Modern curiosities of art & nature extracted out of the cabinets of the most eminent personages of the French court : together with the choicest secrets in mechanicks, communicated by the most approved artists of France / composed and experimented by the Sieur Lemery, apothecary to the French king ; made English from the original French.

Artificial Pearls, as fair as the Natural.

TAke the fairest and greatest Seeds of Pearls, bruise them and dissolve them in Allum-water, which is all the Secret: then make them into a Paste, and wash it gently with distilled Water; afterwards make it into a Paste with Bean-flower-water; and digest it in Dung, the space of fifteen days; then ha∣ving the consistence of Paste, you shall form Pearls thereof with a silver Mold; and pierce them with Hogs-hair, and hang them in an Alembic stopt close, to the end the Air alter them not; then you shall after this manner,

Roul each one apart in Leaf Gold, then cleave a Barble in the middle, and put them therein; make a Paste of the said Barble, with Wheat-flower, and bake it in an Oven, as you bake Bread.

If they have not lustre enough, take the Water of a kind of Herb called Grastuli, with six ounces of Pearls in Powder, one ounce of Salt-Petre, two ounces of Roch-Allum, and Litharge of silver: the Pearls be∣ing made, you shall heat them a little, and quench them in this Composition, then dry

and wash them, repeating this five or six times.