The Wayfarer

It is therefore a sun created from the most subtle substance of quicksilver and the most clear fixation, and from a small substance of sulfur, earthy and of pure redness, fixed, clear, and changed from its own nature, coloring it.

From these facts, it is evident that gold is entirely a mercurial substance in which there is the most perfect mixture of all elements, equated according to their qualities. Now, it must be inquired whether such a mixture can be made from congealed Mercury, and how. Mercury, however, is a cold and moist substance, and therefore flowing, not equated in the qualities of the elements, entirely volatile in fire, and vanishing—though it is not resolved into the parts of the compound, but the whole ascends, that is, earth with water, air, and fire, and no element is easily separated from another. It truly has in itself the heaviness, brightness, and homogeneity of gold, but it fails in other properties, namely in its citrine color, malleability, fire-resistance, duration in the fire and in the examinations of gold, and finally in the equation of all qualities. Let us first see if gold sometimes naturally proceeds or is born from congealed Mercury. If this were true, it might perhaps also be possible to achieve it through art. If not, one must not think of the coagulation of this as natural. Such Mercury is found in a twofold way: one collected and running outside its mine in a subterranean pit, or around the surface of the earth in herbs or other retainers or cavities, to which it has flowed down by its own weight; the other in its native mine or cinnabar, from which it is elicited by the force of fire through distillation. There are those who say that any Mercury contains some gold in itself, and they wonder why it is not separated in those places where Mercury is found. But let faith rest with their authors. I have not known such a thing either by my own experiment or reading.