Manly P. Hall Collection, Box 10

[...continued from previous page] which is not yet purified, into four or five pints of this water. Digest it in a water bath A heating method using a container of hot water to maintain constant, gentle temperature. in a vessel of Rencontre An alchemical vessel designed for joining substances. until it no longer leaves a sediment. Then filter it and distill it in the water bath; a highly subtle spirit will pass over first, then a phlegm In alchemy, the watery or less volatile part of a substance.. Distill until a film forms and crystallize it; keep the spirit and the phlegm separate.

Take the crystals, put them in a glass cucurbit A glass vessel used in distillation, often rounded at the bottom., and melt them over a low sand-fire, gradually increasing the heat until the salt is liquid. When in this state, continue the same degree of heat for 24 hours, or until the crystals have dried of their own accord. Then remove the cucurbit from the fire, and while it is still very hot, pour onto your salt in the cucurbit about ten pints of the water prepared as above—the water must be boiling. All your salt being dissolved, digest it in the water bath in a vessel of Rencontre until no more sediment precipitates. Then filter and distill, and proceed as you did in the first operation. Repeat this work four or five times, or until the salt, when dissolved in a small quantity of the said water, radiates? and displays different colors, and there flutter in the liquid several needles and flakes of gold color, and it is fusible at the slightest heat, light, talc-like, white as snow, and very mild. Then your salt is pure and prepared; it is called by Ripley George Ripley, a prominent 15th-century English alchemist. the "leafy earth" or the "virgin earth of the philosophers."

As for the subtle and spiritual liquid, it must be well corked and kept for the use hereafter.