Mercurial fire-water

Meaning

Mercurial fire-water is the expression attributed to the printed authority Rouillasque. It names the moisture which the argument discovers in the relation of salt, water and fire, not ordinary drinking water mixed with quicksilver.

II.3.23 calls salt the last matter, distinguishable from the ash in which it remains. Its return between liquid and salt supports the identification of a true mercury, and fire is said to nourish and improve the moisture. The account then makes fire and moisture correlatives and gives each element a participation in the others. It stands beside the preceding statement that fire does not generate the salt but leaves it victorious; the differing formulations should be preserved, not silently harmonized by substituting a modern chemical model.

Rouillasque is retained without a conjectural identification. The English “mercurial fire-water” and “dry water” preserve the deliberate paradoxes; note 163 marks the unresolved authority.