worth considering. The acid Salt dissolved in Water, is the same with Oil of Sulphur per Campanam, and abounding much in the Bowels of the Earth, and particularly in Markasites, unites it self to the other Ingredients of the Markasite, which are, Bitumen, Iron, Copper, and Earth, and with them compounds Allum, Vitriol, and Sulphur. With the Earth alone it compounds Allum; with the Metal alone, or Metal and Earth together, it compounds Vitriol; and with the Bitumen and Earth it compounds Sulphur. Whence it comes to pass that Markasites abound with those three Minerals. And is it not from the mutual Attraction of the Ingredients that they stick together for compounding these Minerals, and that the Bitumen carries up the other Ingredients of the Sulphur, which without it would not sublime? And the same Question may be put concerning all, or almost all the gross Bodies in Nature. For all the Parts of Animals and Vegetables are composed of Substances volatile and fix'd, fluid and solid, as appears by their Analysis; and so are Salts and Minerals, so far as Chymists have been hitherto able to examine their Composition.
When Mercury sublimate is re-sublimed with fresh Mercury, and becomes Mercurius Dulcis, which is a white tasteless Earth scarce dissolvable in Water, and Mercurius Dulcis re-sublimed with Spirit of Salt returns into Mercury sublimate; and when Metals corroded with a little acid turn into rust, which is an Earth tasteless and indissolvable in Water, and this Earth imbibed with more acid becomes a metallick Salt; and when some Stones, as Spar of Lead, dissolved in proper Menstruums become Salts; do not these things shew that Salts are dry Earth and watry Acid united by Attraction, and that the Earth will not become a Salt without so much acid as makes it dissolvable in Water? Do not the sharp and pungent Tastes of Acids arise from the strong Attraction whereby the acid Particles rush upon and agitate the Particles of the Tongue? And when Metals are dissolved in acid Menstruums, and the Acids in conjunction with the Metal act after a different manner, so that the Compound has a different Taste much milder than before, and sometimes a sweet one; is it not because the Acids adhere to the metallick Particles, and thereby lose much of their Activity? And if the Acid be in too small a Proportion to make the Compound dissolvable in Water, will it not by adhering strongly to the Metal become unactive and lose its Taste, and the Compound be a tasteless Earth? For such things as are not dissolvable by the Moisture of the Tongue, act not upon the Taste.