Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/400

372 cipally on iron, in which the most healing powers were said to be concealed, if one only knew how to open it. And as the volatile salt which must be produced made a great figure in all the writings with which we were acquainted; so, for these operations, alkalies also were required, which, while they flowed away into the air, were to unite with these superterrestrial things, and at last produce, per se, a mysterious and excellent neutral salt.

No sooner was I in some measure restored, and, favoured by the change in the season, once more able to occupy my old gable chamber, then I also began to provide myself with a little apparatus. A small air-furnace with a sand-bath was prepared; and I very soon learned to change the glass alembics, with a piece of burning match-cord, into vessels in which the different mixtures were to be evaporated. Now were the strange ingredients of the macrocosm and microcosm handled in an odd, mysterious manner; and, before all, I attempted to produce neutral salts in an unheard-of way. But what, for a long time, kept me busy most, was the so-called Liquor Silicum (flint juice), which is made by melting down pure quartz flint with a proper proportion of alkali, whence results a transparent glass, which melts away on exposure to the air, and exhibits a beautiful clear fluidity. Whoever has once prepared this himself, and seen it with his own eyes, will not blame those who believe in a maiden earth, and in the possibility of producing further effects upon it by means of it. I had become quite skilful in preparing this Liquor Silicum; the fine white flints which are found in the Main furnished a perfect material for it: and I was not wanting in the other requisites, nor in diligence. But I wearied at last, because I could not but remark that the flinty substance was by no means so closely combined with the salt as I had philosophically imagined, for it very easily separated itself again; and