De alchimia opuscula complura veterum philosophorum, quorum catalogum sequens pagella indicabit

into the purest gold, better than the mine produced, because every dry thing naturally drinks its own humid, so that it may be continuous in its parts. The vapor, therefore, of the sulfur coagulating quicksilver is from an earthy, subtle, airy substance, decocted and digested by the first commixture, united to itself by the action of heat, afterwards elevated, decocted, and digested, until it has the sulfurous force of coagulating quicksilver into metallic bodies. But when the sulfur is simple or burning, it causes perfection or imperfection in the metals, just as the example of these will appear later, that their first matter is quicksilver, because when they are liquefied, they are converted into it by heat. It is certain that they were quicksilver before, because every thing is made of that into which it is resolved. An example of ice.

On the generation of Mercury and which metals are generated from it. Chapter IV.

Quicksilver, in the first root of its being, is composed of white, subtle, highly sulfurous earth, strongly mixed with clear water, until it becomes one substance not resting on a flat surface, nor does it adhere to what touches it, by reason of the dryness which has altered the aqueousness within it. It is homogeneous in nature, because either the whole remains in the fire and is fixed, or the whole flies off into smoke, since it is incombustible and airy. And this is a sign of perfection.