Chemical Compendium

patience. Approaching the matter more closely, most learned and distinguished men, I offer you the anatomy of fluid bodies, exhibiting the firm and fluid state of bodies by means of fluid knives. What I propose is not new, since the whole vocabulary and intention of Chemistry signify nothing other than the wonderful production and transformation of a fluid juice, by means of a fluid matter. Who does not know the foamy waves of fermentation? Like a whirlwind raised on high, the rapid motions of effervescence are encountered everywhere in this art. The cloudy elevations of humors into the chemical heaven, along with the dewy dripping, are known to anyone who has barely greeted the threshold of this art. The often-horrid expansions of salts, leaping apart with the greatest crash and crackling, and seizing various solid bodies at their whim and into the swiftest motion—who, unless he is clearly a stranger in this arena, is ignorant of these? Why should I recount the flight of slower bodies, swimming in a most fluid matter, to a