CHAPTER XIL

General Instruction concerning the Arcanum of Vitriol and THE Red Tincture to be extracted from it.*
Vitriol is a very noble mineral among the rest, and was held always in highest estimation by philosophers, because the Most High God has adorned it with wonderful gifts. They have veiled its arcanum in enigmatical figures like the following : ** Thou shalt go to the inner parts of the earth, and by rectification thou shalt find the occult stone, a true medicine." By the earth they understood the Vitriol itself; and by the inner parts of the earth its sweetness and redness, because in the occult part of the Vitriol lies hid a subtle, noble, and most fragrant juice, and a pure oil. The method of its production is not to be approached by calcination or by distillation. For it must not be deprived on any account of its green colour. If it were, it would at the same time lose its arcanum and its power. Indeed, it should be observed at this point that minerals, and also vegetables and other like things which shew greenness without, contain within themselves an oil red like blood, which is their arcanum. Hence it is clear that the distillations of the druggists are useless, vain, foolish, and of no value, because these people do not know how to extract the bloodlike redness from vegetables. Nature herself is wise, and turns all the waters of vegetables to a lemon colour, and after that into an oil which is very red like blood. The reason why this is so slowly accomplished arises from the too great haste of the ignorant operators who distil it, which causes the greenness to be consumed. They have not learnt to strengthen Nature with their own powers, which is the mode whereby that noble green
• The arcanum of vitriol is the oil of vitriol. Thus : after the aquosity has been removed in coction from vitriol, the spirit is elicited by the application of greater heat. The vitriol then comes over pure in the form of water. This water is combined with the ca^t mortuum left by the process, and on again separating in a haiiuu$H maris^ the phleg> matic part passes oif, and the oil, or the arcanum of vitriol, remains at the bottom of the vessel.— /(m£
The Aurora of the Philosophers.
6i
colour ought to be rectified into redness of itself. An example of this is white wine digestingf itself into a lemon colour ; and in process o{ time the green colour of the grape is of itself turned into the red which underlies the ccerulean. The greenness therefore of the vegetables and minerals being lost by the in- capacity of the operators, the essence also and spirit of the oil and of the balsam, which is noblest among arcana, will also perish.