Aurifontina chymica, or, A collection of fourteen small treatises concerning the first matter of philosophers for the discovery of their (hitherto so much concealed) mercury which many have studiously endeavoured to hide, but these to make manifest for the benefit of mankind in general.
About this Item
Title
Aurifontina chymica, or, A collection of fourteen small treatises concerning the first matter of philosophers for the discovery of their (hitherto so much concealed) mercury which many have studiously endeavoured to hide, but these to make manifest for the benefit of mankind in general.
Author
Houpreght, John Frederick.
Publication
London :: Printed for William Cooper ...,
1680.
Rights/Permissions
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Subject terms
Alchemy -- Early works to 1800.
Link to this Item
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A44608.0001.001
Cite this Item
"Aurifontina chymica, or, A collection of fourteen small treatises concerning the first matter of philosophers for the discovery of their (hitherto so much concealed) mercury which many have studiously endeavoured to hide, but these to make manifest for the benefit of mankind in general." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A44608.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 13, 2024.
Pages
descriptionPage 93
Colours to be observed in the
Operation of the Great
Work. (Book 5)
YOU must expect to have it
exceeding Black, within 40
days after you have put your Com∣position
into the Glass over the
••ire; if it be not black, proceed
no further, for it is unrecoverable:
it must be as black as the Ravens
Head, and must continue a long
time, and not utterly to lose it du∣ring
five months.
If it be Orange colour, or half
Red, within some small time after
you have begun your Work, with∣out
doubt your Fire is too hot;
for these are tokens that you have
burnt the Radical humour and vi∣vacity
of the Stone.
Know ye not, that you may
have Black of any thing mixed or
compounded together with moi∣sture:
descriptionPage 94
But you must have Black
which must come and proceed of
perfect Metalline Bodies, by a real
Putrefaction, and to continue a
long time.
As for the colours of Blew and
Yellow, they signifie that the So∣lution
and Putrefaction is not yet
perfectly finished, and that the co∣lours
of our Mercury are not yet
well mingled with the rest.
The Black aforesaid is an evi∣dent
sign, that in the beginning
the Matter and Composition doth
begin to purge it self, and to dis∣solve
into small Powder, less than
the Motes in the Sun; or a glu∣tinous
Water, which feeling the
heat, will ascend and descend in
the Glass: at length it will thicken
and congeal, and become like
Pitch, exceeding Black; in the end
it will become a Body, and Earth,
which some call Terra faetida; for
then by reason of the perfect Pu∣trefaction,
it will have a scent
or stink like unto Graves newly
opened, wherein the Bodies are
descriptionPage 95
not thorowly consumed. Hermes
doth call it Terra foliis, but the
proper name is Leton, which must
be blanched and made white.
This blackness doth manifest a
Conjunction of the Male and Fe∣male,
or rather of the four Ele∣ments.
Orange colour then doth shew
that the Body hath not yet had
sufficient digestion, and that the
humidity (whereof the colours of
Black, Blew, and Azure do come)
is but half overcome by the dry∣ness.
When dryness doth predomi∣nate,
then all will be white Pow∣der:
It first beginneth to whiten
round about the outward sides of
the Glass; the Ludus Philosophorum
doth say, that the first sign of per∣fect
whiteness, is the appearing of
a little hoary circle passing upon
the Head, shewing it self round
about the Matter on the outward
sides of the Glass, in a kind of
Citrine colour.
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