The First Part.

with powder’d Antimony a convenient Quantity of Oyl of Vitriol, and committing them immediately to Distillation, obtain a little Sulphur like unto the common one, and more combustible than perhaps you will at first take notice of. For I have observ’d, that though (after its being first kindled) the Flame would sometimes go out too soon of its self, if the same Lump of Sulphur were held again to the Flame of a Candle, it would be rekindled and burn a pretty while, not only after the second, but after the third or fourth accension. You, to whom I think I shewed my way of discovering something of Sulphureous in Oyl of Vitriol, may perchance suspect, Eleutherius, either that this Substance was some Venereal Sulphur that lay hid in that Liquor, and was by this operation only reduc’d into a manifest Body; or else that it was a compound of the unctuous parts of the Antimony, and the Saline ones of the Vitriol, in regard that (as GuntherLib. 1. Observat. Cap. 6. informs us) divers learned men would have Sulphur to be nothing but a mixture made in the Bowels of the Earth of Vitriolate Spirits and a certain combustible Substance. But the Quantity of Sulphur we obtain’d by Digestion was much too great to have been latent in the Oyl of Vitriol. And that Vitriolate Spirits are not necessary to the Constitution of such a Sulphur as ours, I could easily manifest, if I would acquaint you with the several wayes by which I have obtain’d, though not in such plenty, a Sulphur of Antimony, colour’d and combustible like common Brimstone. And though I am not now minded to discover them, yet I shall tell you, that to satisfie some Ingenious Men, that distill’d Vitriolate Spirits are not necessary to the obtaining of such a Sulphur as we have been considering, I did by the bare distillation of only Spirit of Nitre, from its weight of crude Antimony separate, in a short time, a yellow and very inflamable Sulphur, which, for ought I know, deserves as much the name of an Element, as any thing that Chymists are wont to separate from any Mineral by the Fire. I could perhaps tell you of other Operations upon Antimony, whereby That may be extracted from it, which cannot be forc’d out of it by the Fire; but I shall reserve them for a fitter Opportunity, and