Preparation of Philosophical Vitriol: Tripied

Paris, Chamuel Editeur, 1898

Transcribed by Philippe Laurent

Preliminary

I will not begin this study, without paying a just tribute to the memory of the late Albert Fish,
whose treatise of "Theories and Symbols" came produce clarity, if regards of all alchemical
books of antiquity. With him now, one can boldly comprehend any concealed and old hermetic
manuscript, if he not be able to enter into the secrets that our ancestors have always jealously
guarded, or at least penetrate the thinking that has guided and try to understand what they wanted
to tell us in their writings.

After you have read and pondered the various works concerning the "great work" in your
possession, what is your dominant thought? Or if you prefer, what is the question that arises in
you? If I am not mistaken, is this: What we want to hear about the philosophers Mercury which
is said to have so many wonders? Is it a myth or is it really? And if there is, where and how can I
find it?

This is indeed the crux of the matter, and there lies all the hermetic secret.

According to all the authors, the Mercury of the Philosophers is found everywhere. It is, they
say, in ourselves, in the air that you breathe is the azoth which gives rise to all things; which
necessarily leads us to believe that this can only be the astral light by Eliphas Levi, the
movement of loco masculi, gold knight Reichenbach, the strength of Turpin. But always after the
former as its essence it is impalpable and invisible, it is required by some artifice, the craftsman
makes it appear in a tangible form, and this form is called quintessence. Accordingly, to remove
it from any subject, it is necessary to obtain the quintessence of the subject, and there is no need
to say that this substance may not have a universal character, and it will always be determined in
direction of said subject on which we have worked.

It seems to me now, at this moment, shrugged see all famous people and serious scholars. And
hear buzzing in my ears some adjectives which cannot be less than "abstractor of quintessence."

Alchemy, in fact, is a science still so maligned of our time, every person adventure can be sure to
see one day or the other suspect his mental faculties. In thinking your proof? Open the Larousse
and look for the Paracelsus article: you can read in the middle likes more or less sour sweet, this
beautiful sentence: "In summary, it was crazy to that medicine simply owes its therapeutic."
Here, the word "simply" does not lack flavor, and for myself, I deeply regret that it is not found
since that time some crazy this caliber could have done, always by accident of course, some new
discoveries; modern medicine, is said without offending it, it might have some benefit. It is the
same for all others, whether Oswald Cross or Glauber. You can read their whole life, they shone
brightly among their contemporaries, but always as an unfortunate accident, they, on the decline
of their existence, all ended badly.

Anyone, it is not possible now, to an unprejudiced mind and somewhat informed of believe that
all the great philosophers of antiquity, the Paracelsus, the Locques of the Glauber and many
others, it would be me too long to mention, it is not possible, I say, to believe that all these great
minds have gone astray, and after having been the receptacle of human knowledge and master
the indisputable word, they may have at the end of their days, forget all their knowledge, to fall,
which seems strange in the same madness and even dementia, although they lived at times quite
distinct.

It is therefore impossible to give credence to an aberration of mind that would have been
common to all these scholars, we are naturally led to believe that there is real, hidden, deep,
science, which were necessarily led these faithful tellers of nature, who, by pursuit and dint work
have finally deciphered the riddle of the sphinx, and managed to touch the reward for a lifetime
of work and study. But back to our subject.

In regards plants and animals, it is easy to anyone who knows the spagyric art to draw the
quintessence. So Locques in his "Rudiment of Natural Philosophy" Le Crom in his "useful and
curious experiences," give us the way forward, but for minerals, is another more difficult and
time-consuming operation.

Since they are usually devoid of any moisture, we need prior soften them and bring them to a
state that will be the subject of our work, and we call it, as all the ancients, the name of Vitriol.

OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL VITRIOL

PART ONE

Firstly, there are two vitriol, or rather vitriolic can be in two forms; the pure vitriol and impure or
crude vitriol.

To understand this, we must go back to the very origin of the hermetic science, and I do not think
better than by quoting the ideas of Paracelsus on the purity and the impurity of each substance.
According to him, in all things, there is the soul of all things called "Predestined element." This
predestined element which consists always according to him, salt, sulfur and mercury, as is
embedded and disseminated in a phlegm of formed body and dead or damned earth, and gives
thus the body as we see it. We have a striking example in plants. What, indeed, that the various
alkaloids. Quinine, aconitine, etc. otherwise pure and assets of these plants, which once deprived
these principles, remain without force or action.

However, in this case assume that from the vitriol by spagyric art, we had to remove the phlegm
and this dead land. We have the pure vitriol; otherwise, it is an unclean vitriol, and work will
much harder and longer if the vitriol will be unclean, or the predestined element will be in
smaller quantities. Because this is pure vitriol that is the basis of the hermetic work is the raw
material of art is the salt which, by a series of operations whose story will be the subject of
another study, will take the form of mercury or secret fire, and an intimate union of the volatile
with the fixed, gives us sulfur, a philosophical magnet, attracting the universal salt, ammoniac of
Artephius.

All bodies are composed of pure, impure principles; consequently in metals a pure grain buried
in them under black feces, and it is this pure grain whose soul not yet completely fixed, which
the hermetic art proposes to seek to raise a higher status in the art of transmutation.

Raw material
The raw material was perfectly indicated by Basil Valentine in his remarkable symbol "Visitae
interiora terrae rectificando, invenie occultum lapidem" (1), by whose symbol the first letters
formed by meeting the word "vitriol".

The vitriol is the beginning of the work; but what is this vitriol?

Will we take the vitriols blue, white or green, which are the sulfates or rosace of our modern
chemistry? These compounds, following Ripley are the vitriols of fools, and what concerns us
currently, it is the philosophical vitriol.

Philosophical vitriol is formed of a metal, when the metal is impregnated with a moisture of his
own nature, that is to say a mineral liquor which it owes its birth and including coagulation and
fixation produced the same metal, which will therefore be then by the same token, somehow
demoted, or rather dessipated, as the alchemical style.

Take, for example, the ordinary iron sulfate.

Sulfuric acid too far is a mineral liquor of iron for humidity of its own nature; as green vitriol of
commerce is not a philosophical vitriol. But if, by methods which we will indicate, we can soften
enough of this compound to make a paste that can undergo putrefaction, then it will generate a
new body, wherein H2SO4 will be near the metal, and will be cooked by fermentation, as to
become identical with what was this same metal before coagulation.

We have, in this case a Martial Vitriol; we can obtain the same way that of Venus and the real
matter hidden, our ancients who obtained a bright martial pyrite, or more briefly sulfate of iron
and alumina; what he want to teach Hyginus of Barma, when he tells us at the beginning of his
practice: "Take the real earth well impregnated with rays of the sun, the moon and other celestial
stars."

Let's see how we can get to putrefy this compound.

It is not without reason that the ancient alchemists considered putrefaction as the door of the
sanctuary of nature.

It is, indeed, the author of generation, destruction and regeneration. But if plants and animals rot
easily, minerals, however are much more difficult to bring into this state; however, it can be done
by examining how the nature operates when it destroyed minerals or stones.

The heat and humidity are his only agents; because, by a series of successive desiccation and
humectations, all eventually break, crumble and finally turn into a kind of paste or slurry. Make a
blush stone fire, turn it off then in water it turns fastily in a salty water, it will break into pieces;
backslide operation and stone eventually reduce in mucus and water.
So apply this method to the case before us, that is to say sulfate of iron and alumina, and we will
reduce our materials into the pasty consistency required for putrefaction.

Of Locques in his "Rudiment of Philosophy" gives us the opposite process:

"It takes the vitriol to a very moderate heat, where nothing can go up only mount the phlegm, i.e.
it is that we must take care not to remove the water content, and until it remains dry as sponge
stone; restores its phlegm, redistill it three times. Second, it takes the color of a beautiful
emerald, and third it becomes white as butter. It corrupts the matter in manure for forty days and
then distilled into the sweet spirit that comes by venules as the spirit of wine, then the acid spirit
which distills as white smoke and finally red oil by a strong expression of fire, without which it
will not rise. (Pages 83-84, the 2nd book).

In this place, Locques was not explicit enough, is this happening the rest, most of the time. If
taken literally, that it puts the vitriol as it is to dry, we will get no good, because when it returned
the phlegm on the said vitriol, it will dissolve no point, there will be a result that the surface to be
attacked by the successive humectations and desiccations, and the whole interior of the retort or
alembic remain intact. You have lost your time and penalties, which happened to me the first
time.

Instead if you dissolve before all the vitriol in distilled water or rain water, you can by each
cohobation redissolve it again, and then grind enough material, for after two or three operations,
it eventually breaking in consistency of butter or gur, forming a homogeneous paste, you only
have to undergo putrefaction.

We are therefore arrived at the entrance of the Palace of the King; we have in our possession the
Red vitriol, Adrop, vitriol Azoque, Ripley green lion whose preparation has been hidden with
jealous care. This is the only material which alone contains white and red sulfurs necessary for
the stone. This is the vitriol that is distilled with saltpeter only, either with the saltpeter and
cinnabar, gives us this stinking menstruum which is spoken in the clavicle Raymond Lully,
treasure of treasures of Paracelsus, and the compound of Albert the Great, books translated from
Latin into French by A. Fish.

This stinking menstruum reduced metals in their first matter, i.e. philosophical vitriol, and if,
when it was dissolved metals (iron and copper, for example) is distilled according to art which
means small fire at the beginning by graduating a little fire until it becomes strong at the end we
obtain a volatilized charged liquor of sulfurs in which the metals which may, following the
language of the alchemists, tinting the Moon when you digest in him, acquire a good part of the
Crown of King.

Thus realize the problem already found by Tiffereau, the transmutation of silver into gold in a
particularly lucrative manner, through the action of these more gross sulfurs and therefore more
effective than the rays of the Sun of Mexico, even ten times more ardent.

But we will return to this subject.

Among the ancient philosophers, many of them have reached the hermetic secret before having
known this single subject; thus, we can cite the Crom who left a Vade mecum very suggestive
and in which he gives the preparation of the salt of the metal which is nothing other than the
almost pure vitriol of these metals. I cannot do less than to reproduce this preparation which is in
its "New Treaty of dissolutions," page 34: "Put in a cucurbit, a few pounds of iron filings, pour
on it good distilled vinegar (2), and let steep the matter, stirring three times a day, until the
vinegar is well colored. Decant, put new vinegar again and continue until you have enough of
dyes. If it is cold weather, then the operation will be in a place of little heat to help dissolution.
Filter, put all your colored vinegar in one or two cucurbits half-filled, and you distill to sand
gently until dryness of the material. Cohobate and redistill it seven times, in order to crush said
material. Crush the next in a mortar, soaking his menstruum, then put it in a glass retort and put
vinegar over them, that it floats a third party. Distill carefully and by degrees until nor so neither
drops nor smoke. Adjust your distillation three times to clean its garbage, then grind the earth of
your retort on the marble soaking with your corrected water three times, and put it in cucurbits
glass with water adjusted at the eminence of four fingers cover the cucurbits with other meeting,
lutes the joints and made to digest on a hot ash for a low heat for forty days. You then decant and
the evaporated liquor will give you the required salt. Wash the material to remove as much as
possible any salt that will dissolve then several filtrations and dissolutions in rain water. Dissolve
again in distilled water to complete purification of salt and evaporate on a water bath.

Put the salt in a glass retort well luted, and distill it through sand by a graduated fire so long as it
no longer distill anything anymore. True liquor which will be out in a high cucurbit; he first
released a subtle spirit which seeks big point when you see the liquor begins to distill, change the
container and you will have the oil."

The Crom is the only author I know who went so far in a clear demonstration and net of raw
material, and it not only tells us how to get a vitriol almost pure, but it puts us on the path of
transmutations that through his means, we can perform easily.

Thus, at the end this salt projected on Tin of England after one and half an hour to melt it in a
crucible, and a good heat for half an hour after screening, while stirring vigorously, gives us after
cooling in the crucible a pellet which will be no longer a Tin, as it will be changed in very good
silver.

"Let them to digest, he said again on a slow heat of ashes, three parts of the second liquor, i.e. of
an oil with a part of silver dissolved by the royal water, precipitated by the copper and well
washed and dried: it digests this silver until he has acquired a color coal or rather a starting gold;
that it separates the black lime water pouring his all in a filter. This lime is dried and put into a
crucible, heated to redness until melted there is a fairy good weight of gold can be found in the
weight of the silver used."

In addition, the salt of Mars is a drug which, it seems, is not to be despised as twelve or fifteen
grains melted in a pint of river water, gives us, always a mineral water acting through urine and
sweat, and a very effective action in many serious diseases.
Vinegar to return to our subject, is indeed what may be called the great agent of alchemy, as it is
a compound of sulfur and mercury, it seeps into the body of metals, mainly focuses them to their
sulfur and mercury, and under the effect of the fermentation softens them by completely
changing their nature (Le Crom).

In an old manuscript attributed to Bremens is a preparation of quintessence of lead obtained by

treating litharge by distilled vinegar. Lead acetate obtains a pasty mass after evaporation, is left
to ferment two or three months, and after this time everything fell into crystals which re-
dissolved and recrystallized. There is thus a bright and almost pearly aspect of vitriol, whose
properties are all other than vulgar lead acetate.

But in today chemistry, potassium acetate is also called tartar regenerated, is not also a true
vitriol, though very impure? We cannot say indeed that vinegar is a foreign (heterogeneous)
liquid of salt of tartar, commonly carbonate of potash, since the wine is the first state which gives
birth to the vinegar in which was initially found the tartar or wine stone settles by concretion and
calcined then gives the salt of tartar. Therefore the simple union of a fixed, as in our example
potassium carbonate with a moisture of its own kind as the vinegar, must give a vitriol, without
the need to initially pass through fermentation or putrefaction.

Distill the salt but after having evaporated to dryness and converted into a lamellar mass
(Foliated earth old, Tartar), heat it to a dark red, we obtain a blackish red liquid, which corrected
to separate it from impure and empyreumatic products, gives us acetone or spirit of the body and
oil or soul including the lighter portions passing between 120 and 150 , have served as the
chemists dumasine; spirit and oil which will perfectly pure in combination with alkali bisulfite. I
did not need to add, it must often repeat the distillation, if you want to get a significant amount of
liquid, because besides in the case of an impure vitriol, the only pure portion can give something
and that it is hardly in the proportion of one part in twenty; besides this, I say, the vitriol in the
distillation decomposes into a fixed remaining part in the retort and volatile passes in the
container.

In the case before us, the distillation residue is therefore but a mixture of primitive salt tartar with
charcoal.

I have said above that potash acetate was a very impure vitriol, see indeed what happens when
dried the lamellar State, you heat up liquidity. This liquor is then blackish completely cooled and
crushed in a mortar of heated marble; mass affects a whiteness of silver, but whenever it
becomes liquid it resumes its black color, this certainly does not happen, if it was composed only
of pure portions.

Take this white mass after him have crushed, put still hot in a large enough bottle and pour it in
significant quantity its spirit which is acetone. Make Digest 24 hours in a warm place by shaking
from time to time, and decant; put new acetone and continue this operation.

Finally there will remain a blackish liquid mud that represents most of phlegm and dead earth of
the body, accompanied not quite impure but still pure, because most of the impurities having
been removed gradually by the spirit.
If account at the time of the decantations thus, when you have removed your vial after digestion
from the place where he warmed gently, put it in a small glass, where you will see after some
time of fine transparent needles, as the pure ice, attach to the walls of your vase. But I confess
that it was impossible to isolate, as they eventually dissolve and unite with acetone as to
decompose in the distillation. Seeing this, I've taken a different way.

I put in a large bowl two or three pounds of white and dry carbonate of potash and when the
effervescence has past, I evaporated it to a brown and very thick liquid that I enclosed in
stoneware pots with well luted with cover, and left to ferment for about two or three months in
the manure. After this time, the contents of these pots was evaporated to the consistency of thick
honey, by cooling I got a brown paste as studded and ribbed for very bright and very transparent
crystals that could be this time portions of pure Salt separated by putrefaction from the dead and
impure feces.

The challenge was to remove them from this mass to isolate; I there however arrived though
imperfectly, stirring with acetone and decanting immediately. I have thus obtain a quantity of
these beautiful crystals, despite the necessary loss resulting from the softening of this pure salt
with acetone in his spirit, which, after distillation the said acetone, allowed to flow into the
container and into an oily compound which, in my opinion, could be a mercury, mercury from
the body or, alchemically speaking, a true spirit of tartar, which is obtained by a new distillation
pure and clear.

Since we now have the salt of tartar, we take this opportunity to remind that this salt has always
been in great honor among the ancient philosophers. Van Helmont stated on it: "If you cannot
arrive to discover the secret of the fire, he said, referring to the philosophical mercury, learn at
least to volatilize the salt of tartar, to make your dissolutions by this."

Volatilize the salt of tartar, it is very easy to say, but how to do it? I found there some time ago in
a bookstore Chacornac, a small book entitled "Follow the Alkahest" Sieur Jean Lepelletier
Rouen, in 1706, where recited in several places the works of Georges Starkey, the disciple of
Philalethes, and where it is discovered the way how to volatilize alkalis "To also prepare
excellent remedies, approaching those that can be prepared by the alkahest."

Having demonstrated, page 60, as salt, in General, to speak philosophically, in the action of the
fury of Vulcan takes sulfur of its neighbor, and because they were both volatile before, they
blend together and bind in an alkali body, the author adds: From thence it comes that alkali are
readily volatilized, their generation point by seminal principles, being only a voluntary disguise
salt and sulfur, that the compound better to resist the violence of fire, "and further:" all alkali can
be volatilized in various ways, all of which produce excellent remedies, but the least of all that is
being done with the oils extracted by expression. These oils in soap making slurries, contains
little volatile salt. Essential oils, because of their volatility, cannot boil with detergents, but there
is a way innermost, whereby these Oils and Salt of Tartar are reduced not in soap, but in a
volatile salt in the form of a sugar candy, which dissolves in water and wine. However, among
all the fixed salts, there is not any of greater virtue than salt of tartar, and between all oils, not
any than the essential oil of turpentine, which is a clear, penetrating oil and its very naturally
diuretic."

But notice that by the volatile salt with essential oil, when digestion is perfect and it dissolves in
water without any oleaginous or fat, this water seems to be a true spirit which is however not the
spirit of tartar; because this water is kept, it will retain its strong taste until it no longer remains
as salt, and then, if we cohobate this water on the salt, the water will have more taste, and during
the distillation it will pass over without odor. However it is this kind of a salt that must be
distilled or sublimate, if you want to get the spirit, which Paracelsus and Van Helmont did in so
many cases.

Here's how to operate, which is at the end of the book, page 177.
"From good saltpeter and white tartar; crush them well apart, sift, mix and detonate in a crucible,
in the pouring spoonful and lighting it up with a burning coal. It will remain a white salt that you
will take hot, roughly pound, and put in a vessel of large aperture that has a lid; pour over good
oil of turpentine to the height of two fingers above, taking great care that this salt did not take
moisture when you pour the oil, otherwise it will not unite with salt. That is why it is necessary
that the salt is to be still hot when it imbibe and saturate with the Oil.

It should need to agitate the material two or three times a day with a spatula, hold the vessel
covered in a warm place, and there deliver new oil as that which it has been first will decrease.
Continuing this work for six months or until the salt is open, that he had drunk three times its
weight of oil, and it has taken the form of soap or grease, which dried and dissolved in water,
gives, by evaporation, the volatile salt or vitriolic tartar."

This salt, by dry distillation, will provide us a spirit of tartar, which when joined its fixed salt
made so many wonders, according to Locques in his "Rudiment of Natural Philosophy" when he
talks about how to obtain the "Quintessence of tartar."

We stop here, not out of limits that we are drawn to us, that we dont speak in this book only
than the Philosophical Vitriol.

PART TWO

So far we did busier to that ancient philosophers called it the wet way, but there is another called
the dry way and was followed by Geber and some Arab philosophers like Avicenna, etc. Suffice
it to say that the work of stone can either to start with one or the other way, although later these
two paths must be alternatives, as we said so well Eliphas Levi in his hermetic philosophy.

We have seen in previous chapters that the work of Vitriol on wet way is quite easy but, on the
other hand, the book is a little long; but much shorter is the dry way, it is true, is, thus, more
difficult and requires a laboratory and expensive equipment that may be within the reach of
everyone.

It consists in calcining the material, so that all of the feces, being burnt, it remains only a grain,
of pure principle that resists fire, by its nature, it is incombustible as asbestos, and by dint of
calcinations, finally resolved completely, when it is subsequently treated with water. This is the
operation on which Hermes speaks when he says, "Rex ine veniet ab, ac conjugio gaudebit, ac
res occulta patebunt."

We see that there is only to be equipped and assisted, for after some trials and error to succeed
quite easily. But do not forget, as the Sieur de Nuysement to reiterate these calcinations and these
dissolutions, because if you wanted to get a single and continuous calcination, there could
happen two things: either that the force of the flames sublimate and force them to flee the best
part of what we seek, or that grain or pure principle vitrificated with feces; while reiterating
calcinations and dissolutions sometimes having the two properties: one that burned something
acquired through habituation of a fire subtlety and always singular; other, that it is often
dissolved acquires penetration prompt and subtle printing and powerful virtue. These are the
common ways to draw pure substances from their excrement, and raise the heavy ground
thickness to igneous purity.

Here is a method described at some length in the Philosophical Discourse of Sabine Stuart
Knight, page 167:

After recognizing the material of the stone, it should crush in a mortar, to facilitate calcination. It
can be calcine without fear in the reverberatory furnace and even in a glass furnace, because the
material of the stone is like a salamander that the fire does not fear him. Pull then the fixed salt
of lime by leaching, then boil the alkali until reduced by half, fill the vase with such an alkali,
and make it boil until reduced by half. Must repeat this calcination and dissolution, I suppose, up
to eight times. Putting each time, the crystals formed by cooling and salt are resolved into water
and only the calcined fixed parts of the vitriol settles to the bottom of the vase. After that, he
said, you have a perfect salt, is what philosophers call water that not wet the hands, without this
water nothing could grow worldwide. This is one of the most great secrets of the Philosophers;
this is the universal spirit corporified, which can be used to cure the most dangerous diseases.

The salt thus prepared is the true salt of the earth, which in the eyes, does seem one and the same
thing, but it contains however three different essentials within the four elements.

l) The first contains a volatile spirit and fixed at the same time, although it is of a whole nature.

2) It contains an ammonia or volatile salt.

3) It contains a saline, fixed and alkaline substance. That is what is contained in the substance of
philosophical salt."

Crollius in its Royal Chemistry, also shows the way to remove the vitriol of Mars and Venus.
When these metals have well calcined at several times with sulfur, it resolved with Rain water or
Dew water, in which the pure grain dissolves and gives vitriol by evaporation.

I refer the reader to the book for more information.

In these two examples, it was observed that the pure principle requires a complete dissolution
with rain or dew water, and the reason is that in these waters is, in large quantity, the universal
spirit or diffuse movement of loco masculi, who, by this meeting operation not only a magnet,
but a pure matrix is insinuates, there incorporates with the necessary moisture, and fixed grain
actually a vitriol, which is easily seen by subsequent distillation.

Of Respour in his "Rare Experiments on mineral Spirit" gives us the following process:

It first discusses the regulus of antimony in a crucible until evaporation of antimony and
continuing to heat up, this sublimed regulus then change into oxide or flowers of Antimony that
he removed with an iron spatula, gradually as it is produced, and he calls clax of regulus of
Antimony.

Then put, he said, a part of calx with two parts of pure saltpeter in an earthenware crucible, than
put this in fire for twelve hours, sometimes moving with a stick, when the material will swell:
heat must be such that the pot must not glow.

The materials being cooled, break the pot and put the mass in coarse powder into crucibles and
set it on fire one after the other, and make large fire that you can. When you see that your pot
will begin to glaze, lift the small lid, and see if the material is colored purple, you know, when it
seem tarnished as lack of fire, the other sign is a little earlier, that it appears a beautiful star.
Remove your pot at once on the right time, lest the Mercurial spirit will not flee like smoke, so
that, out of the fire he keeps exhale, and when he left, the matter remains a gray color and cannot
come from another spirit in its place; it is for you to succeed, since it is not difficult. As you have
removed your material from the furnace, and it will be cooled, it will have the color of dark
lacquer, pulling on the purplish, I did this operation in an hour, but modern not have to overcome
it in three hours.

They named this red saltpeter; it is up to you to experience what the ancients said, since you can
do. Allowed to resolve itself if you will, and so he separates from the feces in the form of gum.
When this gum after preparation joined to another gum, namely that of the Sun, then they
become like running water, under the metallic shine. This is still called amber gum because of its
attractive body under sulfur virtue; soap, because it cleans the body, and sperm, because of its
odor. They named it vitriol or vitriolum, meaning glass oil; because it takes, as I have shown
you, by fire of vitrification.

After vitrification the crucible is cooled, the material seems like a rose, surrounded by green
leaves, because of what they called pink.

Salt that it draws from common water, has countless virtues: it evaporates everything is fixed,
and fixed everything that is volatile, it takes away the venom sublimate such as arsenic, and
anything else dangerous. Being reduced, as you will learn later, it dissolves the gold and silver,
such as ice melts in hot water, without any noise or corrosion, amount set by the still. In short, he
made so many beautiful things, that the alchemical books are filled with its effects." Finally, of
Locques in his Rudiment, also talks about how to bring the carbonate of potassium or salt of
tartar, in the form of dry vitriol as:

"If you expose, he said, the Tartar to the sunlight during the day and moonlight overnight, it
coagulates and resolves several times, and becomes a high degree of penetration and subtlety, we
cannot say anything more, due to its incredible virtue ..."

But this is an experience that I will leave all my heart to those who want to try it.

PART THREE

I have related to almost everything that I could gather among the philosophers vitriol or the first
matter, and you can see by these various quotes, with time, a lot of care and patience, it can
certainly happen to procure even a significant amount. I also spoke previously about the stinking
menstruum and a strong water changing silver in gold, and I cannot better leave this study
indicating how to get it. It is well understood that for these works, it is necessary to use metallic
vitriol, vitriol of tartar can be of no use.

Extracts from a manuscript entitled:

"From the true knowledge of nature and the search for its secrets."

1. FIXATION OF MOON. VALUABLE TRUTH.

Take: Roman Vitriol rubify: 4 lb

Saltpeter refined: 6 lb
Alum feather or pen dephlegm: l lb
Alum rock dephlegm: l lb

Make a strong water of these materials, taking care to lute the joint of the retort with container so
that the spirits will not evaporate.

I did not need to add that the container must be large and the fire conducted in a very gentle way
at the beginning, must increase gradually throughout during the operation and to become strong
at the end. In terms of vitriol, we know how to prepare; iron oxide, but as regards to alum
feather, alum of magnesia, if you cannot get them, we simply replace with alum rock, always
well deflegmed, that is to say free it from its water of crystallization.

Then, when the above corrosive liquor is obtained:

Take: Antimony mineral crushed 1 oz

The red brick gravel crushed 1 oz
Verdigris (copper acetate) 1 oz
Common Cinnabar 1 oz
Arsenic 2 oz

All well pounded and mix them together.

Put them in a retort, and add the above corrosive water, distill once, giving four hours of great
fire at the end; then put on every ounce of this water, twenty-three grains of silver.
Let drop, pour the clear liquid by inclination and by this means your water will be served and
deflegmed, then desiccate the lime of moon and melt. Take a mark of silver and three marks and
eight oz of ordinary nitric acid, dissolve, then evaporate two thirds and one pound of aforesaid
water, join the eight ounces of dissolved moon and put this mixture in a flask surmounted by
another meeting flask, lutes well, then put the furnace with a lamp to five son below, for thirty
days, and you'll see at the bottom of the flask, the fourth part of the silver fell into flakes of gold
of 24 carats.

Take this gold and add as more weight of moon that you dissolved previously, lute as the first
time with strips of paper and bladder of beef and lute of wisdom, and reset the Fire lamp for
thirty days as above; and by this means every month you will have for each pound of silver, four
ounces of fine gold, which is very true and very proven: This light lamp should be in a pot that
serves him turn with a few holes to breath and to provide air to the light lamp; this fire must be
continuous and uninterrupted. The tower or pot in which the flask will be provided with a cover
that covers everything, and the flask is be on a tripod terracotta and lamp below.

By this means, we can multiply the flask and stoves or pots as above, so make a pound of gold
per day; having the facility to operate. It is an eternal mining foolproof. The above water is
weakening, should strengthen in the manner as above, with antimony, red brick, etc., because all
silver is working corroding and weakens. He must be careful to do things exactly. To corroding
without inconvenience, divide the material so as to make six retorts, we put two pounds of
material only in each retort as I did. This water is in the same way as the ordinary nitric acid and
at the end when he distilled over into nothing, give four hours of fire of violent flames.

This graduatory water is over, do as follows Do not miss: Take a pound of silver in granules do
dissolve in aqua fortis; being dissolved, evaporate the two parts of water by the still with his fork
so that the spirits not evaporate and that this water to be used again, being evaporated, lets cool
and your moon will be fallen in crystals; then put it on the graduatory water you have made, and
suddenly the silver will work as well, as the recipe says, and you find the truth.

And if you want to make a larger amount of gold, it must blush Roman vitriol, as follows.

Take this amount of Roman vitriol you want, and always after putrefaction of said vitriol, put it
in a urinal earth that resists fire with his fork and tightly luted the container. You give him a slow
fire for distillation, he released amount of water including the spirit and oil, and when the vitriol
in the urinal is in the shape of lime, stop your distillation, and put the distilled water again and
cohobate, distill it so many times until vitriol does not give water and has turned white, then turn
up the heat of a degree it will become all red: this is the red and rubified vitriol. Remove it from
the urinal for you to use your water as stated above. Whenever you put the water on the vitriol,
stir with a stick well to incorporate. We can also take salt from feces through etching and
therewith cementing the moon two or three times, twenty-four hours each time, and the silver
salt will soften, which thus prepared must be dissolved in graduatory water made with vitriol
prepared as just said, and instead of two ounces and a half of gold, you withdraw from a pound
of silver, five ounces of perfect or foolproof gold, and especially as alum rock that will be used,
as well dephlegmed; you will thereby accomplishing this great secret.
2. LUCRATIVE WORK (MANUSCRIPT MAHOT)

Take: Vitriol rubified 4 lbs

Saltpeter 3 lbs
Cinnabar 250 gr.
Ammonia salt 250 gr.

Distilling in a retort short and wide necked; with very slow fire of distillation that will increase
gradually according to art, and in a large container.

In this corrosive water, dissolve silver and by a urinal distill the spirits of the said water, but not
to dryness of the material, cohobate these spirits on the subject of silver in the same urinal as
above by distillation three or four times, and at the last time distill it to dryness of the matter, and
the material well dried, then wash three times with distilled water, then by drying, the art put out,
and you will have a large amount of fine gold.

3. WATER THAT BRIGHTEN THE NIGHT AND DYED THE MOON AND GOLD

Put the salt in distilled vinegar according to art; dry and distill it, and pull the spirit and good oil
of vitriol, then well calcine the caput mortuum. Then, cohobate the spirit and oil on over the
calcined salt and redistilling it again but strongly at the end, all the salt and water will pass
through. First 10 parts of volatile portions are put on a fixed ones, and then when all is spent,
again ten parts on one in the same way, until all of the fixed was removed by the volatile. This
water illuminates the night like a candle, and if you cook in therefore the calx of luna, she fixes it
and converts it in gold, and she also can fix the amalgam made of mercury and silver.

Whenever we say: take the vitriol, it is understood that it is only with vitriol we gave the
following preparation Locques, iron sulfate, for example, prior reduced on butter and then
subjected to putrefaction. By Roman vitriol, following Chambon his "Treatise on Metals" means
a stony vitriol that sometimes occurs in mines, which, struck a steel makes fire like flint.

There considerably in the gold mines of Hungary, and when he meets this vitriol in mines, this is
a good omen. This is called Roman vitriol, nor that it comes from Rome or its territory than
elsewhere, but it is by its excellence among other vitriols that bears this name. Philosophers have
also called Usnea (Chambon). I did not need to add that in case you manage to get them, he
would always undergo the same operation that common or green vitriol whose properties if they
are inferior to his own, should be very little, and who has at least the huge advantage to find
under our hand.

Excerpts from "Nature unveiled" The salsaginosit is the beginning and the foundation of all
coagulation. This is the thing more in the next land to be converted into precious stone. Thus the
universal spirit is a spermatic saline nature is willing to coagulate any volatile as it is, and it must
be conceive that the acidity is the spirit or the universal seed, which by putrefaction and
fermentation took saline and natural coagulant.

The minerals thus originate more fixed parts of universal sperm, that is to say saltpeter and salt,
especially corrosive vapors spirit of these two highly fermented in a word, the spirit of niter and
the salt mixed together, attacking with violence on earth and turned it into stone, then corrode
and make a vitriolic or aluminous gur.

As well as minerals are born with more fixed and universal spirits, it is also by seed or by the
spirit of niter or salt, and each resolves to reduce, according to his degree in an essential or vitriol
salt, from this vapor or corrosive water.

The corrosive water is the main key to the whole fortress; as always we must have good quantity
of spirits of vitriol and alum, because they are a clean damp mineral for all red and white stars.
The elders wisely and rightly placed the saltpeter and then next to it the vitriol, to better penetrate
the mineral matters and they fired saltpeter and vitriol by distillation, a universal menstruum for
mineral regime. The metals are becoming volatile and turning largely with him by distillation.

It is usually this menstruum of two parts of vitriol and one or two parts of saltpeter. After being
calcined vitriol, it mixes with raw saltpeter, and distills a strong water which has the same effect,
in whatever way we compose it, but it is not a good method, here's why. When saltpeter joined
with vitriol, in the heat, the vitriol that has a burning sulfur, is contrary to the saltpeter, and it
dissipate his spirit before he well able to attack and resolve the vitriol. In this way the spirit of
niter passes in the container, and only carries with it a small part of the more volatile vitriolic
sulfur, which even retains a corrosive fetid smell, and what remains is the fixed vitriol, and all
that the saltpeter and fire could do.

The real method is this. First make an ordinary spirit of niter take one lb; pour it on a pound of
pure vitriol and calcined to whiteness (not rubefied, but calcined only until charred white); put
them in a retort, and distill by strong fire of sand, by slow degrees, and only up to the third
degree, so that there is not calcined vitriol. Because if you distill violently vitriol, you will set the
vitriol rather than to solve it. When the corrosive water is passed over, add even a pound of more
new corrosive water and pour all on the vitriol remained in the retort. Let them dissolve and
digest a day and a night, then distill slowly and only until the third part: the vitriol will be melts
like butter and fat such as oil. Then it is a mineral gur regenerated and spiritualized, to be
reduced to a syrupy steam, if it is to be able to resolve the things of nature.

Take the corrosive water that has passed; add even a new corrosive water a pound, so there is in
all three pounds of corrosive water attached to a pound of vitriol; resolve and digest it again a
day and a night; then distill slowly by degrees and you will see the corrosive water has passed,
most of the vitriol has spiritualized; must be cohobate until it passes entirely, and there is nothing
left at the bottom of the retort; then we will do it again pass, without addition, once or twice, and
in this way we will have the true radical menstruum, which reduce all red and white stars in their
first material, and make them similar to him.

But at first each metal or mineral having passed through the fire, it must be specially prepared
and we should give him the principles that have been removed. And previously, gold calcined
with sulfur, arsenic and antimony; and lime made, resolves easily with the said menstruum.

The silver, copper, lead and iron, as the calcining of tin with sulfur and resolve with the same
menstruum, as also with the mercury sublimate with common salt. The vitriol there also fixes.
Antimony well mixed with sulfur on fire, until the sulfur is burned, also resolves and fixes in the
same menstruum.

Now take for example a mineral, the one you want, and after spray, let the blush in a crucible by
a more or less strong fire, according to its fixity.

When it is red, sprinkle it with a quantity of common sulfur, mix all well together with a wire
until the sulfur is completely burned; then the mineral is prepared to be dissolved in the
menstruum.

Take then the mineral and prepared part, put it in a still; pour over three parts of aforesaid
menstruum; digest on the fire of ashes; Gently pour this by inclination what is clear and
dissolved; and what is not, pour again three times its weight of menstruum, and do digest until
everything dissolve and become in clear liquor. Then the mineral is in its first state; If you distill
this liquor in sand by the retort or the still, up to the third part, then you leave the residue to cool
and you put it in the cellar, so it crystallizes, you will have a vitriol and materiam primum Illins
minerae renatam. If you still dissolve this vitriol in three parts of menstruum again; as you distill
and cohobate by the retort until everything is passed over, you will have a hazy and paramount
liquor that can not be demoted or downgraded, it touches the root with the mineral kingdom, and
head to the vegetable kingdom.

Here you have the entire mineral with all its principles because it has not lost its sulfur or its
arsenic or its marcasite, such as refined metals have lost in the casting and melting; and all its
vital spirits have been preserved. You can experience by digesting the silver.

If you want to coagulate and fix this liquor or mineral oil, should cook and digest it at the
balneum marie for three days and three nights in a low cucurbit, with its capital and container
and distill the superfluous moisture. When nothing more wants to come over, turn to ashes;
gently distill weak spirit and phlegm: put the residue in a flask, and make it coagulate in the
ashes. There come into saline stone more fluid then oil and which in the air will freeze as ice.
There is no need to plug your flask, because nothing go rises. In this way, you'll have the mineral
quintessence, but corrosive and harmful to human nature, it is only good for transmutation.

We have seen how the corrosive liquor of vitriol and saltpeter which can reduce metals and
minerals in their first material or vitriol.

We will now show you how we can use to fix, enhance and refine metals directly.

Method to use acid fires for the fixation, increase and perfection of all minerals.

(Alchemy Key, page 83)

If you want to improve lead, tin and zinc, it must reduce them in shot because if they were too
menus, it would be too much in the boiling solution. Your shot made, put it in large cucurbits
and there pour slowly your concentrated fire of Niter and vitriol is the best for this operation. In a
short time you will see your metals reduced into white powder which is the true philosophical
calcination, which sets and maintains all parts of the compound; and your metal being reduced to
white ash, separate the solvent by distillation, so that the vessel containing the material to redden
for one hour at least so that all spirits separate and pass into the container which must be well
luted, and you will find at the bottom of the retort your metallic calx, which reduced metal and
passed over by the cupel will leave a considerable profit of gold and silver, especially tin and
zinc. These two latter are being almost in all their substance, an innate gold volatile sulfur that
the menstruum has completed it to mature and ripen.

It is observed that with the spirit of niter alone can be achieve very significant results, as niter
contained in his power holds true tincture of gold, and by the digesting as necessary, we can give
them a perfect shape, and communicate it to the metals that lack sulfur and mercury then there's
could manifest and set out what this medicine discovers and develops in them.

To conclude this study, it only remains for me to speak only one vitriol, but this vitriol or rather
way to get it is not yet within the reach of everyone. To explain its production, I am forced to go
back to the generation of mercury, and for that I think theres not a better quote than by the
discourse of verbatim philosophical by Sabine Stuart Knight on this topic.

..... We have already said that in time the vulgar mercury forms in the bowels of the earth, there
is at first forms a crystal clear water, and we will add it falls into tears when nature produce it in
mines, where it binds, cooks and becomes metal by the fumes of more or less pure sulfur which
produces all perfect and imperfect metals, depending on the degree of purity where this sulfur,
when spreads its mercurial vapors, which is about to be metallifier.

But such sulfur is necessary to the degree of perfection, if it is not well-impregnated with the
universal spirit, it cannot produces the gold and silver but only inferior metals, minerals, and
stones.

Heavy mining are still owed their existence to an abundance of sulfur which always operates on
abundant metal production. When the flow comes to the sulfur be interrupted, the metal binds
more water, no more freezes and backs up the bowels of the earth outside. As soon as this water
feels the crudeness of the air, its natural heat focused internally: it coagulates like liquefied lead,
holding a continuous movement, and it is called mercury.

For the philosophical mercury, must dissolve this vulgar mercury or metal into water, without
reducing its weight; because all his substance should be converted into water philosophical.

Philosophers know a natural fire that penetrates to the heart of mercury and extinguishes it
inwardly; they also know a solvent which converts pure Argentina water, it does not contain or
must not contain any corrosive.

As soon as the mercury is released from his bonds, and he is overcome by the heat, it takes a
form of water, and this water is the most precious thing in the world. It must be little time to take
this form to the vulgar mercury metal.

This water does not wet and does not stick to hands, like ordinary water; when put with
imperfect metals, it just separates, in a wonderful way, all impurities of which they are filled; it
unites with them, freezes, and corporify it into metal.

This is what pure vitriol which Le Crom refers when he says: "I know it is a good way much
shorter and much easier to remove the fixed salt of imperfect metals, with even in greater
amount, but it is a topic that I will touch on, willingly leaving the available to teachers of art."

We see that, to achieve this, we need only to search this solvent, this secret fire shall issue the
mercury from his bonds, and this is what will be the subject of our next book.

END

l) Visit the bowels of the earth, you will find the hidden stone.

2) I do not know to recommend it, whenever we will use distilled vinegar in alchemy, well
ensure that it is in between no addition of acetic acid.

3) The salt by Le Crom seems entirely appropriate for this operation. It remains only to calcine to
whiteness. You can still use the regular vitriol after putrefaction. Treating with the distilled
vinegar which dissolves only the hard parts. Although then evaporate the distilled vinegar. The
remaining vitriol is then brought to whiteness by distillation of the spirits, as is already indicated.
We see that all the vinegar is removed and the vitriol began to distill, when white fumes appear.
You then change the container.

TABLE OF WORKS WHICH HAVE BEEN CITED

Philosophical discourse or the key to the sanctuary by Sabine Stuart Knight .....................1781
The Nature Unveiled or theory of nature without the author's name ...................................1772
Several useful and interesting experiments with salt treated by Le Crom .......................... 1718
Abstract of the doctrine of Paracelsus and archidoxies unnamed Copyright ..................... 1724
The reign of Saturn changed golden age, has Huginus Barma ........................................... 1780
Few experiments on mineral Spirit by Mr De Respour to Paris in ..................................... 1668
Treaty salt Philosophers by Sieur de Nuysement to Paris ...................................................1621
Treaty of metals and minerals by Chambon in Paris .......................................................... 1714
Following the Treaty of alkahest by Mr. Jean Pelletier Rouen ........................................... 1706
Royal chemistry Crollius translated into French by Marcel de Rouen Boulne ................. 1634
The Basics of Natural Philosophy by Nicolas de Locques to Paris in ................................ 1665