The Prosperity of Germany, Part Two

I have taught in the fourth part of my Furnaces. How, by its aid, all heterogeneous additions are to be separated from gold, and silver may be placed in a higher degree so that it may take on a golden nature, I have shown in the Explication of the Miracle of the World. By what reason it should be applied further to many metallic operations with greater fruit and profit, I shall show partly in this booklet and partly in the following third and fourth parts. The method of separating it abundantly from its ore through "descent," as the Chemists call it, is found in Agricola's De Re Metallica and others, and does not belong in this place.

Concerning Arsenic.

Arsenic, not yielding much in goodness and utility to other fossils and minerals, serves various uses; it traverses the bowels of the mountains in its own veins and passages; it is expelled from its ore through "ascent" or "descent" and is rendered fit for use; and it is found clothed in white, yellow, and red color. There are also veins rich in silver, which, while they are smelted, exhale much arsenic in smoke; this is collected by the founders in chimneys receiving the smoke and is saved for use, as can be seen in Georgius Agricola. Thus, also, cobalt and certain gold veins yield arsenic by smoking. That which exhales by smoking from gold veins shines with a most beautiful and golden redness, which must be separated from the veins themselves before fusion. For, as metallic workers have discovered, if it is not separated from the gold vein before it is fused, it carries off much gold with it in fusion, so that they, defrauded of a great part of the gold, do not receive as much as they had learned from smaller experiments was present in the veins; for such arsenic is immature gold, just as that which shines with a white color is immature silver, which will be demonstrated later. Thus, arsenic, swollen with poison and cast aside, has hidden more in its bowels than anyone might easily persuade himself. It is also suitable for preparing medicines, but only those which, applied by external use, heal inveterate and virulent ulcers, cancers, fistulas, and the like. It also has its use among painters in painting, and dyers in dyeing cloths with colors, as my other writings indicate.