A New Chemical Light with Twelve Secret Chemical Tables

PREFACE.

...take This continues the word "nehmen" (to take) from the previous page., as experience testifies, for it is found that the more often a salt water is poured or filtered through a sack full of clay original: Leihmen; loam or clay soil (though one clay performs better than another), the sweeter the water becomes, leaving its salt-sharpness original: Salzschärffe behind in the clay.

And let no one be surprised that here we have proceeded so directly and strongly upon salt as the foremost principle of metallic generation original: Principium der Metallischen Generation, while mercury original: Mercurius, by contrast, is seemingly skipped over.

For since every spermatic thing original: Spermatisch Ding; the reproductive "seed" or essence of a substance is a salty liquor original: Salziger Liquor, it must follow that mercury, which is commonly held to be the immediate principle and seed of metals original: Sperma metallorum, must have originated from salt—just as, through Art Art; referring to the skill of alchemy and human chemistry, a mercury may be made from any salt. If this is possible for Art, why then should it not also be possible for Nature? But as to how this may happen—since our eyes cannot see so far and deep down—we must entrust and defer it to the skill of the Archaeus Archaeus; in Paracelsian philosophy, the "inner master-worker" or vital force that directs the transformation of matter, as the most ingenious servant and laboratory assistant of Nature.