PRÆFATIO.

Whoever, therefore, will have faith in them and will make himself a participant in that faith will obtain honor and profit; the incredulous, however, will obtain disgrace and detriment.

I shall therefore prophesy and predict that this single art of manufacturing saltpeter in great quantity and applying it to metallic works will bring incredible treasures to our fatherland of Germany, if we do not neglect it or fall away from it through lazy sleep and sloth. If God grants me one more year of life, I trust that the said art of saltpeter will be a benefit to many. But if it has not pleased the Divine Majesty that the prolongation of my life be so long, it should be thought that God Almighty has indeed shown the land of promise to us Germans, as He did to Moses, but also, because of sins original: "paccata" (an archaic or variant spelling of peccata)...