[Footnote 15: Helmont pag. 412.]
[Footnote 16: Tyroc. Chym. L. 1. C. 4.]
To return then to what I was saying just before I mention'd
_Helmont's_ Experiment, I shall subjoyne, That Chymists must confess
also that in the perfectly Dephlegm'd spirit of Wine, or other
Fermented Liquors, that which they call the Sulphur of the Concrete
loses, by the Fermentation, the Property of Oyle, (which the Chymists
likewise take to be the true Sulphur of the Mixt) of being unminglable
with the Water. And if You will credit _Helmont_,[17] all [Errata: a
pound] of the purest Spirit of Wine may barely by the help of pure
Salt of Tartar (which is but the fixed Salt of Wine) be resolv'd or
Transmuted into scarce half an ounce of Salt, and as much Elementary
Water as amounts to the remaining part of the mention'd weight. And it
may (as I think I formerly also noted) be doubted, whether that Fixt
and Alcalizate Salt, which is so unanimously agreed on to be the
Saline Principle of incinerated Bodies, be not, as 'tis Alcalizate, a
Production of the Fire? For though the tast of Tartar, for Example,
seem to argue that it contains a Salt before it be burn'd, yet that
Salt being very Acid is of a quite Differing Tast from the Lixiviate
Salt of Calcin'd Tartar. And though it be not truly Objected against
the Chymists, that they obtain all Salts they make, by reducing the
Body they work on into Ashes with Violent Fires, (since Hartshorn,
Amber, Blood, and divers other Mixts yield a copious Salt before they
be burn'd to Ashes) yet this Volatile Salt Differs much, as we shall
see anon, from the Fixt Alcalizate Salt I speak of; which for ought I
remember is not producible by any known Way, without Incineration.
'Tis not unknown to Chymists, that Quicksilver may be Precipitated,
without Addition, into a dry Powder, that remains so in Water. And
some eminent _Spagyrists_, and even _Raimund Lully_ himself, teach,
that meerly by the Fire Quicksilver may in convenient Vessels be
reduc'd (at least in great part) into a thin Liquor like Water, and
minglable with it. So that by the bare Action of the Fire, 'tis
possible, that the parts of a mixt Body should be so dispos'd after
new and differing manners, that it may be sometimes of one
consistence, sometimes of another; And may in one State be dispos'd to
be mingl'd with Water, and in another not. I could also shew you, that
Bodies from which apart Chymists cannot obtain any thing that is
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