Marengus — Secrets of Chemical Pallas Revealed, ca. 1700

is understood the soul of gold itself, which is likewise called fixed water.

When you have dissolved the calx of gold with common mercury, and made from both the quicksilver of the philosophers, then the gross has been made subtle, the closed body is opened, the material is made spiritual, and the bodily volatile. This is also said when gold is dissolved with a solvent.

With the benefit of this philosophical mercury or soul of the sun, the earth of gold is exalted and sublimated into foliated earth. Then the lower has been made higher. When, however, the foliated earth is dissolved in its own animated water, then what was higher has been made lower, the visible invisible, and the palpable impalpable. Water has been made from air, for foliated earth is called air, just as the soul of gold is also called air.

When foliated earth is dissolved with its own water and forced by flying through distillation, then the fixed is dissolved and made volatile. When, however, this volatile is fixed through decoction upon its own earth, which is called the fixing body, then the volatile is made fixed, and it is called philosophical sulfur and the Stone.

When foliated earth is dissolved in its own animated water, then it is called incombustible oil and the moist or slippery tail of the dragon. However, by the name of the slippery tail of the dragon is also understood the water of the medium substance animated by the sun, in which sulfur is dissolved, or by which the foliated earth is nourished, or by which the Stone is also nourished and multiplied. It may also mean the oil of the sun, with which the stone is finally waxed. Incombustible oil is also called the soul of the sun itself.

When through decoction you have made perfect sulfur or the stone composed of foliated earth and animated water, then the interior has been made exterior, the invisible visible, and the hidden manifest. This is because the gold, which lay hidden under the mercury, appears through decoction while it fixes and reddens the mercury.

The quicksilver of the philosophers is called lac virginis virgin's milk, and it is mercurial water

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animated by the sun. This virgin is joined in marriage to the philosophers' sun, or foliated earth, and they are dissolved and distilled together. The same happens in the repetition of the work, that is, in the multiplication of the stone. Foliated earth, like the stone, is called the red lion. The water animated by the sun is called the green lion. Just as lac virginis virgin's milk is called the soul of gold, it is also called the green lion.

In the mixing of water and earth, or the volatile and the fixed, observe these weights. When you wish to make a volatile from a fixed thing, add more of the volatile than the fixed. On the contrary, when you wish to fix a volatile, add more of the fixed than the volatile.

To have that which is called by brother Basilius Valentinus "all in all": make foliated earth and dissolve it in the quicksilver of the philosophers, that is, in the water animated by the sun, and decoct it so that it becomes earth again. Then you will have "all in all." This means you will have the stone made for the first time, in which all things for composing the stone are included, and therefore it is named "all in all." This stone, however, must be repeated three times, keeping the same order: namely, dissolving it in its own animated water, decocting it again, and finally waxing it with the oil of the sun. Then it will be the most perfect Stone. It is called "all in all" because it contains all things necessary for itself.

The magnet of our gold is the first matter of our great stone. The first matter of our stone is the double mercurial substance, that is, the quicksilver of the philosophers, by whose benefit the earth of gold is sublimated, and for that reason it is called its magnet.

The true and genuine tartar of the philosophers, which lies hidden in the ashes, is the foliated earth which is drawn out from the ashes of gold through sublimation with its own animated water.

When the quicksilver of the philosophers is fixed, in which the foliated earth is dissolved, or while in the reiteration of the work the sulfur or stone already decocted once is again nourished, dissolved, and cooked with animated water or with philosophical mercury,