OF THE MINERAL WORK

...they surrender. Similarly, it is compared with imperfect metals, which, being infested by fire, Nature plans a separation, separating the more precious part, gold and silver, from the combustible and foul part to which they were mixed, which unite, and hand over the rest to be corrupted by the fire. And since they are more powerful by nature than Animals and Plants, they also have a more powerful enemy separating them, namely Fire, but not alone, but with an addition by which their substance is corrupted and the bond by which they cohered is dissolved, which are the parts of minerals and salts because of their great affinity with them. For metals alone or joined, if they are fatigued by long-lasting fire, are never changed, but their radical construction will have to be dissolved by the force of mineral salts before they can be changed and improved. About which matter more in the following.
So that the species and ingredients of this process may be understood, we will have to say something: namely:
It is written here: recipe Antimony, let it flow with Nitre and Tartar, take one loton of this. Let it be noted not a loton of the entire smelted mass, but of one or the other, either the upper dross, or the lower