CHAPTER II.

The essential occurs where spirits prevail in the greatest quantity, whence the aqueous vehicle becomes sufficiently capable of carrying them on high. From this depend many differences of macerations; for if the spirit becomes thin and fleeting, it easily carries away that oil in its company with a very light infusion of water, as appears in sassafras wood; the contrary example is provided to us by barks, roots, and harder woods that abound in less spirit and are covered with harder envelopes, which require a long-lasting maceration, indeed drawn out to some weeks or months, such as rhodium wood, etc.

The empyreumatic is elicited by the sole force of fire, where bodies are immediately subjected to more vehement motion. That one, on account of the thickness of the particles and the scarcity of spirit, requires more vehement motion in distillation; indeed, it can be elicited from most vegetables and from all those from which the essential oil has been distilled.

Furthermore, there are given two types of oil, celebrated by chemists under an improper name: the first because of the thickness and weight of the particles, such as oils of salts or concentrated fluid salts.

The other, representing oil by its unctuosity, such as fixed salts dissolved per deliquium liquefaction by moisture from the air; these, since they pertain to other principles,