alchemist will more easily transmute metals than generate or make them. Nevertheless, live Mercury is the mother of all the seven metals, and deserves to be called the Mother of Metals. For it is an open metal and, as it were, contains in itself all the colours which it renders up from itself in the fire; and so also, in an occult manner, it contains in itself all metals which without fire it does not yield up from itself. But the regeneration and renovation of metals takes place thus: As man can return to the womb of his mother, that is, to the earth from which the first man sprang, and thus can be born again anew at the last day, so also all metals can return to quick mercury, can become Mercury, and be regenerated and clarified by fire, if they remain for forty weeks in perpetual heat, like a child in its mother's womb. Now, they are born, however, not as common metals, but as metals which tinge: for if, as has been said, Luna is regenerated, it will afterwards tinge all metals to Luna. So gold tinges other metals to Sol, and in like manner it must be understood of all other metals. Now, when Hermes said that the soul was the only medium which joins the spirit to the body, he had no inadequate conception of the truth. And since Sulphur is that soul, and, like fire, it hastens on and prepares all things, it can also link together the spirit and the body, incorporate and unite them, so that a most noble body shall be produced. Yet it is not common combustible sulphur which is to be esteemed the soul of metals; but that soul is another combustible and corruptible body. It cannot, therefore, be burnt with any fire, since it is itself entirely fire, and, in truth, it is nothing but the Quintessence of Sulphur, which is extracted by the spirit of wine from Reverberated Sulphur, and is ruby coloured and clear as the ruby itself. This is indeed a mighty and excellent arcanum for transmuting white metals, and for coagulating quick mercury into fixed and approved gold. Hold this in commendation as a treasure for making you rich; and you should be contented with this secret alone in the transmutation of metals. Concerning the generation of minerals and semi-metals, no more need be known than we stated at the beginning concerning the metals, namely, that they are produced, in like manner, from those three principles, Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt, though not, like the metals, from these principles in their perfection, but from the more imperfect and weaker Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt, yet still with their distinct colours.
The generation of gems takes place by, and flows out from, the subtlety of the earth, from the clear and crystalline Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt, also
