Marengus — Secrets of Chemical Pallas Revealed, ca. 1700

...living and operative gold, because it is gold reduced to its prima materia first matter: Likewise, our silver is not the silver of the common people, but living silver original: "argentum uiuum", or mercury of medium substances, and it is the matrix, receiving the soul, or the seed of gold: therefore gold and silver of the common people, as they lie, are dead, that is, they are not operative, nor multiplying. Gold must therefore be calcined in the common way, then philosophically original: "Phicè" so that it may be well opened and dissolved, and thus new matter can be united to it, which may dignify it and render it penetrating, as will be clear from what is to be said.

I say eighth.

While the Lapis Stone lies through long decoction as if dead in the tomb, and becomes a thirsty powder because of its excessive dryness, nevertheless, after its putrefaction and decoction, it rises again to a better life, and we extinguish its thirst by imbibing it, and by incerando waxing or softening it with the oil of the sun, if it be necessary for the red stage, and then the dragon or lion devours its own tail, because the dragon, or the Stone, drinks up its own spirit or its own soul: While the Stone is thus waxed, then the Stone is dissolved by its own oil, that is, by what is homogeneous to itself, and the oil is coagulated by its own lime, that is, its own earth, and the elixir elixir is dyed with its own tincture, and is submerged in its own oil, and is fixed by its own lime, and in this way the Stone perfects itself.

I say ninth.

This oil is the radical moisture of metals and their incombustible oil, in which the metallic essence and form chiefly consist. Likewise, this oil is called living silver original: "argentum uiuum" which is extracted from perfect bodies by the ingenuity of art, and it is not only called incombustible oil, but also the soul, and the splendor of bodies, and the tincture. Therefore, this oil philosophically original: "Phicè" is nothing other than water, not from a spring, nor rain, which are foreign to the nature of metals, but mercurial, extremely unctuous, smoothed by frequent distillations, and reduced in some way to the nature of air, in which the heat, or the formal part of metals, consists. This is also that oil by which its own earth, or Sulphur Sulfur, is fermented, so that while the medicine, or the philosophical sulfur, is sublimated by various imbibitions of this oil, and by solutions and decoctions, and again the sublimated part is confounded with the non-sublimated part, and is fermented anew with the same oil, it is dissolved, and everything above will be done, reiterating it so many times until the ferment is fixed with its own earth: in this way, while by heat that which is below becomes that which is above, and that which is above becomes that which is below, our stone is perfected, and receives the power of the superior and the inferior. But lest you err, take note that this oil is the internal fire of our stone, and the radical or primogenial moisture of metals, which can be increased successively and into infinity: for living silver most perfectly purified, and digested by that oil through decoction, is converted into this primogenial humor, and thus purged mercury is its nourishing food, which through concoction passes into the primogenial and radical humor: just as the food of living beings, while it passes into the substance of the nourished, also passes through concoction into the radical and primogenial moisture of the nourished being itself.

I say tenth.

Because spirits of wine, or flowers of urine, cannot be united with metals: for that reason, vegetable or animal salt, or sulfur, are called sal alkali alkali salt, or sal armoniacum salt ammoniac, because they are the first movers and mediators, so that the spirits of wine and urine may unite with the metals with sweet and natural harmony, and dissolve them philosophically original: "Phicè".

I say eleventh.

The mercurial elements of the sun or the moon are called lac uirginis virgin's milk, sperm of metals, mineral blood, spirit of metals, flying water, and the tail of the dragon. When indeed these mercurial elements, now rectified and sublimated through various distillations, are reunited with their purified and calcined earths, and are sublimated together, then the infant is born, and rises again into the purest salt, and is called sublimated living silver, and the sulfur of our work, sublimated living arsenic, the dragon devouring all things, and...