fit, reducitur, (ut videre est in Sapone, Lazurio lapide, &c.) quoties per adjuncta fixa semen Pinguedinis deponit.* Helmont. give us cause to think, That it may be a production of the Fire, which by transporting and otherwise altering the particles of the matter, does bring it to a Saline nature.
For I know (sayes he, in the place formerly alledg’d to another purpose) a way to reduce all stones into a meer Salt of equal weight with the stone whence it was produc’d, and that without any of the least either Sulphur or Mercury; which asseveration of my Author would perhaps seem less incredible to You, if I durst acquaint You with all I could say upon that subject. And hence by the way you may also conclude that the Sulphur and Mercury, as they call them, that Chymists are wont to obtain from compound Bodies by the Fire, may possibly in many Cases be the productions of it; since if the same bodies had been wrought upon by the Agents employ’d by Helmont, they would have yielded neither Sulphur nor Mercury; and those portions of them which the Fire would have presented Us in the forme of Sulphureous and Mercurial Bodies would have, by Helmonts method, been exhibited to us in the form of Salt.