it, in two vessels of earth set one vpon another, and a plate of yron with a hole in it,
betwixt them both: but such Oyle is nothing worth, and tasteth, for the most part,
of I cannot tell of what adustion: but the best is to draw it per ascensum, that so you
may haue that which is excellent good, faire, and penetratiue; the manner is such:
Make your furnace of matter and forme as aboue, sauing that in the vppermost part
of it you must haue a cleft or open place, for the more easie placing and disposing of
the necke of your vessell. The vessell shall be fashioned like a Bladder, Corner, or
bagge of a Shepheards Pipe, called of the Chymists a re••ort: it must be of glasse,
or else of earth, and varnished and leaded within, and of such bignesse, as that it
may containe a dozen pound of water, hauing a necke of a foot and a halfe long, or
a foot long at the least, and bending downeward: It is to consist of two parts; the
one of them stretching from the bell••e of the said bladder forward, some six fingers
long, and for thicknesse so made, as that ones hand may goe into the orifice of it, to
make cleane the said vessell within: and the other growing euer lesse and lesse, euen
vnto the end, must be made to ioyne with the former part by the mea••es and helpe
of some fastening matter, as glue or cement of Bole-armoniacke; and yet in such
sort, as that they may be set together, and taken asunder, when need shall require.
This is the figure and shape.
If you haue not the benefit of a furnace, you shall place the Retort in fit and con∣uenient
sort within an earthen panne: or in stead thereof, in a vessell or pot of yron
good and wide, and filled with sand or ashes, or without anie thing in it, and that vp∣on
a brandrith, if there be need of vsing a verie great fire, as we see it daily practised
amongst the Apothecaries.
Wherefore, to draw oyle out of oylie wood, you must first make it small, and
bring it into pieces, in such sort as Turners doe, with turning of wood, and not with
anie Saw, or anie other edge-toole: neither yet must you make it like powder, for in
boiling it would too lightly and easily rise and swell, as also those gobbe••s and lumps
which are cut by edge-tooles, or other instruments, doe hardly and with great diffi∣cultie
yeeld anie oyle: put into the Retort two pound of this wood, diuided into pie∣ces
after the manner of the Turners, and as much Aqua-vitae, for the steeping and in∣fusing
of it, let them infuse together certaine daies. This Aqua-vitae, by reason of his
subtlenesse, pierceth more easily than any other liquor, and likewise without any diffi∣cultie
separateth and forcibly draweth the oyle from his proper subiect, and yet in the
meane time in neither changeth nor corrupteth, any manner of way, the nature of the
said oyle, because it draweth neere vnto the temperature of oyles; which is the cause
why we mingle with the wood Aqua-vitae rather than common water: howsoeuer, I
do not any thing doubt of the maner before described about the distillation of oyles,
hearbs, & seeds, in which is vsed the vessell of Copper with a head, powring thereinto