The Wayfarer

reading from others. If they wish it to be understood concerning Mercury still remaining in its mine, they perhaps say something; if it is concerning Mercury existing outside the mine and for sale, the gold seems to him to be inserted/adventitious. For both in subterranean pits and rivers, where that Mercury is collected in that form, it is accustomed to, and can, imbibe the thinnest particles of gold. That native cinnabar without doubt contains nothing of a perfect metal in itself. It is found sometimes with the same color and figure as that which appears as the "blood-vein" of silver original: "Rothgüldig" red silver ore, but it nonetheless flies off from the fire and shows the nature of quicksilver. The same should be thought concerning that Mercury which is found collected outside its mine, that it contains no gold naturally, but only through an intervening mixture. We do not, however, deny in the meantime that Mercury is congealed into gold by nature over time, namely through intermediate imperfect metals. For as there is no transition from extreme to extreme except through its medium, both according to nature and art, so neither will Mercury be congealed into gold unless it passes through metals more imperfect than gold. For in metallic nature, Mercury and gold are separated by a very long interval, and as if they were truly two extremes; and imperfect metals approach more to this or that, as intermediaries between both. Who will deny that silver is sought from lead, or silver from lead? Who does not see the affinity of lead and Mercury is not very remote, such that I have sometimes seen an experiment with quicksilver congealed by the smoke of lead, which, when kept for three hours in a fire gradually increased—with a cement made from antique tiles and iron slag placed layer by layer in a crucible—passed into lead or something entirely similar to it. Whence some also promise a lapidific stone-making force coagulating quicksilver into

Experiment.