Marengus — Secrets of Chemical Pallas Revealed, ca. 1700

and joined and fixed together in due proportion.

Metals are generated in this way. Since nature original: "naã," a contraction for "natura" is never idle, a certain humid vapor is raised by the power of the internal heat of the bowels of the earth. As it is raised, it passes through various places in the earth. If it passes through warm and pure places where the fatness of sulfur adheres to the walls, that vapor, which is called the Mercurius mercury of these things when it is dissolved into water, adapts itself and is joined to that fatness. It later draws that fatness with it. When mixed with such fatness, it is called unctuosity and fatness, which consists of mixed mercury and sulfur. Depending on whether this fatness is more or less purified, or whether it is joined to earth that is more or less purified, these metals are generated through continuous decoctions boiling or heating. They are perfect or imperfect according to how much they exist in purged earth. Therefore, the seed of all metals is the same, because the viscous humor is the same. However, the locations in the earth are different, and the components are more or less purified. If anyone desires to know more concerning the generation of metals in the bowels of the earth, let them read the first edition of this work.

Concerning the properties of metals, it is already established that all metals are hard and solid. They are so to a greater or lesser degree, with the exception of argentum vivum quicksilver or mercury, which is found liquid in the matrix and perpetually preserves its flexibility. This is because it is procreated from a condition in which the watery humidity greatly exceeds the rest. Likewise, all metals are ductile. When struck, they are dilated and extended, especially those that are well-compacted and soft. This arises from an aqueous and thin breath that well-contains the earthy exhalation. For this reason, gold is drawn out the longest, namely into the thinnest bracteolas gold leaf or thin plates, leaves, and wires.

All metals are heavy due to the thickness and compaction of their matter, but gold is heavier than the others. Metals

have a sharp taste because of the sulfurous substance they contain mixed within them. Every metal, as we have said, is composed of mercury and sulfur, but one has a sharper taste than another. This is because it either abounds more in sulfur than the others, such as es copper or bronze, or because it is congealed by cold, such as lead, before the said components are well purified.

All metals except gold are ignoble, or rather, burnable and combustible. This is because they have not been well digested by nature, nor have their components been optimally purified. For this reason, they abound in external and combustible sulfur.

Therefore, metals are composed of mercury and sulfur. Many people add earth, which is also usually called salt, to which the mercury and sulfur adhere and are mixed. They are cooked and fixed by nature.

Metals have three qualities: fluxibilitas fluidity or meltability, color, and sound, as well as hardness. They have fluidity from mercury. Thus, lead and tin are very easily melted because they abound in mercury. Copper and iron are melted with great difficulty due to the small amount of mercury. From sulfur, however, they have color and sound. Thus Venus copper is very colored and sonorous because it has much sulfur, but it is impure. Finally, earth gives fixity or hardness. Therefore, iron is the hardest and is difficult to melt because it has much salt or earth.

It now remains for us to say something about the ores of metals and how the metals themselves are extracted from them. Metals are commonly generated in the bowels of the earth, and mostly in mountainous places clothed in the shadows of forests. The grains of gold found in rivers are not generated by them. Instead, the gold is washed from the earth which the rivers scrape. It is poured out and carried along with the springs into the riverbeds.