Alchemy and Remedies — Chemical Recipes

in 12 days. Nor is it purged of its blackness in 22, nor in 32, until [it has been] in the furnace for 42 days. Otherwise, through 9 months it will complete itself, at length purged so that it does not putrefy, and it will have a citrine color approaching redness. And make from it a salt as was said of Sol, and by tinting Luna with the same salt into the best Sol, and one part ascends over 2 ℈. It will fall upon 10 parts of Luna, concerning which do as was said of the others. And this is the most secret and restricted Salt of any volatile thing.

Mars.

It is calcined if it has been filed, imbibed with red vinegar, [and] dried at a good fire in a reverberatory furnace, such as that of the glassmakers. It shall be burned for 30 days, and from it make a salt as was said of the other Bodies; the salt extracted from the salt of Mars, and congealed in the sun, and again by itself, dissolved under dung and afterwards congealed in the sun. If one part of it is placed upon two parts and well washed in an ampulla, well closed for half a day, in hot ashes it congeals by means of the powder qui? and, by a stronger fire being applied, it will be redder, and it will mortify another [substance]

and in a similar way, which you will be able to imbibe with the water in which you dissolved your calx, and then calcine as above.

Luna.

It is calcined for 2 days in the aforesaid furnaces, and then with salt alkali, but it ought first to be purged by fusion. And after you have done these things, it tints into a fixed white, with which you may work, as was said above, upon any metal whatsoever, and it will whiten that metal with a fixed and permanent whiteness; thus you will be able to multiply upon copper? to white better than to red, because one part of this salt tints 10 parts by multiplication, by projecting both the tinted upon the untinted, as the extinguished upon the unextinguished; but it is not thus for the red, because it requires a greater tincture from that which naturally whitens and transmutes, and therefore it requires a greater medicine, so that it may be transmuted from its nature rather than having a nature added to it. And one part of this, placed upon 20 parts of whitened and softened copper, converts them into Luna.

Jupiter.

Among the other planets it is benevolent; it is calcined in a closed vessel in the aforesaid furnaces, namely, the glassmakers' [furnace].