OF THE MINERAL WORK

tenuous mud or powder, in polishing mills (Schleiff-mühlen) grinding mills where various iron tools, swords, breastplates, and other weapons are polished, collected in pools or wooden chests destined for that purpose beneath the whetstone, and accustomed to be sold to the dyers of black cloths, it is called Calx or Schlichtum. But whether he understands this or the calx of any metal, it is uncertain, nor does it matter much, since the Sun and Moon can be reduced into Nothing even without any calx of this kind, and again from this nothing be restored, increased, into Something, as we shall see in the following chapters on the transmutation of metals.

The expectation of those was vain who thought these species smelted together would all turn into Gold and Silver, having obtained nothing but a yellow or reddish dross, against expectation, with a sad Blick flash/glitter. That Blick is truly most joyful and blessed, if one obtains the nobler and better metal, destroyed and reduced into Nothing or dross, by reducing it. But this destruction and reduction is not uniform, but is perfected by many ways, which the following chapters will teach.

Item, the first rule, on the nature and property of Mercury.

All things are hidden in all things, but of all things one is the concealer of the rest and is the bodily, external, visible, mobile vessel. All are manifest in this vessel as fluores fluxes/flowing principles, for