Notes of experiments in chemistry and alchemy (MS Add.3973)

Experiments

January 16, 1679/80: I took 160 grains of sublimated salt original: sal sublimate; likely corrosive sublimate or mercuric chloride (which perhaps, had it been well dried, would not have weighed more than 120 or 140 grains) and 100 grains of antimony original: ♁, the alchemical symbol for antimony or stibium filings original: fial; likely a transcription of "fil." for filings (which, if well dried, might perhaps have weighed 95 grains). These I sublimed Sublimation is the process of heating a substance until it turns into a gas and then solidifies again on a cooler surface, used here for purification., and after sublimation there remained 75 or 80 grains in the bottom. Some of this residue caput mortuum original: caput mort.; literally "dead head," the useless dregs or solid remains left after distillation or sublimation laid on a red-hot iron flowed like wax and evaporated completely. The sublimate was of a dirty color. The residue original: caput mort. tasted sweet.

I added the sublimate to the residue original: caput mort. and sublimed it again, and there remained 20 grains in the bottom. But the glass cracked, and some of the matter, while in fusion liquid, melted state, ran out through the crack and made the sand stick to the glass. Some of this residue (about 20 grains), which flowed like wax and also tasted sweet, mostly flew away evaporated/sublimed when laid on a red-hot iron. The sublimate was dirty as before.

Then I sublimed 40 grains of sal ammoniac original: sal Arm.; ammonium chloride and 120 grains of the first simple antimony original: Fial sublimate. There remained 23 ½ grains in the bottom, and the sublimate was now very white. When put in water, it almost all dissolved without leaving much precipitate solid matter that settles at the bottom of a liquid in the bottom, as it had done before this sublimation from iron original: ♂, the alchemical symbol for Mars/iron, where I knew this sublimate was much altered by the spirit of iron original: spt of ♂; likely an acidic vapor or essence derived from iron. I dissolved the residue original: caput mort. in water and there remained 5 grains of sediment; the extracted salt, when dried again, weighed 26 grains. From this, I conclude that about 14 or 15 grains of the iron original: ♂ was carried up—that is, 3/8 of the whole. Before I dissolved the residue original: caput mort. in water, I put a little of it on a red-hot plate, and it neither flowed nor hardly fumed at all.

Of this sublimate, I sublimed 80 grains from 40 grains of antimoniate, and the sublimate arose white again.