Collection of Alchemical Treatises

a difficult thing for one who knows not how to do it; afterwards the vessel must be sealed or stopped with wax and left to rest in some place for the whole day; then it must be placed in a bain-marie for two days, and afterwards distilled by ashes in a retort, and it will be a very beautiful water, white and heavy; and this menstruum here is most excellent, of which Raymond Lully, in his Accurtatio, and in the Clausura, and in his Magic, in the chapter which begins "the vegetable fire dissolved in the mineral calcinative water," says that it is of great virtue and efficacy.

The Second Menstruum,

which is entirely of a metallic nature without the vegetable which was made previously.
One must take a composition

similar to that mentioned above, namely: Vitriol, saltpeter, and cinnabar, and not at all the aqua vitae; then afterwards one must take half a pound of Vitriol c., and one of Saltpeter, and put these two materials into a glazed earthen pan, and put it on the fire, and melt the said saltpeter and vitriol; and a little before they begin to dry out, one must take a pound of mercury in a cloth and express the said mercury into the pan where the materials are, and let them dry out; then it must be removed from the fire and allowed to cool; then take all three and turn them into a very subtle powder, and put them in a sublimatory matrass, [which] should be placed in an ash furnace to distill and sublime for twenty-four hours—at the beginning for six