transparent like blood and very beautiful; what we can consider to be a great marvel, because it joins and unites very willingly with the spirit of wine; after which, by a certain means of coagulation, the whole is fixed in a body of gold quite easily. But do not divulge to the vulgar such great secrets or mysteries. And as I now instruct you by this clear and manifest doctrine of mine, be also on your side very careful and desirous to keep in silence all the mysteries or secrets which I have here given you in writing, and beware of give any knowledge of it to anyone; for otherwise you would be a child of the evil spirit and reduced under its power in all places of the universe. So listen carefully to my following words, because I want to make you partakers of this great secret and commit it to your conscience or sincerity. So take some good spirit of wine which is very good and perfectly rectified, on which you will pour a few drops of spirit of tartar; then take a part of your gold powder, to which you will add three times its weight of flowers of common sulfur very well made and subtle. Mix them both together by grinding them. Put this mixture in a jar under a muffle. Light it on a moderate fire and, the sulfur having evaporated, you will be left with a powder of gold, which you will throw red with fire into your aforesaid spirit of wine. Then dry this gold powder or lime in a slow heat; then mix in it again three times its weight of flowers of sulfur and evaporate as before all the sulfur under a muffle, and redden the lime or gold powder that you have left over more strongly and then throw it all red into your said spirit of wine. And continue this operation up to six times, and finally this golden lime will have become light and soft like somewhat firm butter. Dry this gold lime lightly, as it liquefies and melts easily.
So take a lute retort with a pipe on the back. Put a container well in it, then place it empty in a strong pot filled with sand and give it first a slow fire and then a stronger one, until the retort begins almost to redden in the sand. Then pour your mollified golden lime through the pipe; but let it be well dried and slightly heated beforehand, otherwise your retort, which is of glass, would break; and plug the pipe tightly. And suddenly will come red drops in the container. Continue the fire in this degree until nothing rises or distills and no more drops fall into the vessel. But note that it is necessary to have put in the recipient of very good spirit of wine which is very well rectified, three times as much weight as your gold lime, so that the drops of gold fall there.
Then take that spirit of wine into which the golden drops have fallen and put it in a hermetically sealed pelican and circulate it for a month; and it will become a stone red as blood, melting and flowing in the fire like wax.
Grind this red stone into a powder with three times as much silver lime; melt them together in a strong crucible; then your material being cooled, dissolve it in aquafortis and a black powder will precipitate; which you will melt in a crucible and you will find as much fine gold as the golden lime, the spirit of wine and half the silver lime weighed together; but the other half of the silver lime remains undyed and can be used as before. If you come to the end of these operations, give thanks to God; but if you miss it, do not impute the fault to me, for I cannot instruct you more clearly. Now when you want to make the golden vitriol, take your golden lime after it has lost its fart by the distilled vinegar and it has been softened; and pour over it this good spirit of common salt mixed with the spirit of saltpetre, which spirit of saltpetre is made like that of tartar; and the gold will dissolve in it. This being done, distil your solution until it has a film, then leave it in a cool place, and a beautiful and pure vitriol of gold will be made. Put it aside, having withdrawn the rest of your solution, which you will still distill until the pellicle and put it back in a cool place and you will still have vitriol of gold. And keep going until all your dissolution is consumed. If now you wish to make the stone of the philosophers and of our ancient master philosophers with this golden vitriol, as some ignoramuses claim today, take care if your purse is well furnished; for you must state to prepare ten or twelve pounds of such vitriol, and then you will be able to overcome it. But vitriol from Hungary, or some other from the mountains, will suffice for your purpose. Moreover, you can extract from this golden vitriol its sulfur and its salt with the spirit of wine, which is very easy and does not need to be described or explained.
Take quicklime and common salt, of each equal parts; calcine them both in a pot, in a strong fire of a furnace with wind until reddening, so that they are incorporated well. Then draw all the salt out of your lime with hot water; and when it has extracted everything, evaporate it. Add to this salt equal weight of new quicklime. Calcine as before and extract the salt. Do this up to three times, and your quicklime salt will be well prepared. So take some separated moonlime and layer it with your quicklime salt in a glass curcurbite. Pour very good strong water into it, which is made of equal parts of vitriol and saltpeter, and let it float a little; then distil the strong water, doing this three times, and distil strongly at the last time so that the matter flows and flows well into the retort. After, remove your moon and you will find it beautiful and transparent like ultramarine. This moon having been thus prepared, pour into it strong distilled vinegar; digest in the fire and the vinegar will be tinted with a blue color, transparent like a sapphire, and will attract to itself the tincture of the moon; which must be separated from the salt which has also dissolved in the vinegar, and this separation is done by ablution and softening with fresh water. And then you will find the brimstone of the moon, beautiful and clean.
Take from this sulfur of the moon one part, from the soul or sulfur extracted from gold [one] half part, and from the spirit of mercury six parts, or else four times as heavy as these two sulphurs. Put the whole thing together in a well closed and lute cucurbite and leave it in digestion over gentle heat until a transparent brown liquor or a brownish red is made from it and until it is completely distilled by the still, in such that nothing remains or remains at the bottom of the still. Take this liquor and pour it over the matter that has remained to you from your moon from which you will have extracted the sulphur. Fight the ship well. Digest in the fire of ashes, to coagulate and fix your matter, the space of forty days or until you see that the body of your moon is entirely dry, beautiful and brown and does not rise and evaporate. nothing. So melt your moon over a good melting fire until it no longer smokes and throw it into an ingot. And so all the substance of your moon will be changed and transmuted into soft, malleable gold. I have already mentioned this particular moon elsewhere, namely in the Repetition of my Twelve Keys, where I said that the spirit of salt can also dissolve the moon and destroy it, so that one can make of it a drinkable moon, of which drinkable moon I will treat in my last part where it must take place between the medicines. But know also that one can proceed further with the moon and that it is necessary to divide and destroy it as it follows. So when you have noticed that all the sulfur of the moon has been extracted and that the distilled vinegar no longer wants to be tinted at all and that you can no longer taste any salt in it vinegar, dry the lime that will remain to you from the moon. and put it in a curcurbite, then pour into it corrosive honey water as you did with gold. However, this honey water must be clear and must not produce faeces at all. Digest in the fire for four or five days and this water will attract to itself the salt of the moon, which you can know when you see that the water turns white. All the salt of the moon being thus extracted, distil the honey water; soften the moon salt, to remove all corrosion, with [some] fresh water by several distillations; then clarify your moon salt with [the] spirit of wine. But as for the matter which remained to you from your moon after having extracted the salt from it, soften and dry it, then pour over it that of the spirit of tartar and digest it for the space of fifteen days. And after, you will proceed as you did with gold. And by this means you will have the lunar mercury. The aforesaid moon salt also contains particular virtues and operations or effects for the health of man, of which I will inform you similarly in some other place.
But as regards the excellent virtues which are contained in the salt and sulfur of the moon, be careful to understand them well by the following practice, which, although brief, is always true.
Take the blue colored sulfur which you have extracted from your moon and clarified or rectified with [spirit of wine; then, having put it in a matrass, pour into it twice as much of the spirit of mercury made of the white spirit of vitriol as I taught you in its place. Also, take the moon salt that you have extracted and clarified and put it in another matrass; pour into it three times as much of the aforesaid spirit of mercury. Fight both matras well. Digest everything in [the] gentle heat of the bain-marie for eight days and eight nights. But be warned that care must be taken to see that nothing is wanting of the aforesaid sulfur or salt, for you must use them in the same quantity or weight as you extracted them from the moon.
After you have thus digested them for eight days, put them both together in a single matrass which you will seal hermetically. Digest over a gentle ash fire, until both are dissolved together and then reduced to a white, clear coagulation; finally fix them by the degrees of fire and the matter will become as white as snow. And by this means you will have the white tincture, which you can animate, fix and bring to the highest degree of redness with the soul of gold dissolved and made volatile; you can also ferment it at the end and increase it infinitely by adding the spirit of mercury.
And note that this practice can also be done with gold, namely with its sulfur and its salt. But if you have come to know well the first motive of these metals, then it will not be necessary for you to destroy the metals to do this work of them, for you can do it and accomplish it in sufficient perfection by means of their first essence.
Take red oil of vitriol or oil of sulfur, one part, and common fountain water, two parts. Mix them together and dissolve steel filings in them; the solution being clear and heated on the fire, filter it through gray paper, then evaporate it gently up to a third. Afterwards, put the glass vessel where it will be in some cool place and it will form beautiful crystals which will be as sweet as sugar; which are the true vitriol of Mars. Remove the rest of the solution by inclination and evaporate it further, then leave it in a cool place, and you will still have many crystals which you will all redden slightly under a mitten by continuously agitating them with a wire, and you will have thus a beautiful purple-colored powder, over which you will pour distilled vinegar, and it will attract the soul of Mars by the gentle heat of the bain-marie.
Remove the dyed vinegar by inclination and distill it; and the soul of Mars will remain with you, which you will sweeten very well and thus you have the soul of Mars prepared; which being conjoined and united with the soul of gold by means of the spirit of Mercury, by digesting them all together there is made of it a medicine which tints the moon in gold, as I taught you in particular of gold. For salt it is drawn like that of Venus.
Take as much as you want from Venus. Make vitriol of it as is customary, or else take excellent verdigris from the druggists, who will serve you in the same way, and grind it into a powder and pour in good distilled vinegar. Digest on fire until the vinegar becomes green, beautiful and transparent; then withdraw it by inclination and put another on the matter remaining at the bottom of the vessel; and continue this by reapplying vinegar and removing it until it no longer stains and the verdigris material remains all black at the bottom. Mix together all your tinted vinegar and distill it until completely dry, otherwise a black vitriol will be formed. And then you will find a verdigris very well purified, which you will grind again and pour into it juice which is expressed from green grapes, that is to say verjuice. Digest with gentle heat and the juice will tint, beautiful, clear and transparent, with a green color like emerald; and [he] draws to himself the red tincture of Venus which gives a beautiful color for painters and serves for other uses. When this juice no longer wants to be dyed, put together all that is dyed and gently distil it to half, then put it in a cool place and a very beautiful vitriol will be formed of which, when you have enough quantity, you will have enough material to make the reduction and then the stone of the Sages, if by chance you were in doubt of being able to achieve such a high mystery by another vitriol.
I spoke parabolically above of this preparation in my book of the Twelve Keys in the chapter of wine vinegar, where I said that common vinegar or nitrogen is not the true matter of our stone, but that our nitrogen or first matter must be prepared by nitrogen; common and by wine, which is a juice drawn from green grapes, as well as by several other waters. These are the waters by which the body of Venus can be broken and reduced to vitriol. Observe this well and you will be delivered from many cares and thoughts.
But above all notice that the universal way must and can be made with this vitriol from Venus in the same way that I taught you about the universal vitriol and the common vitriol from Hungary in my third part, and even with the vitriol from Mars. But in order that you may work particularly with Venus, you must know that you can usefully accomplish your purpose if you draw from the vitriol of Venus its red oil and dissolve Mars therein, and reduce this dissolution to crystals. , as I showed you in the March chapter. For in this dissolution and coagulation Venus and Mars unite closely into an excellent vitriol, which if you rub [it] under a muffle into a most beautiful powder and if afterwards you digest it with distilled vinegar and draw the tincture as long as it can be extracted, then you will have the soul of Mars and Venus joined together in a double tincture.
Therefore, because of this double power, if you add to this double soul of Mars and Venus the soul of gold according to the weight only above mentioned and the double of their weights of lime of the moon, you will be able to fix them as I taught you in particular of Mars and gold. But note that it is necessary to add to it twice their weight of spirit of mercury according to one or the other particular which are only one and the same thing. For the salt of Venus, draw it thus: when the vinegar no longer tints [in] green, take the material which remains, dry it and pour honey water over it. Digest in gentle heat for five or six days and the salt will dissolve in it. Distill this solution; clarify the remaining salt with [the] spirit of wine, and you will have a perfect salt of Venus for medicine.
Most of the world believe that Saturn or lead is a base thing and a worthless metal. But even though it is often used for very abject things, yet if we knew its interior well, we would use it for very useful and excellent things. Now, all the more so since I have proposed and resolved in this treatise and sleight of hand to clarify all my previous writings and to leave this one to posterity as a testament worthy of memory, by which the simplest and least intelligent can know and hear what I have written down before, having said nothing that I am not ready and willing to bear witness to it in person even after the resurrection of my flesh, because I have introduced no falsity — on the contrary, I have done more than was necessary, for I have declared here and there in my writings all that other philosophers have hidden under silence. I have therefore proposed to manifest and give in writing, on a sufficient basis, all the particulars of which I have made mention above in several places where I have described them obscurely and in a philosophical manner. For the rest, I gladly advise in my last old age whoever will have the happiness to enjoy this last declaration of mine to take care carefully to keep it secret under the candor and integrity of his own conscience.
For he must believe that the knowledge of these instructions and manifestations of mine has not come to him except by the counsel, [the] providence and singular will of God, the Creator of all creatures, and that this light which leads to the true Light must not be published to anyone, principally to those who are unworthy of such great and precious mysteries and who do not love their Creator faithfully, nor with a pure and pure heart. This is why it is necessary that he who will enjoy this declaration converts to God with a penitent and constant heart and that he guards and preserves this precious deposit which I cordially entrust to him and that he keeps in secret all my writings, both those included in my previous books and those that I will highlight below.
I want now to begin with the Saturn, without any double meaning word, neither without obscurity nor enigma, as I have already done concerning the preceding metals; for in those who follow there will also be found the truth. Now it is a very probable and demonstrable thing that Saturn is not only reputed by astronomical invention to be the principal regent and governor of the heavens, but also that the stone which is the balm of all the noble philosophers and of this valley of miseries, as also of this deciduous life, draws and takes its principle and its coagulation only from the black color of the planet of Saturn, which all the others follow and imitate in all that they produce of good and best; for the splendor of this planet of Saturn, which is incorruptible and immortal, illuminates and illuminates the whole firmament of heaven. But yet it seems I ought to say something of the birth of Saturn and how it holds and takes its origin and principle from the macrocosm as from its own earth, however, because I have often mentioned having discussed it in several ways in all my other books, I have not found it appropriate to speak of it further here, especially as it would not bring any advancement to the purpose of my disciples and that this my book would stretch too long if I wanted to describe all that could be said of Saturn - from which I abstain for the present - having no other intention now than to declare and bring to light with truth and sincerity the things which have previously been obscure and unknown, for want of having known this declaration or instruction of mine.
So you should know that in no way should Saturn be rejected and despised because of its outward appearance. But it will sufficiently reward the labors and pains of him who is inquisitive and fond of science, if he works philosophically with him by a true procedure or practice. That is why Saturn should be considered rather a lord than not a servant. And so it is to be loved and honored not only because it does wonders for the health of men, but also because by its means the metals are subscribed and made much better.
Now here is the preparation of Saturn. Take white lead or red minium or yellow lead, that is to say litharge, because one is worth the other. However, white lead is always more excellent than the others, because it has been found by the end of the work that it is better and preferable to the others. But it is rarely found pure and sincere among druggists. This is why I advise the Artist for greater safety that he destroys and prepares the Saturn himself to make pure white lead. Now the practice for doing it well according to ordinary custom is twofold or threefold. I describe here the best method as it follows.
Take excellent pure and tender lead as much as you like and forge it under the hammer into fine laminae like a very thin lead coin; because the more it is untied the better. Suspend these strips in a large terrine [of] glass or sandstone on strong common vinegar in which is dissolved good harmonic salt sublimated two or three times with equal weight of common salt. Then cover the vessel or terrine well so that nothing can be exhaled. Digest over a fire of slightly hot ashes so that the spirits of the vinegar or armoniac salt can rise above and touch the lead laminae. And you will always find, on the tenth or twelfth day, a tender and delicate ceruse attached to your laminae, which you will remove and detach with a hare's foot or with a feather duster. And keep doing this until you've done enough whitewash. But if you are assured of recovering by buying good and fair white lead for this operation, you will exempt yourself from the trouble of doing it yourself.
Take as much of this ceruse as you want and put it in a large curcurbite. Then have strong vinegar passed or ground a few times through the gray paper; and after the last filtration, fortify it with the sixth part of the spirit of common salt which is without phlegm; then distil them together, and the vinegar will be well prepared. Pour this vinegar prepared on your white lead, good quantity; then having closed your curcurbite with a well-luted blind screed, put it on the fire of mediocre ashes to make your matter digest, by shaking it or stirring it often, and you will see that in a few days your vinegar will begin to dye it yellow and it will become sweetish. So take out that inclination-dyed vinegar and put some more on your matter. Digest as before, and in a few days your vinegar will tint as did the first. Continue like this until the third time and that will be enough. What remains of your white lead in the bottom of the curcurbite is a rather misshapen material. Take all your dyed or colored vinegar and strain it so that it becomes more beautiful and transparent, yellow in color; and when it is so filtered, put it in a large curcurbite and distil or evaporate two-thirds of it in a bain-marie, and the other third that you will have left is of a color that tends towards red. Put and soak your curcurbite in cold water and the crystals of Saturn will form much sooner. And when they have frozen, remove them with a wooden spoon out of the vinegar which will remain in good quantity all liquid. Put your Saturn crystals [to] dry gently on paper, which are sweet as sugar and are used for many illnesses resulting from heat or inflammation. Take back the vinegar which has remained liquid to you and distill it or evaporate it as before in a bain-marie; then put it back in a cool place and several more Saturn crystals will form, which you will dry like the others. Take all these crystals of Saturn, which will appear to you as beautiful and pure as sugar or saltpetre. Then pound them in a glass or marble mortar into a very loose and impalpable powder. Then you will reverberate them with light fire until they redden like blood; but take good care that they do not darken. When therefore you have them of the color of a beautiful scarlet, put them in a curcurbite and pour into it good spirit of juniper distilled from its oil and several times rectified, beautiful, white and transparent. Cover and lute well the curcurbite. "Digest with slow heat until the spirit of juniper has tinted a high color, red as blood, beautiful and clear. Then remove it from above its faeces by inclination in a glass vessel there pouring only the pure, taking good care that nothing impure leaks out when and when.Afterwards, pour new spirit of juniper over the faeces and extract the tincture or redness from it as long as the spirit of juniper no longer wants to dye or no longer attracts anything.Set the remaining faeces aside as they contain the salt in themselves.
Now take all the juniper spirit that is dyed and, having filtered it, distill or evaporate it little by little in a bain-marie; and you will have left at the bottom of the curcurbite a very beautiful flesh-colored powder. And this is the sulfur or the soul of Saturn, on which you will pour distilled water of rain and this, by several and various pours by distilling it or evaporating strongly each time, so that what remains there of the spirit of juniper can be entirely separated from it and that the powder remains very well softened and very pure. Then let it boil well in the same water that [you] will later separate by inclination from above your powder, which then you will gently dry. But for greater safety, reverberate it slightly so that it dries better and any impurity can completely exhale. And being cooled, put it in a matrass and pour into it twice as much as it weighs of the spirit of mercury which is made as I taught you and which I closely entrusted to your conscience in the third part of the 'universal. Then seal the matrass hermetically and put it in the vaporous bath, as I taught you in the same place in the preparation of the spirit of mercury; which vaporous bath is called the horse manure of the Sages. Leave your matrass in this furnace of secrets for the space of a month, and by this means the soul of Saturn will be introduced day by day into the mind of Mercury, in such a way that they will both finally be inseparable by their close conjunction and will become a beautiful oil of a high color, red and transparent. But take good care not to control the fire too strongly; for otherwise the spirit of Mercury, which is very volatile, would fly away and break the matrass violently. When, however, they are well united, there is no need for such great foresight, for one nature preserves and contains another similar nature.
Then take this oil or dissolved soul of Saturn, which is very fragrant and sweet; remove it from the matrass by pouring it into [a] well-luted still; then distill it all only once. And so you will have a spiritual oil of Saturn, which contains the spirit and the soul united inseparably together. This oil of Saturn has the virtue and the property of being able to transmute precipitated mercury into very good gold. The precipitation of mercury is due to do so. Take [from] the spirit of salt niter, one part, and [from] the oil of vitriol, three parts. Mix them together and put in half a part of quicksilver which is very well purified, the whole being in an alembic. Give him a fire in the sand strong enough, without however that the spirits exhale, the space of a day and a night. Then distill to dryness and you will find at the bottom of the still the precipitated mercury which will be somehow red. Pour in the spirits again. Let digest one day and one night. Then distill the spirits and you will find the mercury precipitated a little redder than at the first time; and then distill them very strongly and you will find the precipitate in a great redness. Soften it with common water; distill and then let it dry; after, take two parts of this precipitated mercury; put it in a matrass and pour some of your Saturn spiritual oil into it. Digest or cook over an ash fire until everything is fixed and no drop appears attached to the matrass. Then you will melt this matter, adding a little lead to it; everything will melt together and give you a gold which then can be exalted by melting it and going through antimony. This is the lesson I give you from quicksilver.
But note that the argent must not be prepared or precipitated by any other means or medium than by the oil of vitriol or Venus alone, with the addition of the spirit of nitre, although no argent-quid can to be brought to a sovereign fixation by haste; for the true and permanent coagulation of quicksilver is found and perfected by means of Saturn, as I have said. So pound your precipitated mercury and grind it well on the marble; put it in a matrass and pour into it, as I said, your spiritual oil of Saturn and it will enter immediately and visibly into the precipitate, if you have proceeded well in its precipitation. Seal the matrass tightly and fix your matter first to the ash fire, and then to the sand fire, until its highest fixation. And so you bound mercury from its true bond and made it into a very fixed coagulation which reduced its substance, form and figure to a great improvement which will give us much profit and a rich income. But if from quicksilver you only make a white precipitate, you will only acquire silver, which will hold very little gold.
I want to teach you yet another practice on Saturn that will bring you great profit again with less trouble. So that you who are my disciple have no reason to complain of me about a single practice, work on the next one in this way. Take of the above spiritual oil of Saturn, two parts; of the golden star, a part; sulfur of antimony, the preparation of which follows, two parts, and salt of Mars, half a part, that is to say half as much as of all the preceding things. Put everything in a matrass of which there is only a third full. Let your material set in the fire. Then the salt of Mars opens in this compound and is fermented by its means. And so all matter begins little by little to clothe itself in a black color and to become dark within the space of ten or at most twelve days. And afterwards, this salt of Mars comes back to coagulate and encloses [in] itself the whole compound. Continue to coagulate it, first into a dark mass, then into a brown one, and leave the whole untouched in a continual and even heat. And then your matter will turn into a powder that will be red as blood. Strengthen the fire until you see the orb of gold dominating, which will appear resplendent with a verdant radiance like the rainbow. Continue an even fire until this color disappears entirely, and then there will come to you a transparent and ponderous red stone, which it is not necessary to project on the mercury, because this stone tints all white metals according to its perfection and fixation. in very pure gold. Take this prepared fixed red stone or powder, one part, and white metal as you please, four parts. First melt the metal for half an hour or until it is well purified, then throw your powder into it. Let them melt together until you see it has incorporated into the metal and it begins to coagulate and stop. Then it will be transmuted into gold. Break the crucible and remove your gold; but if it is infected with dross and impurities, pass it through the lead into a cup, and it will come out clean.
But if you throw your red powder in projection on the moon, then put more of it than on Jupiter or on Saturn. Thus it only takes one batch, that is, half an ounce of powder, to dye five ounces of silver into gold. Hold this for a wonder and do not lose your soul by manifesting this mystery. Operate therefore with the salt of Saturn as above, as also only with Mars and Venus, but instead of honey water, use distilled vinegar and clarify their salt with [the] spirit of wine.
Get pumice stone from merchants. Redden it in the fire and then quench it in good strong old wine. Redden it strongly again and turn it off again as before.
Continue this up to three times and the older the wine, the better. Let your pumice stone dry then gently, and it will be prepared. Take this pumice stone and reduce it to a subtle powder, then have fine tin reduced to very thin laminae like the thickness of the ground; cut or break these laminae into pieces and layer them with your pumice stone powder in a well-covered and lute pot of soil. Put the whole in a furnace of reverberatory, giving fire of reverberation, five or six continuous days, which is of flame; and diligently observe the degrees of fire. And so the pumice stone will change color and attract the color or dye of the metal to itself. Then grind this pumice stone with what you have first of your laminae of Jupiter and, having ground it well, put it in a curcurbite and pour into it good and strong wine vinegar which is distilled. Digest over a moderately hot fire and the vinegar will soak up the dye and turn a beautiful yellowish red. Distill all this tinted vinegar in a bain-marie, and the tincture of Jupiter will remain at the bottom of the still. Which tincture or soul of Jupiter you sweeten with distilled water; then dry it gently. This being so [you] must operate with this tincture of Jupiter as you have operated with the soul of Saturn, that is to say, you must dissolve it radically in the spirit of mercury and distill the all together through the still into a tingent Jupiter oil. Take this tingent oil of Jupiter, one part, and pour it over two parts of red precipitated mercury, which has been precipitated with property and venereal blood; then coagulate and fix them together. And so this good and benevolent Jupiter showing you favor transmuted this precipitated mercury into good gold, as you will see by the melting. Jupiter also has this virtue and power, which is that the other sulfurs being conjoined and fixed with him, then he converts and changes ten parts of silver into gold. But claim no more from Jupiter, for he peacefully bestows and expands his full power upon you.
To operate with the salt of Jupiter, you will proceed like other salts. But this is extracted by means of distilled rainwater, and then it must be clarified with [the] spirit of wine.
Take half a pound of seven times sublimed quicksilver which is white as snow; pound and grind it into a subtle powder; pour in a good quantity of excellent and very strong vinegar; boil it on the fire for a whole hour or more, always stirring your material with a wooden spatula. Then being removed from the heat and cooled, let it rest until the mercury has all fallen to the bottom of the gourd and the vinegar has become clear. But if it takes too long to clear, pour a little oil of vitriol on it, and all the mercury will finish rushing to the bottom. For vitriol precipitates mercury, salt of tartar precipitates gold, Venus and salt precipitates the moon, Mars precipitates Venus, lye made of beech ash precipitates vitriol, vinegar precipitates common sulphur, Mars precipitates tartar and finally saltpetre precipitates antimony.
After, remove by inclination the vinegar from above your precipitated mercury and you will find there a beautiful and clear mercury, on which you will still pour vinegar, doing as before, which you will continue until the third time. Then soften your mercury well and dry it gently. And your mercury will be well prepared. Take soul or Sulfur of Mars, two ounces; of the soul of Saturn, an ounce. Dissolve them all together in six ounces of the spirit of mercury until they are so well dissolved that there is no residence at the bottom of the vessel. And it will be a beautiful golden water as if it were a transparent golden solution. Now, heat your mercury prepared a little in a good and strong matrass and pour in your slightly warm golden water and this matter will begin to make some noise; close the flask and thus the noise will cease. After seal it hermetically; put it in a mild bath and the mercury will dissolve within ten days into grass-green oil. So put your matrass on the ash fire for a day and a night. Make it a moderate and low fire, and the oil which was green will become beautiful and yellow, in which yellowness is still hidden the redness. Continue the fire until this oil is dried and transmuted into a yellow powder like orpiment and, when nothing rises any more, put your matrass in the sand for a day and a night. by making it a strong fire until the matter appears to you of a very beautiful color which is red like a ruby. And when it is entirely fixed and constant, melt it in [a] crucible with a good flux made of lead. And then you will have a pound and two ounces of good gold as high and exalted as ever 'Nature begat in [the] earth.
Remember the poor and my instructions and be careful not to risk your salvation in the hands or the power of the evil spirit.
Take quicksilver sublimated as many times as I have said above and revive it with quicklime; then put it in a cucurbite, dissolving it there with very strong water of saltpetre, at a good heat. After, distill all the strong water and strip your quicksilver which will have remained at the bottom of all its corrosiveness with vinegar, boiling the whole well together; then remove the vinegar by putting it outside and soften what remains with common distilled water and do it then after drying well. And on each pound of mercury, pour therein a small measure of very excellent spirit of wine, the whole being in a tightly stoppered cucurbit; put it to putrefy for some time in gentle heat, then slowly distil what can first distil; then distill over high heat; take all that has passed and put it in a bain-marie still and gently distil the spirit of wine from it. And what will remain for you at the bottom of the still is an odoriferous oil which is the star of mercury, which is an excellent remedy for venereal diseases.
But because the salt of mercury has the same efficacy and virtue in medicine as the star of mercury, I did not consider it necessary to write of each separately, so that it suffices to join together their virtues and describe them in my last part in the treatise on the salt of mercury. Then take then this odoriferous oil or star of mercury, which, because of its great heat, holds its own body in a continual fluidity, and pour it on the remaining earth from which you extracted or distilled it. Digest this star of mercury and this earth together in the fire, and this star or oil will draw to itself its own salt which was hidden in the earth. Distill all this oil and the mercury salt will remain at the bottom of the still. Pour over this mercury salt of new spirit of wine to dissolve, then distill, repeating to dissolve and distill until your mercury salt is well softened. And so he is perfect and well prepared for medicine. I will manifest it in the last part. Quicksilver or mercury cannot produce anything more than that, neither particularly nor universally, and do not believe that this mercury is the mercury of philosophers, as there are many who persuade themselves and imagine it.
Take good antimony from Hungary; grind it into a powder fine and loose like fine flour and calcine it over a small fire as it is customary to do, stirring it continually with an iron spatula until it has become whitish and does not smoke. more, so that he can finally suffer great heat. Then put this calcined antimony in a crucible and melt it over a good fire; then pour it out of the crucible and it will look like a beautiful transparent red glass. Grind this glass of antimony into a very subtle powder and put it in a glass curcurbite which has a wide and flat bottom; pour into it strong distilled vinegar and, having well closed and lute it, digest in a heat for a good space of time. And so the vinegar will attract the tincture of antimony to itself and will be tinted very red. Remove by inclination the tinted vinegar and put another one until it no longer tints. Distil this dyed vinegar and you will be left with a loose yellow powder dye. Sweeten it with [common distilled water, so that all the vinegar is separated from it; dry this powder and pour very well rectified spirit of wine into it; digest with slow heat and there will be a new extraction in solution of very beautiful yellow tincture; remove it by inclination and put on your matter other spirit of wine, doing so until it draws no more tincture. Afterwards, take all that spirit of wine that is dyed and distill it to dryness. And you will find at the bottom of the still a beautiful, very yellow and beautiful powdered tincture which is of incredible virtue for medicine, because it yields almost nothing to potable gold. Take then two parts of this yellow powdered tincture and one part of sulfur or soul of gold; subtly grind them together; after, take three parts of sulfur of Mars on which you will pour six parts of the spirit of mercury; fight the matrass well; digest until this sulfur of Mars is completely dissolved, then put in this solution the fourth part of your crushed matter, composed of the yellow sulfur of antimony and the soul of gold, and again fight the matrass . Digest until your matter is dissolved, then add another fourth part of your said matter; grind, doing so until all your aforesaid material is dissolved into a thick, brown oil. Afterwards [you] will distill this oil until nothing remains at the bottom of the still.
Take this oil thus distilled and pour it over the separated pure silver lime, and fix everything together by the degrees of fire until all your matter is quite fixed; then melt it in a crucible over a good fire and pass it or separate it with strong water and there will fall the sixth part of gold of the weight that your previous compound had. And the money will always be used for other works. Now, when you have previously had no inclination to remove the tincture of antimony from the cucurbit and the vinegar no longer tints, you will be left with a black powder at the bottom of the cucurbit; dry it, then grind it with [an] equal weight of yellow common sulphur; put the whole thing in a crucible and lute it well; leave it on a moderate fire until the sulfur is all burnt. Take the material that will be left and grind it into a loose powder and pour distilled vinegar over it. Digest in the fire and the vinegar will draw the antimony salt to itself. Remove this vinegar impregnated with salt by inclination and distill it. And so the salt will stay with you at the bottom of the still. Sweeten this salt with [d]distilled water, distilling it over it by repeated distillation, in order to remove all the acetosity or sourness of the vinegar. And so you will soften and clarify your salt until the water comes out of it or distills soft, beautiful and clear. After you have taken all this trouble and manual work, you will have a beautiful antimony salt, the extraction of which however you can do in less time as I will tell you below. And you will notice that the salt of antimony extracted according to the following operation has the same virtues as the sulfur of antimony in medicine. But here is an operation to have the sulfur and the salt of the antimony much more prompt and subtle of which you must make a lot of state.
Take good vitriol, common salt and quicklime, one pound each, and salt armonia, four ounces. Pound everything and put it in a glass retort; pour in three pounds of common wine vinegar; plug the retort; digest over the fire for a day and a night, then apply a container to it and distil your matter as one does strong water. Take the liquor which will be distilled and, to a pound of it, add to it a pound of common salt and: distill it or rectify it again very gently, so that nothing impure distills and that the liquor is beautiful and clear. So take a pound of your aforesaid glass of subtle powdered antimony and pour in your rectified liquor what is needed. Fight the still well; digest until everything is dissolved; remove by inclination the solution and distill it or evaporate it slowly in a water-bath. And you will be left at the bottom of the still with a thick, liquid and black material, which will be a little dry. Put it on a glass plate in a cool place and there it will dissolve into a red oil that leaves behind some faeces. Coagulate this red oil gently over the ash fire until it is thoroughly dry; put it in a matrass and pour some very excellent spirit of wine into it. Digest, and the spirit of wine will draw to itself a tincture red as blood. Bow the dyed spirit and put more in until it draws no more red dye. So you have the red tincture or sulfur of antimony which works wonders in medicine — as I said in the first procedure — and it hardly yields to potable gold. Now when this sulfur of antimony has been thus perfected, one can with it undertake and carry out particular operations, as I have taught above.
Take the dark matter that remained with you after the extraction of said antimony sulfur and dry it well; then extract its salt from it with the distilled vinegar and sweeten it with [common] distilled water and clarify it with [the] spirit of wine. And thus you will have the salt of antimony well prepared, which salt of antimony has great virtues in medicine, worthy of observation and of which I will mention in the last part. And so I conclude this part four of mine. But especially since there are still several great mysteries in Nature, we could still add other practices here. Know, however, that I have taught you all that is of greater importance and of easier operation and greater profit; for as to [the] other things which bring no avail, and which can easily deceive the student disciples so that they can derive no advantage from them, except a very small one, I do not here of mention, because you will be able to seek and find such things at your leisure when it pleases you to work. If, therefore, you only learn to know and understand this one and only thing from which health and wealth have their source and origin, you can, by joining all the metallic sulfurs with it, derive great benefit from it. Of which it is impossible for a single man to be able to write entirely properly, for it must be admitted that one could compose volumes of it almost to infinity.
Pray earnestly and diligently to God to make you partakers of his mercy and grace.
And know that practice derives an infinity of fountains, which all take their birth and origin from a single and unique source. But if you do otherwise than I recommend and invite you in the name of the Creator of heaven and earth, all your work will go backwards and bring you no profit in this world, but rather loss.
Now though it seems that I should add something in this part after the metals touching on the virtue and potency of minerals according to their order, yet because I see that minerals can do nothing for true metallic transmutation, but only for medicine, in favor of which they have qualities whose effects cannot be sufficiently admired, this is why I will treat them only in the last part after the virtue of the metallic salts where I will amply show the wonders that the All- Powerful put and locked in iceux minerals.
Or last part of the Testament of Brother Basil Valentin, where it is spoken briefly of the medicine or miraculous medicine, which the Creator of all grace and mercy has placed and enclosed in the metals and their salts and in the minerals, as also in the others plants, noble and less noble, for the relief and restoration of the health of the human body in this present life and for the cure of diseases.
Before I begin to declare the virtue of metallic salts and minerals, and likewise of all other noble plants, crowning or perfection of all the medicines of the universe, is due the first place. And this very justly and with good reason, as on the contrary the metallic salts and [those] of the minerals have only been endowed with a particular and limited virtue for the health of men.
That is why I am right to start my talk with real potable gold and even to describe different kinds of it. And because this part is the last of my Testament, I undertake to give there and bring to light a complete knowledge of potable gold for those who understand and worthily love this science, hoping that God after my death will allow that he enjoys this mine book. For the rest, I will say nothing here except what I myself have experienced with success and great works. Therefore, if it has pleased God to make you happy enough to enjoy this true science, I exhort and conjure you to keep it very secret in your heart, [lest] lest instead of God's blessing you don't have his curse. Now the preparation of the stone is unique as the stone itself is uniform, which draws or borrows its first origin and birth from the true seed of the first astrological motive, which is called spirit of mercury, from which I have written to you above amply . But know in all truth that no universal or particular tincture, no potable gold nor any other universal medicine can be prepared and found like this, which has and receives as being entirely celestial its essence and spiritual origin from the astral sky. And for that, keep silent until death; and then make your neighbor heir of this treasure, as you see that I have done. For if I had not faithfully instructed you, you would know very little of this secret. You, I say, who ordinarily amuse yourself only with follies as being an ignorant and extravagant blind man, since your talent is only to transcribe receipts or medicine remedies from some impertinent and ignorant pharmacopoeia. But why do you waste your time, your cares and pains in occupying yourself so vainly in your only Galen and [in] plunging yourself into an abyss of darkness whose habitation is with all the infernal devils in the deepest part? deep in hell? And you must assure yourself that your body and your soul will have no other home if you are so reckless as to divulge the least of these secrets and mysteries so high.
But so that now I declare my proposal to you, I will first tell you what is a universal medicine and the great drinkable gold. Afterwards, I will describe to you another potable gold which is made and composed of the soul or corporeal sulfur of supremely purified gold; and then it is prepared by means of the universal spirit, which is put there and conjoined. And after this last drinkable gold, I will have a particular medicine followed which will be half drinkable gold, of which I have, through several experiments, tested and experienced the particular powers and virtues, much more excellent than many other medicines. And similarly I will add and put here the description of potable gold, which rightly contains in itself the virtues of gold itself, as has often been experienced.
Now the sovereign and principal potable gold which God has created and placed in all nature is nothing other than the substance of our stone, digested, prepared and fixed, before having been fermented. And there is not in all the world nor in all the circuit of the earth a greater and more excellent medicine nor a more admirable drinkable gold than this above-mentioned medicine or fixed substance of our stone before its fermentation. And it is impossible to find or give the public a better one. For it is a heavenly balm, from which the first principles descend from heaven and are formed in the earth. And after this substance has been prepared by a very great and exact purification, it is finally brought into a sovereign perfection. The origin and first principle of which celestial quintessence I have already sufficiently described above, so that I find it unnecessary to say more about it. As then this sovereign substance, being perfectly cooked and digested, is the greatest and principal medicine of men, so likewise this same matter or substance, after its fermentation, is a universal tincture and medicine, the greatest and most powerful that can be found or invented for all metals in general; which by this medicine are led into their sovereign perfection and health, namely, that thus they are transmuted into very pure and very fine gold. And this first fixed substance, as I said, is the principal drinkable gold and the greatest universal medicine of the whole universe and of which several books could be written. But especially since I have given the description and preparation of it with all its circumstances in the third part of this my Testament, I have no need to dwell on it here any longer and, therefore, I will not say anything about it. something else. However, I now want to declare to you fully how you must make my potable gold with greatly purified common and vulgar gold.
Take the soul of gold extracted with a sweet spirit of common salt, as I taught you to the particulars of gold, when the body of gold remained quite white. Remove from above this soul or sulfur of gold the spirit of salt, and then sweeten it ten or twelve times. Finally, clean it, [so] that it is very pure, and dry it. Afterwards, weigh it and pour into it four times as much spirit of mercury. Lute the still well and put it in a steamy bain-marie; and let your matter putrefy gently as long as you see that the soul of gold is completely dissolved in water or in its first matter. There will be produced from these two a liquor which will be red as blood, beautiful and transparent, so that no ruby in the world is to be compared to it. But take note here that when the soul of gold begins to dissolve and to enter into the first matter of its essence, one first sees on the edge of the glass where the matter touches, a certain very beautiful circle, quite Green; after this, another which is blue and then a yellow circle; and then we see all the colors of the rainbow which are pleasantly intertwined with each other; but they don't last long.
Now when all the soul of gold has dissolved entirely in the spirit of mercury and there is no longer any residence in the bottom of the still, then pour into it twice as much weight of spirit of wine of the most excellent and of the most purified and essencified. Lute well your still of excellent lut. Gently digest and putrefy everything together for twelve or fifteen days. Then distil the whole thing together and it will distil or pass through the mouth of the still a liquid material which will be red like very beautiful blood and will take on a completely golden and transparent color. Continue and repeat this distillation so many times that nothing corporeal remains at the bottom of the still. And so you will have the right and true drinkable gold, which you can never reduce to a body. But take care before starting your dissolution and the extraction of the aurific soul that your gold is greatly purified and purged.
Here is another drinkable gold which is made and prepared by art. And though it cannot be said to be real perfect or drinkable gold, yet it must be confessed that it is something more than half drinkable gold. For it is powerful in its virtue in many diseases of which one would be uncertain of being able to be cured by the nature of other ordinary medicines, which diseases, however, have been eradicated by means of this potable gold. Now this drinkable half-gold can be made in two ways, the last of which is better and more effective than the first, and it is even longer to make and of greater work. The preparation of the first manner of these two potable half-gold is as follows: Take the soul of gold, which has been extracted by the sweet spirit from common salt. Soften it very diligently and sharply. Let it dry and put it in a large glass vial, and pour into it red oil of vitriol which is without phlegm and which has previously been dephlegmated and rectified by the retort, so that it has been made clear, beautiful, white and transparent. And take good care that when this oil of vitriol takes on a red color, it is a sign that the soul of gold has let itself dissolve in it. But be careful not to pour onto the soul of the gold more than as much of your oil of vitriol as is needed for its dissolution. Then you will put your solution [to] putrefy in a bain-marie, over medium heat, even a little more than medium heat, as long as you see that the soul of the gold is perfectly well dissolved in this oil of vitriol. And if there are some faeces, you must remove them and put the solution in a curcurbite. Then pour over it twice as much spirit of very excellent and very well rectified wine, as I will teach you in this part. Close and fight the curcurbite well so that the spirit of wine cannot evaporate. Then you put [to] putrefy your material in a bain-marie, over low heat, for the space of a month. And then the acrimony of the oil of vitriol will be softened by the spirit of wine which makes it lose all its harshness. And so he makes excellent medicine out of it. Distill it all together so many times that no residence remains at the bottom of the curcurbite. And then you will have there more than half a drinkable gold in the form of a beautiful strong yellow liquor.
But be aware that you can proceed in the same way with some of the other metals. Because first of all you will be able to make of it a metallic vitriol from which you will easily draw the spirit which you will join in the same way as before to the sulfur or soul which you will see dissolving there. Which dissolution you will digest then afterwards with [the] spirit of wine as long as the whole becomes a medicine as I said, which then will produce and make recognize its virtue.
The other way of preparing this drinkable half-gold, which is not really more than drinkable half-gold, but which nevertheless far exceeds in its strength and medicinal virtue that which I have just described. And here's how to do it.
Take the soul of gold extracted as I said above. Put it in a cucurbit and pour into it sulfur of the philosophers which has been extracted and which is the other principle which has been drawn from the land of the philosophers with the spirit of mercury; and [it] must be that this mercury or spirit of mercury has again been removed by distillation from off this land of the philosophers until it is in the consistency of oil, which is the sulfur of the philosophers.
So pour on the soul of the gold of this sulfur of the philosophers what will be enough to dissolve it. Leave your material in a bain-marie until the soul of the gold is dissolved. And on this dissolution, pour more very good spirit of very well rectified wine. Digest the whole again over low heat, then distill it until nothing remains at the bottom of the still. And so you have a medicine that yields only two degrees to true potable gold. This is the main way of making bodily drinkable gold. This is why I will conclude and then I will teach and describe briefly, but in a real way, how the moon which is nearer to gold in its perfection, can be made drinkable and how it is necessary to prepare this moon drinkable in the next way and method.
Take celestial-colored sulfur or moon spirit which has been extracted with distilled vinegar as I taught you in particular of the moon. Sweeten this sulfur and then rectify it with [the] spirit of wine. Let it dry and put it in a curcurbite, and pour into it three times its weight of the spirit of mercury, which is prepared and acquired from the white spirit of vitriol, as I have faithfully shown you in its place. Close and lute well the curcurbite, and put [to] putrefy your matter in the steam of the bain-marie until your sulfur of the moon is completely dissolved, without there remaining anything at the bottom of the vessel. And then digest it all together for fifteen whole days. Then distill your dissolution until it leaves no residence at the bottom. And then you have the true drinking moon, which produces effects that I dare not say are miraculous, as you will see on the occasions that present themselves.
Take very good wine and draw the spirit, which you will rectify on calcined tartar according to the art to a sovereign and great whiteness, so that it is perfectly burnt. Then put this rectified spirit of wine in a curcurbite and to a measure of it add four ounces of well sublimated armoniac salt. Cover your curcurbite with its cover and join a very large container to it, which you will put down and soak in a vessel of cold water because of the volatile spirits. Gently distil in a bain-marie and there will be something left at the bottom of the cucurbite. And note that in this distillation you must often moisten the screed with cloths moistened in cold water in order to refresh it. And thus the most subtle spirits will pass into the vessel, so that by this means you will have the igneous spirit of wine.
First, you must know that the tartar of the philosophers is not the common tartar, to open our locks or secrets, but it is another tartar or salt which nevertheless comes from the same root. And it is one of our secret keys to open all metals, which is done as follows: Make a washing of the ashes of vine shoots which is as strong as you can. Then cook and boil until completely dry. And you will have left at the bottom of the cauldron a shiny matter, which you will cause to reverberate in a fire of flame for the space of three hours, stirring it and agitating it continually with some rod of iron, as long as your matter has become very white. Afterwards, dissolve this material in distilled rainwater, let the faeces settle and filter your solution. Then dry it gently in glass vessels until dryness. And thus you will have the true tartar or the true salt of tartar of the philosophers, from which one can draw the true spirit. Note this well: as it has been said elsewhere of precious stones and their virtues and properties, so I tell you now that there are many stones of low price, and even plants, which are of the same efficacy and virtue in their operation, although the ignorant believe nothing of it and cannot understand this truth because of their great blindness and ignorance. What I will make known here by the example of quicklime which is not much publicized as being reputed for a vile and abject stone. And yet it contains in itself powerful and very effective virtues against the most obstinate and violent diseases. But especially since quicklime has wonderful and triumphant properties and virtues which are almost unknown to everyone, I want here for a happy conclusion to declare its mysteries and mysteries to all faithful amateurs or admirers of natural and supernatural things , to which principally I have revealed in this mine book the principal mysteries of nature.
I will therefore first teach and reveal how to extract the spirit from quicklime, which demands and requires a well-experienced and skilled artist or operator. Because this operation will not succeed with the one who does not have solid foundations in this preparation.
Take fresh quicklime as much as you like. Grind it into a fine powder on a very dry stone, then put it in a glass still and pour into it some very excellent spirit of wine, but not more than quicklime can drink of it, so that the spirit of wine does not float. Afterwards, cover your still with its cover and add a container to it, all well fought. Then distill all the spirit in a bain-marie and put it back on the quicklime and redistill it and repeat this up to eight or ten times. And by this means the spirit of quicklime is strengthened in its glory and virtue by the spirit of wine and is made much more igneous and vigorous. This having been done, take this prepared quicklime out of the still and grind it again very subtly and mix in the tenth part of salt of tartar which is very fine and pure and leaves no more faeces. Now weigh all your joint matter and add to it as much weight of salt of tartar, that is to say of that matter which remained after you have drawn your salt of tartar — which is properly the ashes of the leached oath, c that is to say, from which the salt has been drawn as before — and that this matter must be well dried before adding and mixing it. So mix and grind it all well together, then put all your stuff into a well-luted retort, filling only the third part of it, and add to it a large well-luted receptacle. But take note that you must have a glass vessel which has two channels a finger wide, in one of which is added the large container in which you will have put a little spirit of wine, and that the everything is well fought together. Then give low heat and water to the retort and the phlegm will pass first into the first vessel which has a double channel. And when the phlegm has thus distilled, give a stronger fire, and a white spirit will distill into the great vessel, very beautiful and bright to the sight like the white spirit of vitriol. This spirit contains no phlegm but rises imperceptibly through the channel into the large vessel, where it clothes itself with the spirit of wine as being a fire which insinuates itself and joins in another fire.
But you must know that if the quicklime was not previously prepared with the spirit of wine and that it was not then removed and distilled, this quicklime would do nothing worthwhile. For by this distillation only the phlegm comes out, which if it remained with the quicklime, it would lose all efficacy and virtue. This is why one can say that nature is imperscrutable and that it holds enclosed within itself several marvels which cannot all be known by humans. Now when this spirit of quicklime is all distilled and entered with the spirit of wine, then remove the container, throw away the phlegm and carefully keep the spirit of wine and the spirit of quicklime joined together. And note that these two spirits are difficult to separate from each other by distillation, because they love each other greatly and the spirit of quicklime has accustomed in this distillation to always be transported inside the spirit of wine. . So to separate them, take these two united spirits and put them in a large vessel of glass, then set it on fire and the spirit of wine alone will ignite, burn and be consumed. But the spirit of quicklime will remain in the glass vessel. Store it carefully. And so you have in truth an arcane that few others overcome in excellence if you know how to use it well. This spirit of quicklime has so many virtues and properties that it would be impossible to describe them unless to make a particular speech about it which would be too long and too boring. This spirit dissolves dunce eyes and also the hardest rock crystals. And if you mix these three things together and distill them by repeated distillations, then three drops of this distilled liquor taken with a little mulled wine will break and shatter any stone whatsoever in the body of man and bring it out. entirely with all its roots and without any pain or pain.
Now this spirit of quicklime is at the beginning of a celestial blue; but when gently rectified, it becomes watery, white, clear and transparent, and leaves little faeces behind. It dissolves precious stones and pearls, even those which are very fixed, as on the contrary it has this property of being able to fix very volatile spirits by its virtue and immense heat. If anyone is tormented and afflicted with the drops in any way, this spirit of quicklime is the master of them, causing them to dissolve and radically healing them, so that even all lumps and swellings or tumors disappear and completely vanish.
Thanks be given from the bottom of our hearts to the almighty and holy Trinity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, for all the benefits, gifts and presents that he has given and extended to us in this life, not having nothing left hidden either from me or from you, as I had planned. And I can say that I have undertaken nothing in my plans that I have not founded and established it in the Name of God, to whom be the perpetual praise in all eternity. So be it. Everything that has spirit gives and gives praise to the Lord. Alleluia.
Basilius Valentinus
1671
Quote of the Day
“our gold is living gold, and our silver is living silver, so that they can cause nothing but life and growth. Common gold and silver are dead, They can effect nothing until they are raised from the dead and quickened by the Sage.”
Anonymous
The Golden Tract Concerning The Stone of the Philosophers
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