The Second Part.

Saline Body, of a peculiar and not Elementary Nature. And we see also in Animals, that their blood may be compos’d of Divers very Differing Mixt Bodies, since we find it observ’d that divers Sea-Fowle tast rank of the Fish on which they ordinarily feed; and Hipocrates himself Observes, that a Child may be purg’d by the Milke of the Nurse, if she have taken Elaterium; which argues that the purging Corpuscles of the Medicament Concurr to make up the Milke of the Nurse; and that white Liquor is generally by Physitians suppos’d to be but blanch’d and alter’d Blood. And I remember I have observ’d, not farr from the Alps, that at a certain time of the Year the Butter of that Country was very Offensive to strangers, by reason of the rank tast of a certain Herb, whereon the Cows were then wont plentifully to feed. But (proceeds Carneades) to give you Instances of another kind, to shew that things may be obtain’d by the Fire from a Mixt Body that were not Pre-existent in it, let Me Remind You, that from many Vegetables there may without any Addition be Obtain’d Glass, a Body, which I presume You will not say was Pre-existent in it, but produc’d by the Fire. To which I shall add but this one Example more, namely that by a certain Artificial way of handling Quicksilver, You may without Addition separate from it at least a 5th. or 4th. part of a clear Liquor, which with an Ordinary Peripatetick would pass for Water, and which a Vulgar Chymist would not scruple to call Phlegme, and which, for ought I have yet seen or heard, is not reducible into Mercury again, and Consequently is more then a Disguise of it. Now besides that divers Chymists will not allow Mercury to have any or at least any Considerable Quantity of either of the Ignoble Ingredients, Earth and Water; Besides this, I say, the great Ponderousness of Quicksilver makes it very unlikely that it can have so much Water in it as may be thus obtain’d from it, since Mercury weighs 12 or 14 times as much as water of the same Bulk. Nay for a further Confirmation of this Argument, I will add this Strange Relation, that two Friends of mine, the one a Physitian, and the other a Mathematician, and both of them Persons of unsuspected Credit, have Solemnly assured me, that after many Tryals they made, to reduce Mercury