Page:Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus Vol I (IA cu31924092287121).djvu/185

 combustible, what is fixed and what volatile, what does or does not pass into flux, and what thing is heavier than another. He must also have investigated in every object its natural colour, odour, acidity, austerity, acridity, bitterness, sweetness, its grade, complexion, and quality.

Moreover, it is necessary to know the grades of separation, that they consist of distillation, resolution, putrefaction, extraction, calcination, reverberation, sublimation, reduction, coagulation, pulverisation, lavation. By distillation, water and oil are separated from all corporeal substances. By resolution, metals are separated from minerals, and one metal from another, salt and fatness from others, and the light is separated from the heavier. By putrefaction, the fat is separated from the lean, the pure from the impure, the decayed from the undecayed. By extraction, the pure is separated from the impure, the spirit and the quintessence from their body, and the pearl from its dense body. By calcination are separated watery moisture, fatness, natural colour, odour, and whatever is otherwise combustible. By reverberation are separated colour, odour, inflammability, all moisture and wateriness, fat, whatever, in a word, there is in the substance which is fluxible or inconstant, and so on. By sublimation are separated from each other the fixed and the volatile, the spiritual and the corporeal, the pure from the impure, the Sulphur from the Salt, the Mercury from the Salt; and the rest. By reduction, the fluxible is separated from the solid, the metal from its mineral ore, one metal from another, metal from ash, the fat from that which is not fat. By coagulation is separated moisture from mere humidity, water from earth. By pulverisation are separated one from the other dust and sand, ashes and lime, the mineral from the animal and vegetable substance. All powders which are of unequal weight are separated by the process of jaculation, just as the chaff from the corn. By washing or ablution, ashes and sand are separated, the mineral from its metal, the heavy from the lighter substance, the vegetable and animal portion from the mineral, Sulphur from Mercury and Salt, Salt from Mercury.

But now, discarding mere theory, let us approach the practical work of separation, and come down to special details. It must be remarked that the separation of metals is rightly the first of all. For this reason, therefore, we will treat of that first.

The separation of metals from their mineral ores can be effected in many ways, for instance, by ebullition or excoction, or by liquefaction with certain liquefying powders, as salt of alkali, litharge, sal fluxum, fel vitri, ash, sal gemmæ, saltpetre, etc. Put them into a vessel or dish, and let them liquefy in a furnace. Then the metal as a regulus will subside to the bottom of the vessel, but the matter of the mineral will float on the surface and will become ash. You must then work this metallic regulus in a furnace by means of a reverberatory, until all the pure metal is liberated without any dirt or ash. In M2