Simonides Redivivus, or the Art of Memory and Oblivion

or they might serve as a cover; a mouth that closes the tube most precisely; and a larger, split tile, having a circular excavation in the middle, through which the placed alembic a distillation apparatus may legitimately protrude. Beyond the small furnace, let some iron balls be kept of such a size that they nearly fill the said tube, yet can be removed from it again without any difficulty using tongs, whose interior extremities should be somewhat deep, while the exterior ones should be protruding, so that they may more easily grasp and handle the balls. But if you should choose oblong iron tools instead of spherical ones, common tongs will suffice.

In the use of the small furnace, one must proceed thus. First, three or four bricks are composed outside the room, just as little women are accustomed to do when they wish to twist and bend their shawls as they please. Within these, coals are ignited, and the balls are thrown in. Meanwhile, while these are heating up, the vessels with the material to be distilled are duly placed, with the addition of ash, sand, or iron filings, having been previously heated and inserted into the furnace. This done, one or more glowing and red-hot balls are put into the tube, whose mouth must be immediately closed. As these cool and are removed, other glowing ones immediately follow, with the former being thrown back into the coals. It is easily noticed, at whatever hour this labor must be repeated by a servant. Thus, therefore, in a summary way, without any vapor or smoke, and even without effort amidst other studies, those who are students and lovers of Chymia alchemy can apply themselves to distillations, rectifications, and extractions, and can have this additional convenience from it: that in the winter time, by one and the same operation and expense, when they heat those iron spheres, they can also heat the room using a hypocaust, or underfloor heating system. For whose benefit, although it is beyond our design, I wished to append an image of the small furnace.

Furthermore, even if these things appear at first glance excellent, and to the pleasant utility of those especially who, living in the academies, do not have a private place for distillation, they are nonetheless almost childish if they are compared to other weightier inventions, from which much fruit and delight is accustomed to return to investigators of nature, to which the following invention is rightfully and deservedly referred.