fire vigorously, so that the iron may glow and melt. Lastly, let the tigillum cool of itself, and you will find a regulus of lead on the tigillum, as soft and ductile as native lead can be.
But in order to transmute Venus into Saturn proceed thus: First of all, sublimate copper, and reduce it by fixed arsenic to a white substance, as white as Luna. Then granulate. Of this, and of good reduced powder, take the same quantity; first cement, and, lastly pour into the regulus, when you will have the true leaden regulus.
On the other hand, it is very easy to turn lead into copper, nor is any great skill required. This is the process: Calcine plates of lead in vitriol, or stratify with the crocus of Venus, cement, and, lastly, liquefy. Then you will see as much native lead as you please transmuted into good, heavy, and ductile copper.
If, now, such copper, or any other copper, be made into plates and stratified with tutia and calamine, cemented, and if, lastly, it be cast, it is changed into a splendid amber or red colour, like gold.
If you wish to change Saturn into Jupiter, take plates of Saturn, and stratify with sal ammoniac, cement, and, lastly, cast, as above. So all its blackness and darkness are taken away from the lead, and it becomes in whiteness like the best English tin.
As you have now heard in brief a summary of some transmutations of metals, so, moreover, know concerning the transmutations of gems, which, indeed, are various and by no means alike. For you see how great a transmutation of gems lies hid in oil of sulphur. Any crystal can be tinged and transmuted in it, and in course of time graduated with distinct colours so as to become like a grained jacinth or ruby.
Understand in like manner concerning the magnet. It can be transmuted into ten times its power and virtue in the following way: Take a magnet, and heat it in the coals to such a degree that it may be at a high temperature, but still not red hot. Extinguish this immediately in the oil of the crocus of Mars, which is made of the best Carinthian steel, so that it may imbibe as much as it can take. Thus you will make a magnet so powerful that with it you can pull out the nails from a wall, and do other wonderful things which a common magnet could never accomplish.
Moreover, in the transmutations of gems, it must be known that the world is situated in the two grades of tincture and coagulation. For as the white of an egg can be tinged with saffron, and afterwards coagulated into a beautiful yellow amber, with the dye of a pine into black amber, with verdigris into green amber, like the cyanean or Turkish stone, with green juice into the likeness of an emerald, with lazuleum into a cerulean amber like sapphire, with Brazilian wood into a red amber like the grained jacinth or ruby, with a purple colour like amethyst, or with ceruse made to resemble alabaster—so all other liquids, and especially metals and minerals, can be tinged with fixed colours afterwards coagulated, and transmuted into gems.
