The Fourth Part.

all odours to sulphurs, or that such Salts consist of some oyly parts well incorporated with the Saline ones. And the like conjecture I have also made concerning Spirit of Vinager, which, though the Chymists think one of the Principles of that Body, and though being an Acid Spirit it seems to be much less of kin then Volatile Salts to sulphurs; yet, not to mention its piercing smell; which I know not with what congruity the Chymist will deduce from Salt, I wonder they have not taken notice of what their own Tyrocinium ChymicumTyroc. Chym. L. 1. C. 4. teach us concerning the Destillation of Saccharum Saturni; out of which Beguinus assures Us, that he distill’d, besides a very fine spirit, no lesse then two Oyles, the one blood-red and ponderous, but the other swimming upon the top of the Spirit, and of a yellow colour; of which he sayes that he kept then some by him, to verify what he delivers. And though I remember not that I have had two distinct Oyles from Sugar of Lead, yet that it will though distill’d without addition yield some Oyle, disagrees not with my Experience. I know the Chymists will be apt to pretend, that these Oyls are but the volatiliz’d sulphur of the lead; and will perhaps argue it from what Beguinus relates, that when the Distillation is ended, you’l find a Caput Mortuum extreamly black, and (as he speaks) nullius momenti, as if the Body, or at least the chief part of the Metal it self were by the distillation carried over the Helme. But since you know as well as I that Saccharum Saturni is a kind of Magistery, made only by calcining of Lead per se, dissolving it in distill’d Vinager, and crystalizing the solution; if I had leasure to tell You how Differing a thing I did upon examination find the Caput Mortuum, so sleighted by Beguinus, to be from what he represents it, I believe you would think the conjecture propos’d less probable then one or other of these three; either that this Oyle did formerly concur to constitute the Spirit of Vinager, and so that what passes for a Chymical Principle may yet be further resoluble into distinct substances; or that some parts of the Spirit together with some parts of the Lead may constitute a Chymical Oyle, which therefore though it pass for Homogeneous, may be a very compounded Body: or at least that by