tenacious, soft, and fat earth is hardened into stone; but all stones are reduced to lime, as we see in the kiln of the lime burner and the potter respectively.
Sublimation[1] is the second step, also very important for the transmutation of many natural objects. Under this are included Exaltation, Elevation, and Fixation[2]; and it is not altogether unlike Distillation. For, as from all phlegmatic and watery objects, water ascends in distillation, and is separated from its body, so, in the process of Sublimation, in dry substances such as minerals, the spiritual is raised from the corporeal, subtilised, and the pure separated from the impure. For in Sublimation many excellent virtues and wonderful qualities are found in minerals, and many things are fixed and become permanent, so that they remain in the fire in the following way: Let the body which is sublimated be ground again and mixed with its own dregs. Let it be again sublimated as before, and let this be repeated until it sublimates no longer, but all remains in the bottom and is fixed. Thus it will afterwards become a stone and an oil when and as often as you wish. For if, having refrigerated it, you put it in the air, or in a glass vessel, it is there immediately resolved into an oil. If you once more put it in the fire it is again coagulated into a stone, which is of great and wonderful powers. But this consider a great secret and mystery of Nature, and do not disclose it to sophists. Moreover, as in Sublimation many corrosives become sweet by the conjunction of the two natures, so, on the other hand, many sweet substances become sour or bitter; whilst many bitter things are made sweet as sugar. Here it should be remarked, too, that every metal which is brought to a state of Sublimation by means of sal ammoniac may afterwards be dissolved into an oil in the cold, or in the air, and, contrariwise, may be coagulated to a stone in the fire. This is one of the greatest and most complete transmutations in all natural objects, namely, to transmute a metal into a stone.
The third step is Solution, under which term are comprised Dissolution and Resolution. This step frequently follows after Sublimation and Distillation, as, for instance, when you dissolve the matter which remains at the bottom. Solution, however, is twofold: one by cold, another by heat; one out of the fire, the other in the fire. The cold process of Solution dissolves all salts, corrosives, and calcined bodies. Whatever salt and corrosive quality there may be it resolves into an oil, a liquid, or water; and this takes place in a damp and cold chamber, or otherwise in the air only, in marble or glass. For everything that is dissolved in the cold contains the sharp spirit of salt, which it often acquires and assumes in Sublimation or Distillation. And everything which is dissolved in the cold or in the air is again by the heat of fire changed
- ↑ By sublimation the lower minerals are separated from those elements which are the source of their poverty and baseness, but in addition to this, the process has many other virtues. For example, the sublimation of quicksilver has this operation, that even the air in its vicinity has a recreative effect. For in the air permeated by mercury all the virtues of mercury are present. In like manner, the sublimation of arsenic releases a fervid spirit into the atmosphere which cures quartan fever and other acute diseases.—De Morbis Metallicis, Tract III., c. 5.
- ↑ Exaltation, conjunction, opposition, and kindred processes are not materially performed, but after a mode which is altogether spiritual.—Paramirum, Tract III., c. 6.
