The Sixth Part.

not any Water or other Liquor in-existent in it, yet such a Comminution of its parts may be made, by the fire or other Agents, as to turn a great portion of them into Liquor. Of this Truth I will give an instance, employ’d by our friend here present as one of the most conducive of his experiments to Illustrate the nature of Salts. If you Take, then, sea salt and melt it in the Fire to free it from the aqueous parts, and afterward distill it with a vehement Fire from burnt Clay, or any other, as dry a Caput mortuum as you please, you will, as Chymists confess, by teaching it drive over a good part of the Salt in the form of a Liquor. And to satisfy some ingenious men, That a great part of this Liquor was still true sea salt brought by the Operation of the Fire into Corpuscles so small, and perhaps so advantageously shap’d, as to be capable of the forme of a Fluid Body, He did in my presence poure to such spiritual salts a due proportion of the spirit (or salt and Phlegme) of Urine, whereby having evaporated the superfluous moisture, he soon obtain’d such another Concrete, both as to tast and smell, and easie sublimableness as common Salt Armoniack, which you know is made up of grosse and undistill’d sea salt united with the salts of Urine and of Soot, which two are very neer of kin to each other. And further, to manifest that the Corpuscles of sea salt and the Saline ones of Urine retain their several Natures in this Concrete, He mixt it with a convenient quantity of Salt of Tartar, and committing it to Distillation soon regain’d his spirit of Urine in a liquid form by its self, the Sea salt staying behind with the Salt of Tartar. Wherefore it is very possible that dry Bodies may by the Fire be reduc’d to Liquors without any separation of Elements, but barely by a certain kind of Dissipation and Comminution of the matter, whereby its parts are brought into a new state. And if it be still objected, that the Phlegme of mixt Bodies must be reputed water, because so weak a tast needs but a very small proportion of Salt to impart it; It may be reply’d, that for ought appears, common Salt and divers other bodies, though they be distill’d never so dry, and in never so close Vessels, will yield each of them pretty store of a Liquor, wherein