The First Part of the Mineral Work

seeking. Wherefore, for the sake of better understanding, I preferred to use a prolixity of words, tedious to the ears of the delicate, rather than their obscure brevity adorned with rhetorical figures. For it does not escape me that students of the art love a prolix, plain, and distinct information or instruction, rather than an obscure, figurative Ciceronian one. Therefore, in the name of the Lord, I will make a beginning of my work, most useful to all, and I will faithfully communicate and publish it in the way in which I wrote it down while on my journey, under the title of Mineral Work Opus Minerale, divided into three Parts. In the first of which will be taught how gold is to be elicited from sand and golden flints by the benefit of the corporal Spirit of Salt Spiritus salis. 8- 2- Which secret, even if it appears small, is nevertheless of value (given knowledge of the true stones and true sand) not only for the sustenance of life, but also for the 1- 2- expenditure of costs to be incurred in proving the two following parts.

In the Second Part will be treated the origin and generation of metals, as well as the death of minerals and metals.

In the Third Part will be demonstrated by various reasons the possibility of metallic transmutation through nature and art: which demonstration, performed by no one hitherto (if I am not mistaken), will be the