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| | Ripley's Treatise of Mercury and the Philosophers' Stone |
 | | This water being kindled, flames immediately, as common aqua vitae, and is called our attractive mercury, which is made a crystalline earth, with all metallic calxes also, of which I will say no more, because in this operation we want it not. |
 | | We may if we please proceed by another way or method: distil the menstruum foetens, being fourteen days digested, and first will ascend the aqua ardens, then the phlegm, and in the bottom will remain a matter thick as melted pitch, which are the constitutive principles of all vegetable menstruums. |
 | | This alchemic body is called leprous gold, wherein gold and silver, are in essence and power, but not in sight or appearance; in its profundity or depth, it is airous or spiritual gold, which none can obtain, unless the same body be first made clean and pure. |
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