Page 26 - Scottish Alchemists

cold. Then you sall lett the watter sooke throch a felt with wool againe, as
befoir, into the long pott and in the bottom you sail find your Mercury hard
and fixt: And though you had put 10 lib of Mercury in, you suld have had it
all hard and fixt and yett the watter no thing diminished, bot 10 tyines
stronger, then if no Mercury had been put into it. Now my sone may
demand whither the watter be not growen black, out of order and worse
because of so much Mercury purified in it. No, I assure you, it wilbe neither
blacker nor worser bot as I sayd befoir, moir powerfull and better by much
then it was befoir.”

Such was the singular form which scientific knowledge could assume in
the early part of the reign of James VI.

From a drawing in the MSS. of Sir George Erskine.

21