Collection of Alchemical Treatises

length of two palms and leave it be for ten or twelve hours, and you shall find all your silver in the manner of a cloud, attached both to the copper and to the plates; remove your water by inclination, and strain it through a cloth, and your silver will remain upon the cloth, so subtle that it is not felt by the finger; and then put the said silver in a well-covered crucible for twenty-four hours over a small fire, so that it does not melt, until it be well dried and subtilized and prepared for dissolution, and set it apart until such time as one wishes to dissolve it.

The calcination of Jupiter.

One shall take a pound of tin and put it to melt in a crucible, and with an iron rod, while it is continually molten, stir it so long that the said Jupiter

shall return into a gray powder, and then put it into a crucible in a wood reverberatory furnace, or in the furnace of those who make earthen pots, at a great heat for the space of twenty-four hours or more, and it shall return white as snow, and will be well calcined.

The calcination of copper is performed in this manner.

Take a pound of copper, and put it into filings, and then in a crucible in a reverberatory furnace or one similar to that of the tin.

The calcination of Mars.

Take a pound of iron filings and three pounds of sulfur in powder and put it in an earthen pot over a good charcoal fire until the sulfur be burnt and your iron shall be calcined; and wash the said iron with common water to remove the terrestreity of the sulfur, and set each aside.