Saline parts, which by reason of the Analogy may pretend to the name
of some kinde of volatile Salts; yet questionless there is a great
disparity betwixt such Salts and that which we have sometimes obtain'd
upon the first Distillation of Soot (though for the most part it has
not been separated from the first or second Rectification, and
sometimes not till the third) For we could never yet see separated
from Woods analyz'd only the vulgar way in close vessels any volatile
Salt in a dry and Saline form, as that of Soot, which we have often
had very Crystalline and Geometrically figur'd. And then, whereas the
Saline parts of the Spirits of _Guajacum_, &c. appear upon
distillation sluggish enough, the Salt of Soot seems to be one of the
most volatile Bodies in all Nature; and if it be well made will
readily ascend with the milde heat of a Furnace, warm'd only by the
single Wieck of a Lamp, to the top of the highest Glass Vessels that
are commonly made use of for Distillation: and besides all this, the
taste and smell of the Salt of Soot are exceeding differing from those
of the Spirits of _Guajacum_, &c. and the former not only smells and
tastes much less like a vegetable Salt, than like that of Harts-horn,
and other Animal Concretes; but in divers other Properties seems more
of Kinne to the Family of Animals, than to that of vegetable Salts, as
I may elsewhere (God permitting) have an occasion more particularly to
declare. I might likewise by some other Examples manifest, That the
Chymists, to have dealt clearly, ought to have more explicitly and
particularly declar'd by what Degree of Fire, and in what manner of
Application of it, they would have us Judge a Division made by the
Fire to be a true _Analysis_ into their Principles, and the
Productions of it to deserve the name of Elementary Bodies. But it is
time that I proceed to mention the particular Reasons that incline me
to Doubt, whether the Fire be the true and universal Analyzer of mixt
Bodies; of which Reasons what has been already objected may pass for
one.
In the next place I observe, That there are some mixt Bodies from
which it has not been yet made appear, that any degree of Fire can
separate either Salt or Sulphur or Mercury, much less all the Three.
The most obvious Instance of this Truth is Gold, which is a Body so
fix'd, and wherein the Elementary Ingredients (if it have any) are so
firmly united to each other, that we finde not in the operations
wherein Gold is expos'd to the Fire, how violent soever, that it does
discernably so much as lose of its fixednesse or weight, so far is it
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