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Introduction.
27

yeare, as dyd note in their collections and gatherings of auncient inscriptions or Poesies, Petrus Appianus and Bartholomeus, Amantius, Hermolaus, Barbarus also in hys Corollarium or addicion vpon Dioscorides made mention of this same thing, where as he entreateth of waters in comun. There is also (saith he) a heauenlye water or rather diuine of the Chymistes, whyche bothe Democritus and Mercury Trimegistus knewe, callyng it sometymes a deuine water, sometimes a Scythicall liquor, sometimes pneuma, that is, spirit of the nature of the firmament and of the first essens or substance of things: whereof potable gold and that

“Philosophers Stone”

much spoken of, but not yet found, consisteth.

This kinde of liquor, as I suppose, doth the Epigramme signifie, of late found within the field of Padua, nie vnto the village called Atesta, made upon earthen or bricke mettal, and therefore frail, and broken vnawares by the handes of a man of the country digging the