PART ONE

earthen alembics than from glass and earthen retorts, because then that volatile gold attracts as much from the iron as it needs for its fixation, which iron is afterward easily separated again from the gold by antimony, as will be taught later. This is also notable: not every garnet is soluble in spirit of salt, even if it is left for a long time together with it in digestion, as it always retains its original color. Therefore, one must have a distinction between them, or learn the preparation required for the solution of the sun i.e., gold contained in them.

Furthermore, it is necessary to extract talc with not too much or excessive heat, lest its entire substance be dissolved by the spirit, to the hindrance of the work; because then there is little profit from it. For that reason, it is instituted so that that little gold, dispersed in a great quantity of talc, may be reduced into a narrow space, so that there is no need to melt that great quantity of talc entire by the benefit of fluxes, with loss and inconvenience. There is, however, no danger in flints, because the spirit of salt does not dissolve them like talc, but only extracts the gold from them, leaving the stony body. The calamine stone also must be treated differently in extraction and fixation than garnets, flints, or talc, because it is almost entirely soluble in the spirit of salt. This labor does not pertain here, because both extraction and fixation are instituted by a peculiar method (concerning which elsewhere), and it is not my purpose now to treat of it, but only of the extraction of gold from flints found everywhere. And this is that mode of extraction of gold from flints and sand by spirit of salt in heat, to be instituted in glass