On the Tincture of Gold or True Potable Gold

Therefore, the deceit of those who distill wine and other vegetable waters, selling potable gold and not fearing to sell to the ignorant, even at a high price, water colored yellow or red, is not unknown.

Nor is the error of others, who dissolve the structure of gold in aqua regia or spirit of salt, which they then distill off to a dry remnant; to which, for the sake of an "extraction" (so-called), they pour in spirit of wine: which, however, is not an extraction, but a certain particular solution of gold, made by the aid of the corrosive spirits left behind in the gold, infecting the spirit of wine with a yellow color, which, thus colored, they call their Potable Gold; when, nevertheless, once that spirit of wine is distilled off, it is reducible into gold: which can perform no more than any other calx of gold, which the archeus cannot digest, but excretes indigested with the excrements.

Likewise, the error of others who ignorantly deceive themselves along with others, extracting the calx of gold with peculiar menstrua and spirits, not knowing that the menstruum poured upon the gold turns red of its own accord and spontaneously with longer digestion, which they decant and administer in place of potable gold; who-