The Sixth Part.

In the next place, supposing that either Sulphur or Mercury were obtainable from all sorts of Minerals. Yet still this Sulphur or Mercury would be but a compounded, not an Elementary body, as I told you already on another occasion. And certainly he that takes notice of the wonderful Operations of Quicksilver, whether it be common, or drawn from Mineral Bodies, can scarce be so inconsiderate as to think it of the very same nature with that immature and fugitive substance which in Vegetables and Animals Chymists have been pleas’d to call their Mercury. So that when Mercury is got by the help of the fire out of a metal or other Mineral Body, if we will not suppose that it was not pre-existent in it, but produc’d by the action of the fire upon the Concrete, we may at least suppose this Quicksilver to have been a perfect Body of its own kind (though perhaps lesse heterogeneous then more secundary mixts) which happen’d to be mingl’d per minima, and coagulated with the other substances, whereof the Metal or Mineral consisted. As may be exemplyfied partly by Native Vermillion wherein the Quicksilver and Sulphur being exquisitely blended both