Musaeum metallicum

A is most suitable. The common composition of this water consists of a pound of vitriol copper sulfate, as much salt, and three parts of spring water. It is also prepared differently from four pounds of vitriol, two of saltpeter, with half a pound of alum, and a pound and a half of spring water. Those, however, who wish to induce softness in any metal sprinkle on sublimated silver, borax, and euphorbium reduced to powder. If they wish to reduce metals into lime and water, to pull a nobler metal into the skin of a viler one, or to transmute them into one another, one must read Vuecherius in his book on Secrets, where he has revealed many arcana of this kind. Cap. 10.

THE MIXTURE OF METALS.

B NATURE, producing metals in the womb of the earth, sometimes mixes two, three, or four, as we have clarified in the Rubric on differences. Hence, men taught by nature, as Agricola testifies, have brought the method of metallic mixture into use. Indeed, chance sometimes showed the same thing, when, as Pliny relates, Corinth was burned and gold, silver, and copper flowed together. Thus, Fortune in a certain way assigned a mixture tempered by three kinds of Corinthian bronze, of which one shone as white as silver, since that predominated in the mixture, another in which a tawny color shone due to the dominance of gold, and a third in which an equal mixture of all was constituted. And so, art and fraud imitate Nature and Fortune, while men, adding metals to metals, produce various mixtures, which the Greeks call kramata mixtures and the Latins call temperatures. Artisans, therefore, can couple two, three, or more simple or mixed metals, or a simple metal with a mixed one and vice-versa, or two simple ones with one mixed one and vice-versa, or finally several simple ones with one or two mixed ones, and in these, a variation can likewise be maintained. Likewise, a vile metal is sometimes dissolved with a precious one, and conversely, a precious one is added to a vile one. Primarily, silver is mixed with gold Lib. 8. de Nat. fos. The various mixing of metals. in many ways, and all these mixtures lack a name, as was manifested above; only a mixture of gold receiving a fifth portion of silver is named Electrum amber/electrum.

C Furthermore, when men melt a portion of a viler metal with a mass of a more precious one for the sake of profit, they undoubtedly fall into fraud, although some artisans persuade themselves that this can be done by the consent and benefit of Princes, so that gold coins are not minted pure, but with a small portion of silver. Today also, by the concession of Princes, they use a mixture of metals in minting coins, which workers and goldsmiths call Lega alloy. Nevertheless, the Emperor Tacitus, as Flavius Vopiscus relates, cautioned in an address to the Senate that no one should dare to mix bronze with silver publicly or privately, nor silver with gold, nor lead with bronze; otherwise, he would incur a capital judgment with the proscription of his goods, although in the past, as the same Vopiscus testifies, some added lead to bronze in order to mint coins of very low quality. Silver-smiths pronounce that it is lawful for them to procure this mixture while they take ten and a half ounces of silver and half an ounce of copper, and thus fuse a pound-weight mass of silver. Some alchemists add copper whitened with silver and sell it as sincere silver, although this fraud should be corrected with the ultimate penalty. Today, black lead Viler metals are mixed with precious ones.

D is mixed in a tenth part with tin, and from this mixture, they form plates, vessels, and many works of this kind. Once they also mixed iron with bronze, which was a fraud to many. Thus, metals are mixed with more precious ones in many ways. But conversely, this is not to be put in the place of a crime when more precious metals are added to vile ones. Finally, there are certain mixtures of metals that take their name from the works resulting from them, such as the potters' mixture, which is integrated from three or four pounds of silver-lead and a hundred of bronze, which enters into various kinds of vessels. Another mixture is called the bombard-mixture, from which war cannons are made; this is made when for every twenty pounds of bronze, one of white lead is added. A third mixture is made when, for the sake of sound, half a pound of ash-lead is coupled with sixteen pounds of white lead. A fourth mixture is composed when two portions of black lead and a third of white are joined; the ancients called this tertiary tin, which they used for soldering pipes What soldering is.; the common people have named this mixture Saldadura solder. The fifth mixture is when