had not any Water or other Liquor in-existent in it, yet such a
Comminution of its parts may be made, by the fire or other Agents, as
to turn a great portion of them into Liquor. Of this Truth I will give
an instance, employ'd by our friend here present as one of the most
conducive of his experiments to Illustrate the nature of Salts. If you
Take, then, sea salt and melt it in the Fire to free it from the
aqueous parts, and afterward distill it with a vehement Fire from
burnt Clay, or any other, as dry a _Caput mortuum_ as you please, you
will, as Chymists confess, [Errata: confesse (delete comma)] by
teaching it drive over a good part of the Salt in the form of a
Liquor. And to satisfy some ingenious men, That a great part of this
Liquor was still true sea salt brought by the Operation of the Fire
into Corpuscles so small, and perhaps so advantageously shap'd, as to
be capable of the forme of a Fluid Body, He did in my presence poure
to such spiritual salts a due proportion of the spirit (or salt and
Phlegme) of Urine, whereby having evaporated the superfluous moisture,
he soon obtain'd such another Concrete, both as to tast and smell, and
easie sublimableness as common Salt _Armoniack_, which you know is
made up of grosse and undistill'd sea salt united with the salts of
Urine and of Soot, which two are very neer of kin to each other. And
further, to manifest that the Corpuscles of sea salt and the Saline
ones of Urine retain their several Natures in this Concrete, He mixt
it with a convenient quantity of Salt of Tartar, and committing it to
Distillation soon regain'd his spirit of Urine in a liquid form by its
self, the Sea salt staying behind with the Salt of Tartar. Wherefore
it is very possible that dry Bodies may by the Fire be reduc'd to
Liquors without any separation of Elements, but barely by a certain
kind of Dissipation and Comminution of the matter, whereby its parts
are brought into a new state. And if it be still objected, that the
Phlegme of mixt Bodies must be reputed water, because so weak a tast
needs but a very small proportion of Salt to impart it; It may be
reply'd, that for ought appears, common Salt and divers other bodies,
though they be distill'd never so dry, and in never so close Vessels,
will yield each of them pretty store of a Liquor, wherein though (as I
lately noted) Saline Corpuscles abound, Yet there is besides a large
proportion of Phlegme, as may easily be discovered by coagulating the
Saline Corpuscles with any convenient Body; as I lately told you, our
Friend coagulated part of the Spirit of Salt with Spirit of Urine: and
as I have divers times separated a salt from Oyle of Vitriol it self
(though a very ponderous Liquor and drawn from a saline body) by
180