On the preparation of Alkali Salt | On the preparation of Flowers

...allow it to cool permittes infrigidari and it is a hard stone which is called Sal ammoniac Sal ammoniac: ammonium chloride, a volatile salt used in metallurgy and alchemy. To Place this salt in a new and dry pot in the furnace; this is done beforehand with it. If you have worked with common salt and its own [nature], since it has the property of salt.

Preparation of Alkali Salt

¶ Alkali salt is prepared thus. Take original: Recipe ashes of whatever plants in a large quantity of burned material, such as those which they use for dyeing cloths, and grind them very finely, and take a sixth part of common quicklime quicklime: calcium oxide, a caustic substance produced by heating limestone. Take: let it be strong, and let it be mixed, and place a thick cloth over a vessel suitable for this work, and place above it the ashes mixed with lime as much as the cloth can hold; then pour boiling water over it and strain it as lye lye: a strongly alkaline solution reached by leaching ashes, used here to extract salts until it exhausts all the bitterness, and then discard that layer and make another, and do to this as was done before; then permit the water to settle in that same vessel until morning, and then boil the salt in a cauldron until the water evaporates and does not give off smoke; then allow it to cool permittes infrigidari and it is a hard stone which is called alkali, and it is always of bitterness; then place this salt in a pot up to the middle and place the pot, unsealed, in the furnace and give it first primo a slow fire until it boils, afterwards give a better fire until it grows red-hot and melts. If it is removed, then pour it out immediately with iron tongs into another pot, because if it is delayed at all you cannot pour it out [since] it quickly hardens; then you will have Alkali salt

white, which you place in a glazed vessel in a warm and dry place, because if it is placed in a moist place it will turn into water; and save it.

Preparation of flowers of tartar

¶ Flower of tartar flower of tartar: a purified form of cream of tartar (potassium bitartrate) is prepared thus. Take crude tartar of red and white wine and fill the pot with it and close it and put it in the furnace; give it first primo a slow fire and afterwards a strong one, and do this for two days and nights in which the pot grows somewhat red-hot; afterwards extract it and you have the flower of tartar, which you should save, for I will teach you how to make oil from it with which you can dissolve all the calces calx: the powdery residue left after a metal or mineral has been calcined/burned of bodies and spirits, and in that oil many secrets are contained.

Preparation of flowers of alum

¶ The ashy flower of precious stones should be prepared beforehand like the flower of tartar, from which are made waters and distilled oils through a tube original: per cannam, likely referring to the delivery neck of a distillation apparatus.
¶ Flower of alum is prepared thus. Take as much alum as you wish and put it in a pot up to the middle and, once closed, put it in the furnace and give it first a slow fire and afterwards a strong one until the pot grows red-hot; then allow it to stand for a day in that same fire; afterwards extract it when it has cooled and you will find an exceedingly white alum which is called flower of alum; save this flower because from it is made a water for all white varieties likely referring to white metallic or alchemical preparations.

Preparation of flowers of antimony

¶ Flower of antimony antimony: a brittle, silvery-white metalloid, often used in medicine and alchemy is prepared thus. Take as much ground antimony as you wish and put it in a pot up...