Page:The Sceptical Chymist.djvu/82

58 the Concretes whose Names are given it; whereas by a skilful and rigid Examen, it may be easily enough stript of its Disguises, and made to appear again in the pristine form of running Mercury. The pretended Salts and Sulphurs being so far from being Elementary parts extracted out of the Bodie of Mercurie, that they are rather (to borrow a terme of the Grammarians) De-compound Bodies, made up of the whole Metal and the Menstruum or other Additaments imploy’d to disguise it. And as for Silver, I never could see any degree of Fire make it part with any of its three Principles. And though the Experiment lately mentioned from Claveus may beget a Suspition that Silver may be dissipated by Fire, provided it be extreamly violent and very lasting; yet it will not necessarily follow, that because the Fire was able at length to make the Silver lose a little of its weight, it was therefore able to dissipate it into its Principles. For first I might alledge that I have observ’d little Grains of Silver to lie hid in the small Cavities (perhaps glas’d over by a vitrifying heat) in Crucibles, wherein Silver has been long kept in Fusion,