The Wayfarer

lead, which whether they can perform, let them see for themselves; to me, it does not seem likely. Therefore, if Mercury is changed by nature into lead, lead into silver, and silver into gold, by this reasoning gold is made from Mercury, but with a very long time, perhaps a thousand years, intervening. This being granted, let us consider the mode of this mutation. Since Mercury is a smoky substance, being cold and moist, it is not congealed by nature except by sulfur, which is very hot and dry. These two substances are generated from the mixture of elements in the bowels of the earth, each first by itself through the singular providence of God. Mercury is from water so mixed with earth and proportioned that the latter does not desert the former, and vice versa. But if heat approaches and its water is urged to rarefy into air, the earth itself also passes together into air or smoke, that is, it is not separated or left behind by it at the bottom. If cold wins again, or the narrowness of the place compels it to become water again from the airy smoke through condensation, the same elements remain undivided. Hence it happens that it runs across a surface and does not wet it, which is a manifest sign of its watery humidity, yet not separable from its earth. Similarly, in sulfur, the elements are so mixed that they are not easily segregated from one another, in which, however, hot and dry [qualities] predominate. Whence sulfur placed at a strong fire ascends entirely into the form of smoke, leaving behind the earthy parts, and afterwards is congealed again into sulfur, which upon the approach of cold becomes friable and hard. I am not unaware, however, that the oil of sulfur made through the "bell," as they call it, or an alembic, is liquid and not hard, nor is it the same sulfur as before, with certain parts left behind at the bottom which give hardness. And I consider here how common sulfur is made from its mines, namely through roasting and the ignition of fire below, with sulfurous ores thrown on top, and through suffocation or mortification above (as charcoal is made from wood). Then the sulfurous smokes ascending through the contiguity of the ores are congealed in the extreme cold on the surface into liquid sulfur, which is purified afterwards through distillation in retorts.