Page 45 - Treatise on Salt

Vision. By dissolution.

Alchemist. How is that dissolution performed?

Vision. It is performed in itself, and by itself, without the addition of any
foreign thing. For the dissolution of the body is made in its own blood.

Alchemist. Is the whole body changed entirely into water?

Vision. To speak the truth, it is all changed; but the wind carries also in
its belly the fixed son of the sun, who is that fish without bone, which
swims in our philosophical sea.

Alchemist. Have not all the other waters, the same propriety?

Vision. This philosophical water is not a water of the clouds, or of any
common fountain; but it is a saline water, a white gum, and a water that
is permanent, which being united to its body, never quits it, and when it
has been digested during that space of time which it requires, it can never
after be separated therefrom: this water is moreover the real substance of
life in nature, which has been attracted by the magnet of the gold, and
which may be resolved into a clear water by the industry of the artist;
which is what no other water in the world can do.

Alchemist. Does this water yield no fruits?

Vision. Since this water is the metallic tree, it is possible to graft thereon
a young shoot, or a small solar twig, which if it happens to grow, has this
effect, that by its odour all the imperfect metals become like unto it.

Alchemist. How must it be proceeded with?

Vision. It must be cocted by a continual digestion, which is first
performed in moisture, and afterwards in dryness.

Alchemist. Is it always one and the same thing?

Vision. In the first operation, the body, soul, and spirit must be separated,
and then joined together again: and if the sun be united to the moon, then
the soul of its own accord separates itself from its body, and afterwards

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