Page 34 - Treatise on Salt

better than those which nature is used to produce, and by its means the
most vile stones, and all crystals may be transformed into precious
stones. But because our intention is to change the metals into gold, it is
requisite they should be first fermented with very good and moist pure
gold; for, otherwise, the imperfect metals would not be able to support its
too great and supreme subtility; but there would rather ensue loss and
damage in the projection. The imperfect and impure metals must also be
purified, if one will draw any profit therefrom. One drachm of gold is
sufficient for the fermentation in the red, and one drachm of silver for the
fermentation in the white; and the artist need not be at the trouble of
buying gold or silver for this fermentation, because with one single very
small part, the tincture may afterward be augmented more and more, in
such manner that whole ships might be loaded with the precious metal
that would accrue from this confection, for if this medicine be multiplied,
and be aga in dissolved and coagulated by the water of its mercury, white
or red, of which it is prepared, then the tinging virtue will be augmented
each time, by ten degrees in perfection, which may be reiterated as often
as one pleases.

‘The rosary says, that he who shall have once accomplished this art,
even though he were to live thousands of years, and was every day to
maintain four thousand men, yet he would never know any security.’

‘The author of The Aurora Appearing says, it is she, that is the
daughter of the sages, and that has in her power, authority, honour,
virtue, and empire, who has upon her head the flourishing crown of the
kingdom, encompassed with the rays of the seven bright stars, and like
the bride adorned by her husband, she bears written on her garments in
golden letters, Greek, Barnarian and Latin; I am the only daughter of the
wife (?wise), altogether unknown to fools. Oh happy science, oh happy
scholar! For whoever has the knowledge of it, possesses an incomparable
treasure, because he is rich before God, and honoured by all men, not by
the means of usury, fraud, nor of unwarrantable commerce, nor by the
oppression of the poor, as the rich men of this world make it their glory
to enrich themselves by, but by the means of his industry, and by the
labour of his own hands.

Wherefore, it is not without reason that the philosophers conclude
that it is requisite to interpret the two following enigmas of the white and
red tincture, or of their Urim and Thummim.

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