9 the Anatomy of Minerals

Chapter outline

Mineral generation and the return through homogeneous principles

Natural ore distinguished from refined metal

Universal and specific mineral dissolvents

The objection to corrosives and the requirement of correction

Preparation of a radical menstruum

Classes of minerals and the separation of whole ores

Dulcification and the transition between kingdoms

To outward appearance this kingdom differs entirely from the animal and vegetable, although inwardly they are one. Minerals have only been more strongly and thoroughly fermented, digested, coagulated, and fixed. Stronger degrees of heat have driven out their superfluous recolacean water or moisture, together with their most volatile seed or volatile spirits. Because they are drier and stony by nature, they seem opposed and contrary to the preceding kingdoms. But anyone who considers the matter fundamentally has no scruple, as has been taught repeatedly. I said above that plants and animals are born from the volatile universal principle or seed, and through this same seed are reduced to their first state and regenerated. Minerals, however, have sprung from the more fixed part of the universal seed, saltpetre and salt: specifically, from the strongly fermented, spiritual, corrosive vapour of these two. In a word, they arise from spirits of nitre and salt mixed together, which violently attack the earth changed into stone, gnaw and corrode it, and dissolve and transform it, together with themselves, into a vitriolic or aluminous gur. Since minerals are born from the fixed spiritual universal seed, or spirits of salt and nitre, they must also be resolved and reduced by the same seed or spirits of nitre and salt, from one condition to another according to their degree, into an essential salt or vitriol. This must return to vapour or corrosive water, its origin, according to the axiom: what a thing comes from, into that it is resolved again; and through what a thing is made, through that very thing it must be dissolved. But all minerals and metals come from the more fixed spiritual universal seed, or spirits of nitre and salt, as often demonstrated. They must therefore be resolved into their first state through fixed spiritual seed.

Yet this kingdom too has its different subjects: vitriol, alum, volatile and fixed sulphur, arsenic, marcasite, metal, stone, and so on. The degree of dissolution must therefore be arranged according to their degrees or coagulation. To avoid error in this natural inquiry, one must take natural subjects, coming directly from nature as from the breast of the great mother: subjects fresh from the ore and not yet treated by art. Things that have passed through human hands have been greatly altered by fire and all kinds of additions and subtractions. Natural practice must be arranged somewhat differently for them than for the former subjects, to drive them too back to their first origin. The fundamental rule of this anatomy is that saltpetre or its spirit does not attack alkalized or fixed minerals as it does those still full of earth. Conversely, all acids shrink from salt and its spirit. The reason is this: when acid comes upon an alkalized piece, it either devours itself to death upon it, does not attack at all, or becomes fixed by it instead of dissolving it. Like, by contrast, dissolves like: one acid another, one alkali another. But what nature has brought together and united hermaphroditically—where she has worked, fixed, or alkalized so little that alkali has begun to form but remains in balance with acid—can be attacked and dissolved by both acid and alkali; both become saturated with it, as will be explained below. I have said that spirits of nitre and salt are universal menstrua, the more fixed seeds of the world. They associate intimately not only with minerals, but also with fixed animal and vegetable subjects. Whoever considers and carefully observes this point has aimed closer to the mark for accomplishing many things otherwise requiring a long time.

I also said that the specified, individuated spirit, unless it has enough superfluous moisture of its own to reduce itself to its first state, must be awakened by the addition and assistance of universal spirit to act upon its own subject. This is especially true of minerals, which are mostly drier bodies and have generally driven out their superfluous moisture. Such fixed bodies, lacking sufficient moisture of their own—acidic, vitriolic, or aluminous—must be helped by universal acid or alkali, awakening the specified vitriolic or aluminous spirit to reduce its own subject. Everyone acquainted with nature knows that mineral nature contains many juices, liquids, and waters suited to dissolving various subjects: petroleum, naphtha, alum-water, saltwater, saltpetre-water, acid springs, sulphur baths, and so forth. But in that natural state they are far too weak to attack a thoroughly fixed metal or stone, much less reduce it to its first state. We must therefore consider the true origin and beginning of all minerals and metals, through which minerals pass into their species by various digestions. We have sufficiently indicated that the universal seed, spirits of nitre and salt, dissolves earth within the entrails of the mountains and becomes a vitriolic and aluminous gur; through altered degrees of internal heat, different subjects are generated from it. Since the first beginning and principle of all minerals is vitriolic or aluminous acid, we too must use it as the principal means to return minerals and metals grown from it to their beginning: back into a vitriolic and aluminous substance. Through further reduction, this belongs wholly to mineral nature, but with its head reaches vegetable nature. With and through plants it can be reduced to something animal, and through the animal, with and through minerals, back to a mineral or regenerated metal, and so forth. The lover of the art thus sees again that nature or art proceeds entirely through homogeneous intermediaries, from one origin to another. Let him consider this well.

Someone will now come and cry: 'Crucify! Crucify! Ho! Has he no other menstruum than spirits of nitre and salt, aquafortis or aqua regia, spirit or oil of vitriol, sulphur, and alum? The world has long known these as the most harmful corrosives and abandoned them. There was no need to smear the paper with this.' Answer: do not reject my wares before I lay them out and offer them for sale. Have you not heard from what first beginning minerals grow: from these two, or one ferment, nitre and salt, and their vaporous spirit of acid and alkali? Do you now know—yes, do you know—the origin of minerals? If so, follow nature with it. As she generates minerals, she also coagulates, fixes, and binds them with and through these principles. Untie the knot and in this way make the fixed volatile again. Nature fixes the spirit-rich corrosive vapours through earth and dries out their moisture. Once it is gone, they become dry; the drier they become, the sweeter they are, so that the result should be sweet as sugar and without sharpness. Do you not know Latin when it says acerrimum, most sharp? Tell me, if you understand it, what the alkahest is. Why do the philosophers add spirit of wine to the alkahest? Why do they use spirit of wine when they wish to dissolve subjects with the alkahest? Do you not yourselves say, though without understanding, that spirit of wine corrects every corrosive? From this and what follows you shall learn, and judge by nature's rule whether my way or the alkahest is better. If you will not learn it from nature, study further until you recognize it. At the end of this treatise you shall at least read an indirect description of the alkahest and like menstrua. In a word, many laboratory workers often make the alkahest, frequently without knowing it; but because they do not know its application, they throw away the master key to every fortress.

To dissolve our minerals, let us begin with the general, more fixed world-spirit of nitre and salt, the general homogeneous vehicle for all individuals. With animals and plants, we took either their own juice, when sufficiently available, or, when it was lacking, putrefied chaotic rainwater. We must do the same here. If mineral moisture is lacking or cannot be obtained sufficiently, we replace and increase it with universal moisture. With and through it we strengthen and awaken mineral moisture, or the coagulating vitriolic or aluminous mineral spirit, to act upon itself or its own coagulated subject, destroy and reduce itself, and release the bonds binding what it has coagulated. Minerals are such fixed, hard-coagulated, dried bodies that they require a more powerful penetrating agent than animals and plants. We therefore take the more fixed universal seed, spirits of nitre and salt. What saltpetre does not accomplish, salt does, or both together. This does not mean that universal seeds must always be used, but only when the mineral acid is insufficient or too weak. We then sharpen it with the very subtle and penetrating universal intermediary, spirit of nitre. Otherwise, spirit of nitre and alum can always be made in quantity; these are the proper moisture of minerals for all red and white stars. Since the ancients rightly and openly taught that vitriol should be sharpened to penetrate universal subjects better, they distilled from saltpetre and vitriol a universal menstruum for the mineral kingdom.