Tinctures of metals must be fixed, fusible and incombustible in nature. If a little is thrown onto a glowing metal plate, it must immediately flow like wax without any fumes and penetrate the metal as oil penetrates paper or water a sponge, tinging all metals into white and red—that is, into Silver and Gold. These are the tinctures of metals. They must first be converted into alcohol through the stage of calcination, then acquire their ready, easy fusion through the second stage, sublimation. Finally, through putrefaction and distillation, the tincture becomes fixed, incombustible and unchanging in colour.

Tinctures of humans.

The tinctures of human bodies, by which they are tinged into their highest health, all diseases expelled, lost strength and colour restored, and the bodies restored and renewed, are these: Gold, Pearls, Antimony, Sulphur, Vitriol and the like. We teach their preparations in many ways in other books and therefore do not consider it necessary to repeat them here.

Tinctures of craftspeople.

No more need be written about tinctures, since any extracted colour can be called a tincture if it tinges things with a lasting colour, whether those things do not enter fire or preserve fixed colours in fire. Everything thus lies in the hand and power of the dyer or painter, who prepares them as desired.

How many stages of alchemical fire there are.

It is also most necessary in this book to know the degrees of fire. Fire can be graduated and intensified in many ways; every degree has its particular operation and produces a different effect, as any skilled alchemist knows through daily experience and practice. One kind is living, flaming fire, which reverberates and calcines all bodies. Another is the steady fire of a candle or lamp, which fixes all volatile bodies. Another is charcoal fire, which cements and colours metals, purifies them from slag, raises Gold and Silver to a higher degree, whitens Copper and, in short, renews all metals. Another is the fire of a glowing iron plate, on which metallic tinctures are tested and which has other uses. Iron filings heat in one way, sand another, ashes another, the sea bath another, in which many distillations, sublimations and coagulations occur. The dew bath operates differently, producing many solutions of corporeal things; the horse’s belly differently again, chiefly producing putrefactions and digestions. Invisible fire also operates differently: by this we mean the sun’s rays, manifested through a steel mirror or crystal, which show their operation and effect. The ancients wrote nothing whatever about this fire. Through it the three principles can be separated from any corporeal thing upon a table. Such is its marvellous virtue that metals and all fatty and fusible things melt upon the table without fire, and all readily combustible things are reduced to coals and ashes.

Invisible fire.

How transmutation into Silver or Gold is effected.

Having set out and revealed the stages of alchemical art and alchemical fire, I shall now indicate and describe generally various transmutations of natural things. It is fitting to speak first of metals, second of stones and third of various things in general. Metallic transmutation is a great secret in nature and difficult to accomplish because of many impediments and adversities. Yet it is neither contrary to nature nor to God’s ordinance, as many falsely say. The five lesser and more impure metals—Copper, Tin, Lead, Iron and Mercury—cannot be transmuted into the greater, purest and perfect metals, Gold and Silver, without a tincture or the philosophers’ stone. Since we have already sufficiently uncovered and described the secrets of tinctures in the seven stages, no further labour is needed here; we rest in what we have written in other books on metallic transmutations.

Copper from iron.

There are other transmutations of the less perfect and impure metals, such as Iron into Copper. This can occur in various ways: first, by boiling iron filings in water of vitriol; second, by cementing iron plates with calcined vitriol; third, by quenching glowing iron plates in oil of vitriol. By these three ways iron is transmuted into the best natural and heavy copper, which melts very well and has its proper weight as well as any native copper. Iron filings can also be reduced and transmuted as though into lead, becoming entirely soft like native lead, though not readily fusible. Take Iron filings and an equal quantity of the best fluxing powder, mix them and place them in a crucible in a wind furnace. Apply a strong fire, yet do not melt the Iron; let it remain as though in cement for a whole hour. Then vigorously strengthen the fire until it glows and melts. Finally allow the crucible to cool by itself: you will find a regulus of lead, as soft and ductile as native lead can be.