Sun Without Clothing or Thirty Experiments to Extract the Purple from Gold

it also happened that the gold had been dissolved in spirit of salt spirit of salt original: "Spiritu Salis," known today as hydrochloric acid.; he did not want to believe me in this (though I did not think of it then, nor was I aware that I had bought that spirit of salt already prepared and had rectified distilled a liquid to increase its purity and strength it), but we tested it again. We took a spirit of salt and placed gold leaf into it, but it remained gold and stayed gold; it would not dissolve original: "solviren.". Then I saw that simple spirit of salt will not dissolve or attack gold—which should rightly be counted as

The Second Experiment

—but as soon as it is mixed with a little nitre original: "Nitio," likely referring to saltpeter or nitric acid; the combination of hydrochloric and nitric acid creates "Aqua Regia," the only common acid that dissolves gold., it does so in a moment. However, if one makes use of a gold calx gold calx original: "Goldkalch," gold that has been reduced to a fine powder through chemical means., the acid attacks it very well and excellently.

But to return to our aforementioned Butter of Gold Butter of Gold original: "Butyro Solis," a thick, oily gold chloride solution.: we believed that if we were to dissolve it in water, it would surely cast a red precipitate precipitate A solid that falls out of a liquid solution during a chemical reaction. to the bottom, just as Mercury of Life Mercury of Life original: "Mercurius vitæ," an old name for antimony oxychloride, which forms a white powder when its acidic solution is poured into water. is accustomed to falling white. But we were mistaken; it would not do so at all, even though we thought the saline spirits should not separate from it until it was brought into the heat. There, contrary to our opinion, no red but rather a yellow powder was found on the bottom, and the redness was entirely gone; this may well be seen by anyone as