Part I. ALCBYMY. 59

grain the fix hundredth part of an ounce). This powder I involved in wax, fcraped off a certain letter, left, in catling it into the crucible, it fhould be difperfed, through the finoak of the coals ; which pellet of wax I afterwards call into the three-cornered veffel of a crucible upon a pound of quickfilver, hot and newly bought ; and prefently the whole quickfilver, with fome little noife, flood ftill from flowing, and reftded like a lump ; but the heat of that argent vive was as much as might forbid melted lead from recoagulating. The fire being ftraightway after increafed under the bellows, the metal was melted ; the which, the veffel of fufton being broken, I found to weigh eight ounces of the molt pure gold.
“ Therefore, a computation being made, a grain of that powder doth con- cert nineteen thoufand two hundred grains of impure and volatile metal, which ^Pobliterable by the fire, into true gold.
“ For that powder, by uniting the aforefaid quickfilver unto itfelf, preferved the fame, at one inftant, from an eternal ruft, putrefa6lion, death, and torture of the fire, howfoever moft violent it was, and made it as an immortal thing, againft any vigour or induftry of art and fire, and tranfchanged it into the virgin purity of gold ; at leaftwife one only fire of coals is required herein.”
By which we fee, that fo learned and profound a philofopher as Van Helmont could not fo eafily have been made to believe that there exifted a pof- fibility of tranfmutation of bafe metals into pure gold, without he had a6tually proved the fame by experiment.
Again, let the Handing monuments of Flammel’s liberal bounty to the poor, through this mean, to be feen at Paris every day, ftand as a teftimony to the truth of the exifting poflibility of tranfmutation. Likewife, Helmont mentions a ftone that he faw, and had in his poffeflion, which cured all dif- orders, the qfiague not excepted. I ftiall relate the circumflance in his own words, which are as follow : —
“ There was a certain Irifhman, whofe name was Butler, being fome time great with James, King of England, he being detained in the prifon of the Caftle of Vilvord ; and taking pity on one Baillius, a certain Francifcan Monk, a moft famous preacher of Gallo-Britain, who was alfo imprifonech
H 2
having
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ALCIIYMY.