Tartar, without the addition of any thing that is not perfectly a Mineral except Salt-petre, may by one Distillation in an Earthen Retort be made to afford good store of real Salt, readily dissoluble in water, which I found to be neither acid, nor of the smell of Tartar, and to be almost as volatile as Spirit of Wine it self, and to be indeed of so differing a Nature from all that is wont to be separated by Fire from Tartar, that divers Learned Men, with whom I discours’d of it, could hardly be brought to beleeve, that so fugitive a Salt could be afforded by Tartar, till I assur’d it them upon my own Knowledge. And if I did not think you apt to suspect me to be rather too backward than too forward to credit or affirm unlikely things, I could convince you by what I have yet lying by me of that anomalous Salt.
The Fourth thing that I shall alledge to countenance my first Consideration is, That the Fire even when it divides a Body into Substances of divers Consistences, does not most commonly analyze it into Hypostatical Principles, but only disposes its parts into new Textures, and thereby produces Concretes of a new indeed, but yet of a compound Nature. This Argument it will be requisite for me to prosecute so fully hereafter, that I hope you will then confess that ’tis not for