In this ranking refined gold comes first, then refined silver, third lead, fourth tin, fifth copper and last iron. Among transmuted metals, part-with-part comes first, then ash-coloured lead, then laton, cauldron metal, the red, and finally the white. Yet at one time mercury takes up only one metal with which to amalgamate. Afterwards that amalgam must always be squeezed firmly through goatskin or cotton cloth, tied properly with a cord. In this way nothing but quicksilver passes through the skin or cloth. The metal it had attracted remains in the skin or cloth like a calx, which you can subsequently reduce by melting with alkali salt or another salt into a metallic body. In this manner quicksilver is separated from all metals much more readily and briefly than by distillation. Through this process with quicksilver, a skilled and industrious alchemist can extract and separate all metals from each other in their pulverised condition after calcination. In the same way, with very little labour, tin and lead can also be separated from copper or copper vessels, and from tinned iron and steel, without any fire or water, by an amalgam of quicksilver alone, as we have said. Cast and leaf gold or silver, and any ground or crushed metal written or spread with a brush or pen on cloth, parchment, paper, leather, wood, stone or other things, can likewise be dissolved by quicksilver, which can afterwards be separated and set apart from those metals again.

5. By corrosive waters.

Separation of metals in aqua fortis, aqua regis and other similar strong corrosives is carried out in this way. Take a metal mixed and joined with another, and reduce it to very thin plates or very small grains. Put it into a separating vessel and pour on enough ordinary aqua fortis. Let them stand and steep together until all the metal is dissolved into a clear water. If it is silver containing gold, all the silver will dissolve into the water, while the gold will be calcined and settle at the bottom like black sand. Thus the two metals, gold and silver, will be separated. If, however, you wish to separate the silver alone by aqua fortis without distillation, make it sink to the bottom like sand, and bring it from dissolution back into calcination, then cast a small copper plate into that solution. The silver in the water will immediately settle, covering the bottom of the glass like snow, and will begin gradually to consume the copper plate.

Silver and copper are separated by ordinary aqua fortis in this way. Reduce copper containing silver, or silver containing copper, into very thin plates or grains by the method already given. Put it into a glass vessel and add enough ordinary aqua fortis. In this way the silver will be calcined and sink to the bottom like a white calx, while the copper will dissolve and be converted into a clear water. If this water, together with the dissolved copper, is drawn away from the silver calx through a glass funnel into a separate glass, the copper dissolved in the water can then be struck down with ordinary rainwater, river water or warm seawater, so that it covers the bottom of the glass like sand.

Hidden gold is separated from any metal through the stage of extraction in aqua regis. For a water of this kind undertakes to dissolve no metal except refined gold alone. The same aqua regis also separates refined gold from gilded ornaments. If it is spread on them, it wipes off and strips away the gold.

6. Through the stage of reverberation.

What part-with-part is.

Two mixed metals can also be separated from each other with cement through the stage of reverberation, especially if, like iron and copper, they do not have the same degree of fixation. A metal having very little fixation, such as tin or lead, is entirely consumed by reverberation in cement. The more fixed a metal is, the less it can be affected and consumed by cement. You should therefore know that refined gold is the most fixed and perfect of all metals, and cannot be consumed by any cement. Refined silver comes next. If gold and silver are mixed in one body, which is commonly called part-with-part, or if silver contains gold or gold silver, and these mixed materials are put together into cement and reverberated, the gold always remains whole and unharmed, while the silver is consumed by the cement and extracted from the refined gold. In the same way copper is set apart from silver and iron, tin from copper and iron, lead from tin, and so on.

On the Separation of Minerals.

We have now explained the separation of metals from their earth and matter, and of one metal from another, setting it out as briefly as possible, yet accurately, according to alchemical art and experience. It is therefore fitting and necessary next to discuss the things from which metals grow and are generated, such as the three principles, mercury, sulphur and salt, and other minerals in which the first being of metals, that is, their spirit, is found. Thus in marcasites, garnets, cachimiae, red talc, lazurium and similar things, the first being of gold is found through sublimation. In white marcasite, white talc, orpiment, arsenic and litharge the first being of silver is found; in cobalt and zinetum the first being of iron; in zinetum, vitriol, atramentum and verdigris the first being of copper; in zinetum and bismuth the first being of tin; in antimony and minium the first being of lead; and in cinnabar the first being of quicksilver.

You should know that this first being is a fugitive spirit still in a volatile state, lying hidden like an infant in a woman’s womb, sometimes resembling a liquor and sometimes an alcool. Whoever seeks to possess and separate the first being of any such body needs much experience and knowledge of spagyric science. Unless he has worked diligently in alchemy, he will attempt everything in vain and accomplish nothing. How the first being is to be separated from mineral bodies has been sufficiently explained in the Archidoxis and need not be repeated tediously here. As for separation of minerals, observe that many such things are separated by sublimation: the fixed from the unfixed, spiritual and volatile bodies from fixed bodies, and similarly in every other respect, as was included in the treatment of metals. For all minerals have one similar process through all the stages, as the spagyric art teaches.

On the Separation of Plants.