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

...with a sweet spirit of salt sweet spirit of salt original: "Spiritu Salis dulc." This was typically a mixture of hydrochloric acid and ethanol, used to create a less corrosive solvent.. This substance did not want to take hold of the gold very well, until I dissolved it completely in a fairly strong heat; however, my sweet spirit of salt became a beautiful yellow, like the finest solution of gold with royal water original: "solutio solis cum aqua regis." Alchemists called gold "the Sun" (Sol) and used "royal water" (aqua regia)—a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids—because it was the only solvent known to dissolve the "king of metals.". I believed I had dissolved it most subtly original: "subtilissime," meaning into its finest possible parts.; I allowed the spirit of salt to evaporate from it, and intended to find my calx of gold calx of gold original: "calcem auri." A "calx" is the powdered residue left after a metal has been roasted or chemically dissolved and dried. as something rare.

But, look! It came to the end, so that it gradually began to become dry, and I would have imagined nothing less than that the explosive power original: "schlagende Krafft." The author is describing the creation of "fulminating gold," a highly unstable and explosive compound. should still be hidden within it; but experience has already shown me this. For after all the moisture was completely gone, I heard such a bang in my room that one would have suspected the largest cannon original: "Carthaune," a heavy siege gun or "Karthane" used in the 16th and 17th centuries. had gone off, even though it was a rather small quantity. From this, one must conclude that the salt of tartar salt of tartar original: "Sal Tartari," or potassium carbonate. In this context, it was likely used in a previous step, and its presence caused the gold to become explosive (fulminating) when dried. embeds itself in such a way that it is almost impossible to leach it out; thus I also had to learn that this spirit of salt had drawn the salt into itself. However, I will leave it to each person to judge original: "judiciren" of it as they please.

After all this had passed, I continually strove to precipitate precipitate original: "præcipitiren," the process of causing a solid substance to separate and drop out of a liquid solution. the gold into a beautiful red color; however, it did not always go according to my wish. Unexpectedly, I once came across a certain work, for which I had to dissolve the gold beforehand...