Page 15 - Treatise on Salt

procreated by black parents, viz. of the black flint, and the black steel,
may, and has the virtue of preparing the most excellent remedies, of each
of the above-mentioned matters: but our volatile mercury is very
different from all these things.
Discourse translated from verse.
It is a stone, and no stone,
In which all the art consists,
Nature has made it such,
But it has not yet brought it to perfection.
You will not find it on earth, because it has there no growth;
It grows only in the caverns of the mountains.
This whole art depends on it;
For he who has the vapour of this thing,
Has the gilded splendour of the red lion,
The pure and clear mercury;
And he who knows the red sulphur which it contains,
Has within his power the whole foundation.

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