The First Part.

or the Gold) but in the Fire alone, though vehement, the Metals remain unsever’d, the Fire only dividing the Body into smaller Particles (whose Littlenesse may be argu’d from their Fluidity) in which either the little nimble Atoms of Fire, or its brisk and numberless strokes upon the Vessels, hinder Rest and Continuity, without any Sequestration of Elementary Principles. Moreover, the Fire sometimes does not Separate, so much as Unite, Bodies of a differing Nature; provided they be of an almost resembling Fixedness, and have in the Figure of their Parts an Aptness to Coalition, as we see in the making of many Plaisters, Oyntments, &c. And in such Metalline Mixtures as that made by Melting together two parts of clean Brass with one of pure Copper, of which some Ingenious Trades-men cast such curious Patterns (for Gold and Silver Works) as I have sometimes taken great Pleasure to Look upon. Sometimes the Bodies mingled by the Fire are Differing enough as to Fixidity and Volatility, and yet are so combin’d by the first Operation of the Fire, that it self does scarce afterwards Separate them, but only Pulverize them; whereof an Instance is afforded us by the Common Preparation of Mercurius Dulcis, where the Saline Particles of the Vitriol, Sea Salt, and sometimes Nitre, Employ’d to make the Sublimate, do so unite themselves with the Mercurial Particles made use of, first to Make Sublimate, and then to Dulcifie it, that the Saline and Metalline Parts arise together in many successive Sublimations, as if they all made but one Body. And sometimes too the Fire does not only not Sever the Differing Elements of a Body, but Combine them so firmly, that Nature her self does very seldom, if ever, make Unions less Dissoluble. For the Fire meeting with some Bodies exceedingly and almost equally Fixt, instead of making a Separation, makes an Union so strict, that it self, alone, is unable to Dissolve it; As we see, when an Alcalizate Salt and the Terrestrial Residue of the Ashes are Incorporated with pure Sand, and by Vitrification made one permanent Body, (I mean the course or greenish sort of Glass) that mocks the greatest Violence of the Fire, which though able to Marry the Ingredients of it, yet is not able to Divorce them.