Selected quad for the lemma: water_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
water_n	boil_v	let_v	little_a	6,333	5	5.4008	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61885	Legends no histories, or, A specimen of some animadversions upon The history of the Royal Society wherein, besides the several errors against common literature, sundry mistakes about the making of salt-petre and gun-powder are detected and rectified : whereunto are added two discourses, one of Pietro Sardi and another of Nicolas Tartaglia relating to that subject, translated out of Italian : with a brief account of those passages of the authors life ... : together with the Plus ultra of Mr. Joseph Glanvill reduced to a non-plus, &c. / by Henry Stubbe ...	Stubbe, Henry, 1632-1676.; Tartaglia, Niccolò, d. 1557. Quesiti et inventioni diverse. Libro 3. English.; Sardi, Pietro, b. 1559? Artiglieria. English. Selections.; Stubbe, Henry, 1632-1676. Plus ultra reduced to a non plus.; Henshaw, Thomas, 1618-1700.	1670 (1670)	Wing S6053; Wing S6063_PARTIAL; ESTC R21316	289,570	380

other waters Carelesly in one or more vessels that will hold them These last waters shall be taken and forced to pass over New Earth operating as before and so many times shall they Pass over new earth untill you find the water sufficiently impregnated with Nitre which you shall easily know by the tast for the tongue will be hardly able to indure it for the great hea● and the waters will bear almost a new layd Egge without sinking to the bottom Having Collected a sufficient quantity of this Nitrous water you must put it into one or more Great Brazen or Copper caldron like those of the dyers accommodated to a fornace which being filled of two thirds of such liquor i. e. in such manner that a third part of the caldron be yet empty give fire to it at first gently afterwards more strongly by degrees untill the boyling be well advanced and so continue untill the caldron be but one third part full of liquor or to say better untill but half of what was put in do Remain The waters of one or more Caldrons being boyled and reduced to such a Quantity let them be gently taken out and put in a Capacious Tun or Tuns well hooped with hoopes of Iron and let them be covered with hempen cloath and tables upon them very diligently and so let them be left untill they coole and that they be setled very well in such manner that all the Earthy substance and naughty Salt be fallen to the bottom These waters being thus purified let them again be gently that they be not troubled but the common Salt and earthiness left in the bottom Returned in to the cleansed caldrons and they being boyled as at first untill one half be consumed or at least untill you know it be boyled and be coagu●a●ed which will be known when taking a little upon a stick and dropping it on a Polish'd marble or stone if it remain congealed or to say better thickned it is a sign it is boyled and therefore take it from the fire and suffer it to coole It being thus cooled clarified let there be ready some Tray● made of Planks long not too large nor too deep but more large in the top then in the botome let these be filled with the boyl'd and clarified waters a handful high putting into them some little sticks of wood without Barke and cover the trays and let them stand so two or three days and at that time or longer according to the season you shall find the Sal-Nitri Congeal'd and cleaving to the sides of the Trays and the sticks after the manner of clear Chrystall which take away carefully and the water that Remains let it be put to boyling anew as at first leaving the salt and the dregs in the bottome of the Trays And because the waters in the boyling swell and make a scum it will be necessary to take away that scum carefully as they do from the flesh-pots and to reserve that scum to throw it upon the Earth taken from the Tuns to reimpregnate it with Salt-petre Moreover because the water in boyling will spatter out of the caldron to remedy this let there be ready a strong lie made 3 fourths of ferne Ashes or the ashes of Oak holme o● Oak or with Ash or Maple such as was used a● the first elixiviation and of one fourth of quick-lime and in the said strong lie for every hundred pints let there be dissolved four pounds for Roach-allu●● And of this lie so prepared take one or two pot●uls and throw it in by little and little when the Caldron swells and it will presently be quiet and descend and become of a clear Azure colour and the dreggs of the common salt will fall to the Bottome Of the manner to r●fine Sal-p●trae to make gun-powder cap. 50. ALL the vigour of Gun-powder consisting in Sol-petrae its quantity and its perfection if the Sal-petre should be put in use of the first boyling the Powder would ●ot be so perfect and so strong as need would require for the quantity of Terrestriall matter● Common● salt and u●ctuosity which also reside with the Petre do hinder its vertue and strength and therefore the Artists do always anew Refine the said Salt-petre and purge it from every extraneous matter as much as is possible that they may obtaine the most strenuous effects of Powder that can be desired This Refining is made in two manners either with water commonly called the wett or with Fire commonly called the Dry or the Burnt The wett or with water is made thus They take as much sal-nitre as they please to Refine and put it in a Caldron over a fornace and upon that Sal-nitre they put such a quantity of fresh and clear water as may be sufficient to dissolve it they take notice of the quantity of the water and for every barrel of water which they put into the Caldron they put five or six Pot-fulls of that strong lie made of Ferne-Ashes Oake and Quick-lime and Allum and giving fire to the Caldron at first softly and afterward increasing it un till the melted Nitre boyle and rayse a scum Let there be ready a great Tun or vessel placed so high that another vessel may stand under it to receive the Sal-nitrous water which by little shall strain from above and in the said great Tun let there be put a hands-breadth of cleane and wash'd Sand and upon that a great linnen cloth doubled as the laundresses do and on that poure the water from the Caldron which contains the melted Nitre as soon as it boyles and the scum is taken from it and let it strain by little and little by the ●●p into the vessel below as they do in making their Bucks Which water being all strained let it be put into a cleare Caldron and boyl it till by the proof of a Co●gealed drop it may be known to be well boyled not forgetting to give it some of the strong li● of Allum Ashes and lime when the Caldron swells and would spatter out the water and having made proof it is boyled enough let it be taken out and put into the long Trays to cool● as before and preserve the congealed Salt-petre and returne the water to boyle again that remains and againe to congeale and do so untill the water Give no more Salt-petre Now this Salt-petre so Refined is called Salt-petre Refin'd of the ●econd boyling● as the Refiners of sugar call their Sugar Refined of the Second Third or fourth boyling and to make Saltpetre of such perfection you may as some do Refine it that is Reboyl it in such manner the third time proceeding always as before Because that there is such difficulty in the depurating of Salt-peter from the fixed common Salt Allum Vitriol which adhere to it that without this be done no man can judge whether the salt it leaves upon calcination be from the Nitre or some

to make the Petre begin to shoot at the bottom and Rock into fairer Crystalls These and many other circumstances convince me that Mr. Henshaw stole his narrative and then certainly fetcht his from no other place Onely he Spoiles a plausible Theory and tells us he is much delighted with it and no doubt thereof So were some of the Society and it was an Extraordinary apprehension they had of the Worth of this History that they inserted it into Mr. Sprat's Book and truely I was as much pleased thereat as They could be Animadversions upon the History of making of Gun-powder written also by Mr. Henshaw IF some of our Wits were not such Enemies to Logick a part whereof is Method I should have expected to have found in the continuation of the History of Gun-powder some mention of Brimston and its refining And I should have expected a discourse concerning mute powder which however it be not efficacious yet is it a sort of Gun-powder and a noble experiment And perhaps it might not have been unworthy the curiosity of an accurate Historian to have treated of those preparations of Gold and Steel which are called Aurum fulminans et tonitruans or crepitans Ceraunochrysos Mars tonans and that other made with common Sulphur and published by Rolfincius Chym. in art red l. 5. Sect. 2. c. 28. These he might very well have inserted and neither have Invented over again a thing usuall with our Virtuosi or have related them as secrets imparted unto him by an Ingenious friend or Member of the Royal Society which is agreable to their practice thus particularly Mr. Hooke suggests unto us the usual Study of the Signatures of Plants upon the observation of an able Physitian a friend of his whereas that discovery is as old as Paracelsus and Crollius and in reference to his insinuation of the vertue of Poppyes from the Signature I shall add this digressing passage out of Conringius in addend ad med Hermet pag. 400. Nec veró capiti prodest vel nymphaeae flos uel papaveris caput quòd imaginem aliquam capitis praebeant omnibus enim ejus affectibus deberent prodesse et solis siquidem agant Specificâ quodam ut loquuntur facultate et capiti proprie ●int dicata Sed et illa capitis effigiem non aliter prae se ferunt quam poma omnia imo omnes seminum folliculi quae tamen nemo duxerit capiti singulariter prodesse Infinitis exemplis vanitatem doctrinae ostendere est si opus fuerit But these are not his only omissions for it became him in the first place to have represented unto us the facile and less artificiall waies of making Gun-powder then the more elaborate procedure at the Powder-mills But our Virtuoso is above those pedanticall rules of Logick and History by which vulgar Wits are regulated Because I think it no unnecessary instruction I shall set down a Method of making Gun-powder without any Mill at all as Casimirus Semienowicz reports it many of our Country-peasants know how to make Gun-powder without the use of any artifice or machines For we have seen many of the inhabitants of Podolia and ●●rain who are termed Cosacs making Gun-powder after another manner then is commonly practised They take certain proportions of Salt-Petre Brimstone and Coal which proportions they have learned by long practise put them into an earthen vessel adding thereto some fresh water they boile it over a slow fire for two or three houres till the water be evaporated and the materials grow thick and Stiffe Then they take the mess out of the pot and drying it a little more in a Stove or in the Sun they pass it through an haire sieve and so granulate it very small Others take the materials designed for Gun powder either upon a plain polished Stone or in any Earthen Vessel grind them and mixe them well together and incorporate them then they moisten it and so granulate it Betwixt this way of the Cosacs and that of Vannuccio Biringoccio there is a little difference which makes me set his down apart Having weighed the materials ●ach by it self and having beat and sears●d th●m each apart in the end as the best and speedi●st way to compose them together take the quantity of Nitre you are to use and put into a Caldron with so much water as putting it on the fire to heat you think will dissolve it then take off the Caldron and set it on the ground in a firme place and then put in the quantity of the Coal by little and little stirring it about untill it is well incorporated with the dissolved Nitre then take your Sulphur finely powdered and s●arsed and stir it in stirring it continually about with a wooden pestell untill you have well incorporated all together and made the Co●l fine and impalpable if you can then dry it from all moisture and searse it very well thorough a fit serse and then wet it with a little common water or a little Vinegar and lastly thorough a sieve or searse grain it and then again dry it well for your use To pass by his defects it is a notorious untruth with which he begins his History The materials of Gun-powder are Salt-Petre Brimstone and Coal The Coal MUST be Withy and Alder equal parts for Withy alone is counted too soft and some do commend Hazle to be as good as the other two I find that those that made Gun-powder at Coventry during the late Warrs used any ●ight-wood-coal as Maple and Aspe and thought their powder as good as any could be Some have told me that they have known Birch-coal very good I find Botallus to reckon up as ingredients promiscuously used in the making of Gunpowder Carbones Cannabinos saliceos vel juglandeos ● and Semienowicz saith that if you cannot get enough of Withy or Hazle to charre Si Salicis et coryli sufficiens non detur copia ad urendos carbones vices horum tilia sicca supplere poterit Si exiguam aliquam carbonum portionem praeparare cupis virgulta ex coryla et salice vel lignum tiliae aut j●niperi in parva frustula secta et optimé siccata vasi alicui testaceo includito et operculo figulneâ cretâ ad orificium vasis firmato postea candentibus ●ndique● stipatum prunis per unius horae Spatium ibidem in uno continuo et aequali semper caloris gradu manere sinito Frigescattandem sua sponte et usti eximantur carbones Sunt qui mappas et lineam telam vetustam bene et siccatam hoc modo in carbo●em redigant cujus etiam non spernenda virtus in re Pyrotechnica I find another excellent writer of Pyrotechny one Signior Vannu●cio Biringoccio a Nobleman of Sienna Printed at Venice the third time in 1559. to use other materials for his Coal then our Virtuoso propounds To make the Coal some besides Willowes use

been the more confirmed in this fancy since I have often seen a friend of mine with a natural and facile 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 convert the greater part of Petre into a Salt so like the volatile Salt of Urine that they are scarcely to be distinguisht in smell or tast and yet he adds nothing to it that can possibly be suspected to participate of that nature But indeed all volatile Salts are so alike that it is not easy to distinguish them in any respect I have been carefull not to dismember this last Paragraph that the Reader might with one view survey this strange fancy and Judge better how little I impose upon him in the sequell of my discourse And first I ask our Orator how he applies this Speculation to what he promised us in the introduction to it How does this improve the Art of making Salt-Petre If an ill Memory and a proportionate mixture of something else be demonstrations of a great Witt no man hath given greater testimonies of his abilities than Mr. Henshaw Secondly I demand why He is so Solicitous to transform the Spirit of the volatile Salt of Soot or Urine c into Petre whereas any man that considered what he went about would employ his care rather to coagulate the volatile Salt with which the Spirit of Soot and Urine abounds with Spirit of Nitre Aqua-fortis or the like into Petre or some such Nitrous Salt But behold the Happiness of Mr. Henshawe's Fansy and the unhappiness of his judgment That which he Fansied possible about the coagulation of the volatile Salt abounding in Spirit of Urine with Spirit of Nitre into a kind of Petre this Experiment hath happily succeeded under the tryall of the Honourable and inquisitive Mr. Boyle but yet that Theory which he goes about to deduce thence is as farr from being established thereby as the Artifice of Salt Petre-making is from being thereby advanced From Spirit of Urine saith M● R. B. and Spirit of Nitre● when I have suffered them to remain long together before coagulation and freed the mixture from the Superfluous moisture very slowly I have sometimes obtained fine long Crystalls so shaped that most beholders took them for Crystalls of Salt-Petre But whosoever shal consider how much more trouble and cost there is in distilling those other volatile Spirits than there is in the drawing of the Spirit of Nitre and how small quantities are like to be made this way and those perhaps not serviceable in Gun-powder will easily see that this project is as inutile as the former was in order to the improvement of the making Salt-Petre Oh! But it will excellently make out a Theory that the Salt which is found in vegetables and Animals is but the Nitre which is so universally diffused through all the Elements a little altered from its first complexion I remember that Sc●liger taking occasion to complain of Cardan for some illogicall inferences useth these words Dij benefecerunt quód te faeminam non fecerunt Ad primam quamque speciem promissorum exiluisses I must apply this Sarcasme to Mr. Henshaw who could be deluded by such weak appearances of reason Let us but shape an Hypotheticall Syllogisme for him and consider the consequence If the Spirit of Nitre being poured upon the Spirit of the Volatile Salt of Urine Soot c. doth reduce the Volatile Salt to Petre or some Nitrous Salt not much differing from it then doth it follow that the Salt which is found in Vegetables and Animalls is but the Nitre which is so Universally diffused through all Elements and must therefore make a chiefe ingredient in their nutrition and generation a little altered from its first complexion But the Antecedent is true Ergo In the first place it is evident by the Experiment of Mr. Boyle that even Sea-Salt by the affusion of Spirit of Nitre may be turned into Petre. Nay Glauber teacheth us how Allom Vitriol Miner●lls and Stones may be with more or less trouble converted into Nitre why did not he extend his consideration about the Nitre in all the Elements to them Is it because that they abound not in Oile and volatile Salt upon which he so wisely builds his Argument Secondly since it is made evident by Glauber in many places of his works that the Spirit of Nitre is as it were the Seed of Nitre by which it propagates it self and assumes a body as plants do where it finds one agreeable and such are not only nay not principally which he should have noted the votatile but fixed Salts of any Creature Aqua fortis aut Spiritus Nitri est quasi Semen Salis-Petrae atque hanc naturam habet quando alijs Salibus sicut semen aliquod vegetabile terrae mandatur ut ex ipsis augmentum capiendo multiplicetur quemadmodum herbarum semina faciunt This Seminall principle in Nitre seemes to have the approbation of Mr. Boyle and if it be thus as undoubtedly it is and that those Salts whither volatile or fixed are but the materiall principle I do not see any more validity in the consequence than if I should say because sundry plants grow in the Earth or Water therefore the Earth or Water were but those plants a little disguised in their complexion In fine it is so farr from following hereupon that Salt-Petre disguised is the Chief ingredient of the nutrition and geration of Animals that it doth not follow that it is any ingredient at all but that there is something in those substances mentioned that may be converted into Petre and is as an Aristotelian would say disposed fitly to be the Subject matter of that Forme For as this Argument is shaped what I say is as manifest as that the constitutive parts of the Nitre are to be the volatile Salt the Spirit of Nitre The one thing indifferent to sundry combinations and transmutations and which hath nothing of the nature of Salt-Petre but is palpably transmuted since in the distillation of good Nitre there appears no such thing as volatile Salt The other it is that Specificates the predisposed matter and generates P●●re out of it so much altering the complexion that the affinity betwixt that volatile Salt and Salt-Petre is no more than betwixt a man and a pumpion He talks of the complexion of the Nitre being a little altered but I would faine know how little that is Let me see the like Crystalls a resembling flame and other effects that result from the being and Specification of Salt-Petre If Salt-petre be a chief ingredient in the generation and nutrition of vegetables T is either because of its bulke or Efficacy that it is chief but neither of these is true For the quantity is not so great in vegetables or Animalls should we allow the volatile Salt and Nitre to be all one Not for Efficacy because it is not made out that there is Nitre in the Sea in clay-grounds or Springs or in Countries remote from

the Sun yet here fishes and other Creatures feed and plants grow and consequently that cannot be a chief ingredient in nutrition which may be wanting There is something else in Mr He●shaw that lookes like an Argument by the introduction FOR. For all abound with such a volatile Salt fixed and Oil as Petre doth I cannot tell how to forme this Argument and yet convince the world that I do not injure him this passage is so extreamly ridiculous Yet I will endeavour it if it be but to shew the Logick of Ant ' Aristotelians and how much we owe to that providence which hath educated us better than to argue so The proposition he aimes at and would prove is That the Salt which is in vegetables and Animals is but the Nitre which is universally diffused through the Elements The medium or Argument by which he would prove it is is is harder to be found out than the meaning of Aristotle in his Acromaticks Let us consider it again That which I aim at then is That if the Spirit of the volatile Salt of Soot or of the Urin blood hornes hoofes haire excrements or indeed any part of Animals for all abound with such a volatile Salt fixed and Oile as Petre doth could by the same way viz as the redintegrated Nitre be reduced to Petre or some Nitrous Salt it would Excellently make out a Theory that I am much delighted with till I am convinced in it which is that the Salt which is found in vegetables and Animals is but the Nitre which is so universally diffused through all the El●ments and must therefore make a chief ingredient in their nutrition and by consequence of their generation a little altered from its first complexion Here is the Spirit of the volatile Salt of the parts of vegetables and Animals to be coagulated and transformed into Petre by the Spirit of Nitre Here is a volatile Salt fixed and Oile such as is in Petre mentioned to what purpose Here is a Salt spoken of to be found in Vegetables and Animals yet 't is not expressed whether it be the volatile or fixed Salt yet these two are different and those that abound with volatile Salt are more the Physick than the food of man Well I have spent half an hour to frame a Sorites or any tolerable Argument out of these words but I cannot do it but I will adventure to give our Philosophers this advise that they would take our English word FOR into their serious consideration and abolish the use of it as the French Academy at Paris did Car. Before I have done with this History I shall shew that this Intimation was but necessary for them To proceed How doth it appear that Salt-Petre abounds with a volatile Salt fixed and Oile In the regenerated Nitre which Glauber makes to be the best there is nothing but Alcali and the Spirit of Nitre in the Nitre which is generated by the mixture of the Spirit of Urin and Spirit of Nitre there is no such thing In the distillation of Nitre there is nothing but Spirit inseperate from Phlegme and its Alcali and as there is no Oile there so I hope he would not have us take the Alcali for a volatile Salt fixed In the making of Salt-Petre there is found indeed something that seems Oily and greasy but that is Excrementitious and so farr from being a constitutive part of it that it must be Separated from it as Mr. Henshaw knowes before Salt-Petre can be made and the great contrivance is how to separate it So Glauber in Prosper German part 3. pag. 43. alias enim pinguedinem nimiam contrahit lixivium nec ullum Salgenerabitur From the mention of this Oile I must take an occasion to tell the world how superficially our Virtuoso writes the History of Nitre I could suggest many curiosities from the severall liquors in the making of Salt-Petre But I have not time to discourse of the Mothers of Petre not how that grease being lodged in the ashes those ashes being exposed to the Sun at Warwick did in one or two daies produce visible Nitre on the top of the ashes so that in few daies those ashes become fit to be Elixiviated into raw liquors which were before but to make a Lixivium to purge the liquors that had boiled I shall only touch at an Experiment which may not be unwelcome to the Honourable Mr. Boyle I took of the Mothers that had stood long and were exceeding Oily I powred four spoonfulls of them into a large Venice-glass half full of water This greasy liquor sunke to the bottom instantly without altering the tast or colour of the water at all so that the top was clear water the bottom of a reddish colour as bilious Urin only on the surface of the water and in the middle there did flote several very small bubbles of the colour of water having let this stand a day I took a Solution of the Alcali of Salt-Petre which though of a greenish blew yeilded a lympid liquor upon filtration and poured two or three spoonfulls into the mixture of Mothers and water immediately the whole liquor turn'd Lacteous or White but the colour presently contracted it self into a white en●orema or suspensum such as is to be seen in healthfull Urin and so floted above the surface of the Mothers the next morning I found as it were a powder fallen to the bottom which I stirred up to the top whereupon the whole liquor up to the top of the water was turbid I let it stand all night and this morning the whole liquor from top to bottom is of one colour and that exactly of a Limon-colour or like old Hoccomar-wine on the top there seems to float thin coagulations of fat with some variety of colours such as one may often see on small waters that stand in Moorish grounds the liquor is nothing ●igh so acrimonious and purigent as the Mothers were and all of it is as greasy as the Mothers were when Separate hanging on the finger as Oile and not like water at all at the bottom of the Glass there lies a Yellow-sediment as 't were powder which upon agitation will not rise of it self but must be stirred up with something and then resembles the white Hypostasis of Urin with capillary filaments enterveaving each other And How doth it appear that Urin doth abound with a volatile Salt fixed and Oile I do not understand what he meanes by his volatile Salt fixed by what is it fixed to what degree volatile Salts are sometimes so fixed as only to abate not alter the volatility as the volatile Salt of vipers in Zwelfer and the volatile Salt of Harts-horn of which I keep some with rectified Spirit of Salt Sometimes they are so fixed as to loose the nature of Salt and to become insipid and indissoluble as when volatile Salts are mixed with Lime-water There are a sort of Salts which Zwelfer calls Salia Essentialia

Recover it BY Powder spoiled is meant that which wants much of the vigour and vertue which it had in the beginning now this want proceeds from no other thing than that the vertue of the Salt-Petre which gives it that vigour is weakned and vanish'd Now the Vertue of Salt-petre reduced into Gun-powder is lost either by Age or Moisture by old Age because being ●onjoy'nd with Coal and Sulphur it doth participate of that corruption which will happen to them in time by Moisture because the Salt-petre composed of Salnitrous Waters as all other Sa●ts of their Salt Waters does no sooner as it were see the moisture but by that by little and little it is converted into moisture and the vertue and vigour thereof is exhal'd by that humidity Thus a great part of the Salt-petre being separated by this Humidity from the rest of the Composition of the Powder and the Salt-petre being more ponderous than the other two materials which are no● exhaled as is the Petre it follows that of that quan●ity of Powder which in the perfection of it was inclosed in the Barrel For example one hundred pound after the Salt-petre is wasted in this manner either by old Age or Moisture there will not remain the same quantity but much less Now to recover this Powder thus wasted it is to be done two ways viz. to adjoyn the quantity of Salt-petre is wanting to make it vigorous and perfect or to take away that Salt-petre which remaining in the wasted Powder to refine the Salt-petre and to make other Powder anew with it To recover that same weakned Powder by the vanishing of the Nitre proceed in this manner Take all that quantity of wasted Powder and put it on a cloath and lay it in the Sun to dry which being perfectly dried fill a Barrel with it ●or example let there be one hundred pound Then let it be emptied aside and let the Barrel be filled with perfect Powder such as was the spoil'd in the perfect vigour of it let it be weighed and noted how many pound it weigheth for example suppose one hundred and twenty Here we say that those twenty pound more which the Barrel of perfect Powder weighed shall be twenty pound of Salt-petre which the o●her wanted Now let us see how much wasted Powder there is in all and if there be for example 10000 pound for to know then in this great quantity of naughty powder how many pounds of Salt-petre there are wanting to reduce it to perfection and vigour Work with the Golden Rule of the 4 Proportionals saying If one hundred pound of wasted Powder there want 20 pound of Salt-p●tre how much Petre will there be wanting in ten thousand Let the second number be multiplied by the third viz. 20 by 10000 and the product shall be divided by the first viz. by 100 and you shall have 2000 in the Quotient and these shall be the pounds of Salt-petre which are wanting in the wasted powder to reduce it to perfection Let these 2000 l. of Salt-petre be powder'd likewise the 10000 of bad powder as the manner is and taking a proportion let it be incorporated with the 2000 of Salt-petre beating them together according to Art and in such manner working them there will be made good Powder If we will take away all the Salt-petr● out of wasted powder we must proceed in this manner Let there be prepared one or more capacious Tubbs and on them let there be laid three or four linnen Cloathes like the skins of a Drum well tied but not so strait Then let there be another Vessel or more of Copper or Wood and put therein the quantity of spoiled Powder that shall seem fit and pour upon it as much fresh clear Water as shall dissolve it stirring it with a cudgel or a Schoope This being liquified with a Ladle or Bucket throw it upon the cloath over the Table that the clear water may strain into the Tubb and upon the cloath may remain the Coal and the Sulphur and when it is all strain'd throw softly a Bucket or two of water to draw away the substance of Salt-petre that shall remain with the Coal and Sulphur And in this manner shall be done until all the Salt-petre of the naughty powder be strain'd drawing away the strain'd water in the Table when it is full and if these waters are not clear let them be put on again on the washed and cleansed cloath and let them be strain'd again until they are clear Then take all these clear waters and boyl them in the Caldrons as before and then put them in the Trays to congeal and make Salt-petre and taken and refined and new Powder made of it as the manner is and the Coal and Sulphur may be dried perfectly and proof made if it will serve but if not you must take new Sulphur and Coal But here I do advertise that all that is here said is written only that the Gunuer in time of Necessity may supply himself and do the best that he can for such Salt-petre and Powder is not made with that diligence and Art that the Powder-Masters and Salt-Petremen do but yet it will not fail to serve in ●●me of Necessity Dal. Pietro Sardi in Venet. 1629. The Third Book of the various Questions and Inventions of Nicolas Tartaglia Of Sal Nitre and the various compositions of the Gun-Powder of the Propriety or the particular office which each of the Materials hath in that Composition and ●ther Particulars The first enquiry made by Seignior Gabriel Tadino Prior of Barletta IS it not to be wondred at that the Antients had no knowledg of Sal-Nitre which to us Moderns is become so familiar Yea Rather the knowledg of that Simple is most Antient for most of the Antient Naturalists make mention of it true it is that some of them and especially Avicenna have called it Baurach because it is so called in the Arabic Tongue some Aphroni●um because it is so nam'd in the Greek and others as Serapion Diascorides and Pliny have ca●l'd it Nitrum or Spuma Nitri for the Latins so call it and in the Pandects it is affirmed there are two sorts of Nitrum or Sal Nitri viz. Mineral and Artificial of the Mineral they say there are four the Armenian African Roman and Aegyptian Serapion says that the Minerals of Sal Nitre are as the Minerals of Salt for there are found of it that are running waters which become congealed and condensed like a stone and this is affirmed also by Pliny that it is found also in the Mine as a stone and called Sal Petrosum yea he says that this Sal Nitre is found White and Red and of many Colours insomuch that he affirms that there are many kinds of it not only for the diversity of the colour but because there is found one that is Spongy viz. full of holes another very fragile and lamines or plates and of many

higher and bigger comparatively then those of the Earth and adds by way of jocundry that since the Men and other Animals commonly participate of the nature of the soyl and climate they dwell in that the inhabitants of the Moon must be of a greater stature and more robust constitution then those of the Earth The Day there making up fifteen days of ours and the Heats seem so scorching and so unexpressible by reason of the Suns being vertical to them so long In fine he thinks it no a●surd opinion of the Gentiles that made the Moon a kinde of Purgatory for departed Souls Upon the most serious consideration of all circumstances whereunto I could ever engage my thoughts when I reflected upon the great difference betwixt the Days here and there the different influence which the Sunne must have here and there through the Diversity of his Aspects whereupon depend Terrestrial productions that there is no rain no clouds there no Atmosphear like ours proportioned to such respiration and life no intermixture of earth and water no innate diversity of colours which occasion the Phaenomena that perplex our over-curious Mortals and that all the Enquiries hitherto made have so little of evidence that 't is more clear that the Moon is a Cheese not fat ●or then it would melt odly figured and made with Asperities in its ●upe●fici●s and perhaps a little vin●yed in ●ome parts ●hen an Earth resembli●g ours I could not but cond●mn those 〈◊〉 Comical and Athestical Wits who use so l●●tle of modesty ●r serupulousness in their discou●ses abo●t this so uncertain subj●ct They are men of so little read●ng and inquisitireness whatever they pret●nd unto as if this Nation produced no persons equal to them for Learning and Ab●lities that they never examined these debates but the opinions which they take up and transfo●m into Assertions are onely the raillery or casual and imperfect pieces ●f conversation betwixt more intelligent persons or some Coffee house talk which they confidently obtrude and impose upon speculative or more considerate Gentlemen and render th●mselves insupportable in any Society A young Gentleman a friend of mine who was not a little valued in the world w●o was no stranger to the Mathema●icks and whose wit and learning far transcended any thing I can observe in a droll and C●mediantes of these times entertain●d me with a discourse once of this nature Having spoken of the C●lestial Phaenomena how differently they were represented by sundry men he was more prone to suspect their dioptrick Tubes then their in●egrity He thought our Eyes were Telescopes of God Almighty's making and the model by which the others were regulated and amended and that any man who regarded the daily Occurrents in vision could never believe it possible that any certain●y could be derived from Telescopes about such Phaenomena as we could employ only one sense about and that not in a due distance and with such circumstances as legitimate the judgement thereof That we were to look through their different mediums granting that our Air makes but one Diaphanum and those not contrived dioptrically that we know and that since every medium thicker or thinner besides the inte●currencies of irregular and unknown particles like to moats in and upon a Glass did cause a different Refraction and that neither the constitution of our Atmosphear as not proportionate to our sensible enquiries and air nor the intermundial Aether nor the Sphaera vaporosa of the Planets could ever be accurately and satisfactorily searched into no man could particularly know what he beheld and deduce with prudence any theoremes and conclusions from such infirm hypotheses He added that our senses and the daily objects we converse with on earth did prejudicate rather then qualifie us for these speculations that we might easily observe what mistakes arise from the co●templation of resemblances that similitudes though very slender engage the unwary and some that are cautious too to conclude an identity in objects that it would be impossible for any man without the aid of a nearer approach and even of his other senses to conclude whether a stick lying part in part out of the water were str●ight or crooked by reason of the refraction in the different mediums of Air and Water and that a Glow-worm or an Indian fire-Fly would create strange disputes and contests amongst mankind had they no other helps to discover the Phaenomenon then a Telescope magnifying the object and its parts thirty fourty or one hundred times He admired that saying of Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and commended him that in his doctrine of Meteors he pretended not to arise higher then a low degree of probability That it was possible to imagine such things to our selves as were not really in the Moon but not such as were there except in a very general and indefinite manner Posse quidem excogitari nonnulla quae in Luna neque sunt neque esse possunt nihil autem eorum quae ibi sunt aut esse possunt ni●i largissima generalitate That the appearance of an Earth did not infer the inhabitation of men much less Animals and Plants like ours that our own Geography might undeceive us herein some parts of this Globe being not peopled and the animals and plants and nature of the soyle differing so much from our European productions as we could not have conceived had not our Eyes and authentick testimonies gained us to a belief of it That the most clear Eyes have in this case a kinde of a suffusion and the most unbiassed persons their Intellectuals prejudicated and had no reason to condemn the opinion of that Peasant who imagined the Grandeur of Rome to be like unto his Village or the Scot who represented London to be such another town as Edinburgh It is an opinion wherein the Peripateticks and Lyncei are agreed Quicquid sub nostram cadit imagination●m id aut jam ante viderimus oportet aut ex rebus rerumve partibus jam ante visis compositum sit quales sunt Sphynges Sirenes Chimerae Centauri c. He smiled at those who thought they had much improved solid knowledge by telling men of Quasi-terra Quasi-mare Quasi-sylvae which he suppposed to be as insignificant termes as the Canting of Chymists or the Quasi-corpus and Quasi-sanguis in the gods of Epicurus that it was intolerable in a Philosopher to phrase it thus however a Poet might say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But nothing created in him a greater laughter then the Proposals some made of flying to the World in the Moon this design he thought superlatively ridiculous though the contrivance of wings for mankind were then but projecting at Wadham-Colledge It did not appear to him then that this World was no Magnet he wished that first these Opiniatours would go to both Poles and placing themselves there try the Observations of Des-Cartes with some dust of Iron that ●hey would consider whether the more remote Air would

notwithstanding that the blood had streamed into the Glass After a while the blood and oyle mixed together and it all became of a deep-red from top to bottom the surface only was transparent and of a brighter red as that of the other Alcalisate Liquors but not so far downwards● the rest was as Tent-wine 4. I dissolved half a dram of All●m in three ounces of water and upon bleeding thereupon all the crimson of the blood was immediately destroyed and it became almost as black as Ink after a little space towards the surface it cleared up there were certain bubbles on the top that continued the redness 5. Another Glass held a quantity of the Kings-Bath water the blood that did stream into it appeared of a dark red but transparent as deep Bourdeaux wine shews a little below the surface it was deeply red not transparent but like Tent wine 6. The Cross-Bath altered lit●le from the Kings-Bath saving that the transparency of the surface extended it self downwards to a greater profundity then the other 7. A Solution of half a dram of Sal prunellae yielded a blood on the surface like to that of Salt of Wormwood but not to so deep a descent otherwise it was of the colour and consistence of Tent wine After they had stood in the window about five houres I returned and observed these Phaenomena 1. That with the spirit of Sal Armoniack continued like Tent-wine only the uppermost part of it to the thickness of a barley-corn was diaphanous as deep Bourdeaux-wine 2. That with the Sal prunellae coagulated into a Mass shrunk from the sides of the Glass and sunk to the bottom leaving them super-natant water of a pale citrins colour the Mass it self being of a florid red on the surface and of a deep red not blackish to the bottom that I could perceive 3. That with the Cross-Bath water changed not but seemed thick as Tent-wine the upper part being diaphanous and like deep Bourdeaux-wine 4. That with the Kings-Bath water changed not only the diaphanous surface extended not it self downwards so far as the other Bath-water did 5. The Solution of All●m contin●ed all fluid and black no c●agulated mass therein but the bubbles had lost their crimson-colour and were become cineritious 6. That with the Salt of Wormwood resembled deep Bourdeaux wine but was less diaphanoux a little below the surface The surface extended downwards to the length of a barley●corn with a perfect transparency 7. That wherein was the Sal fraxini was diaphan●●s to the bottom no innatant filaments or coagulated mass in it But the surface to the length of a barley-corn was like decayed Claret made with a mixture of white and red wine the residue was deeper like that of Bourdeaux 8. That with the oleum Tartari per deliquium was diaphanous to the length of a barley-corn and of the colour of Bourdeaux wine the lower part un-coagulated and like Tent●wine 9. It is to be noted that the reflexion of the Glasses in all the Liquors they being held up to the light except the spirit of Sal Armoniack did create a corona of several colours mixt with green blew and so as not one resembled the other That with the oleum Tartari per deliquium resembled the blew in Bourdeaux wine with an eye of green I had forgot to relate how I kept some of the blood in a separate Pottinger and it seemed excellently well coloured when it coagulated● the top was of a due red the bottom blackish red the serum of a due transparency and proportion and not tinged to citrine colour and coagulated all as the white of an egge over a gentle fire I poured also upon the blood in two other Pottingers upon the one spirit of Harts-horn on the other spirit of Sal Armoniack but not much perhaps a dram or more that with the spirit of Harts-horn at first seemed more florid then that with the spirit of Sal Armoniack both coagulated into Mass●s after a while and were then both of one colour on the surface but that with the spirit of Sal Armoniack coagulated its Mass so as to break from the sides that with the spirit of Harts-horn did not break from the sides whether the blood of one and the other might differ I know not but both immediately followed one the other That blood which had nothing mixed with it after coagulation differed not from the other two though they were covered over with the spirits as soon as they wore taken and that exposed only to the Air. After a while upon the surface of that with the Kings-Bath-water there was a kind of fatty crem●r which covered the whole surface and so on that with the Queens-Bath-water the others had none at all On Munday after dinner the next day after I had bled● I came to observe again and found 1. That with the Sal fraxini to be more and more diaphanous resembling Bourdeaux wine that with the Sal abscynthii less diaphanous but red still 2. I observed the Solution of Allom ● and however it looked black yet being held in a clear light one might discover in it visible appearances of a deep red I poured on it some spirit of Sal Armoniack to see if it would restore the colour but in stead of that the liquor coagulated presently into little massula or flakes resembling raw flesh when the blood is washed out 3. There was no alteration in that with the spirit of Sal Armoniack 4. That with the Queens-Bath-water continued more diaphanously red towards the top but that with the Kings-Bath-water did not lose its redness though it were not diaphanous near the surface 5. Of the two Pottingers in which were the spirits of Harts-horn and Sal Armoniack though both were coagulated yet that with the spirit of Sal Armoniack was the most florid 6. That with the Oleum Tar●ari per deliquium continued red but lost its diaphaneity at the top almost quite 7. That with the Sal prunellae after the coagulated Mass had subsided had on the top of it in the middle of the Glass to the bredth of six-pence a concrete gelly exactly resembling that of the clearest Harts-horn not boyled up to its greatest heighth from hence protended certain filaments with which it was fastned to the mass of blood which was buoyed up thereby so that it touched not the bottom the jelly was insipid and stuck to my finger when I touched it whether that little which did so adhere took off from the equipollency of the two bodies or whether I broke casually some of the protended filaments or from what other cause I know not but after a while the Mass sunk quite to the bottom and drew the gelatine below the surface of the water 8. Upon the pouring out of the blood that with the Queens-Bath water happened to seem of a pure Claret like Bourdeaux wine no setling or floating filaments but something red which resembled exactly

and that his works have in them sundry Prop●sitions that are superstitious and magical is granted by Delci● such haply was that which Franciscus Picus says he had read in his book of the sixth Science where he affirms that a man may become a Prophet and foretel things to come by the means of the Glass Almucheti composed according to the rules of perspective provided he made use of it under a good constellation and had before-hand made his body very even and put it into a good temper by Chymistry As to what I say about Orontius I adde the words of Sir H● Savile in his Lectures p. 71. Iosephus Scaliger home omnium mortalium ne Orontio quidem excepto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereas I say p. 3. that the ancient Physicians did not only cure cut-fingers and invent●d Diapalma and and other Medicaments in order thereunto I adde what I know not how was omitted that it is notorious how all our Herbals and Druggists have explained the nature and use of Medicaments according to the Doctrine of the Elements and qualities either arising therfrom or from the peculiar mixture of the parts and whosoever hath acted or shall proceed according to those notions in compliance with the Ancients shall not stand in need of any novel Method from the Virtuosi to salve a cut-finger What I have said in the first and second sheet concerning the Barometer as they call it that it doth not determine exactly neither the weight nor pressure of the aire winde or clouds is an opinion which the more I think upon the more I am confirmed in nor do I doubt that others will be as scrupulous as I in their assent to our dogmatizing Virtuoso when they shall seriously consider what follows and accommodate it to the Elasticity and gravity of the Atmosphear First when our Virtuoso speaks of the Elasticity of the Air he understands thereby a body whose constituent particles ar● of a peculiar configuration and texture distinct from what can be ascribed to earth water or fire That the Air near the earth is such an heap of little bodies lying one upon another as may be resembled to a fleece of wooll for this to ●mit o●her likenesses betwixt them consists of many slender flexible hairs each of which may indeed like a little Spring be easily bent or rouled up but will also like a Spring be still endeavouring to stretch it self out again For though both these Hairs and the Aerial corpuscles to which we like them do easily yield to external pressures yet each of them by vertue of its structure is endowed with a power or principle of self-dilatation by vertue whereof though the Hairs may by a m●ns hand be bent and crowded closer together and into a narrower room then suits best with the nature of the body yet whilst the compression lasts there is in the fleece they compose or endeavour outwards whereby it continually thrusts against the hand that opposes its expansion And upon the removal of the external pressur● by opening the hand more or less the compressed wooll does as it were spontaneously expand or display it self towards the recovery of its former loose and free condition till the fleece have either regain'd its former dimensions or at least approved them as near as the compressing hand perchance not quite opened will permit Against this I except not only that this supposition is far from a sensible Philosophy but that whosoever would weigh the Air exactly and estimate the accession of weight which the Air receives from winds clouds or vapors the thing Mr. Glanvill promiseth us must weigh the Air singly first and in its utmost degree of expansion otherwise he can never tell what its gravity is or what accessional it receives by its Elasticity by exhalations and different mixtures But this is not done by the Barometer however it be essayed in the experiment of Aristotle very judiciously but only an imaginary column or Cylinder of Air and its pressure upon the Mercury is considered which procedure seems to me as ridiculous as if a man should lay a fleece of wooll or any other body upon any thing and there being above that an incumbent body of lead or the like bearing thereon yet should he proceed to say that he weighed the fleece of wooll and not the incumbent lead for as yet no discoveries have acquainted the world with the nature of that Aether which is above the Atmosphere whether it gravitate or press upon the subjacent Air which a very subtile but rapid body may do nor what effects the Libration of the Moon and other Planets may have by way of pressure upon the contiguous bodies which pressure may be communicated to the terrestrial Air and without the determination hereof it is as vain to pretend to weigh the Air by this Barometer as to determine of the weight of a board that presseth a Cheese in the Vat without considering the superincumbent stone Neither are we informed sufficiently what the Figure of the Aether is whether it make a convexe and so encompass the Atmosphear or also be interspersed with and differently move therein nor what effects those motions and agitations of it have upon the grosser corpuscles of the Atmosphere not only a abating of their gravity somtimes but adding to them a levitation nor is it explicated yet what effects the corpuscular rays of the fixed Stars and Planets may have in or upon the Atmosphere adding to its gravity as ●tis just to imagine since that eminent Virtuoso the Pliny of our Age for lying but a Virtuoso could wash his hands in the beams of the Moon or Elasticity of which those intercurrent corpuscles seem not void though not Aiery which constit●te Thunder Lightning c. or diminishing them both in order to the Phaenomena which occurre daily Secondly it doth not yet appear by any thing alledged by our Experimental Philosophers that for certain the Air which encompasseth the Earth is a distinct body of a different structure from the Earth and Water that compose the Terraqueous Globe Isaac Vossius doth think the Air to be nothing else but watrish exhalations drawn up by the Sunne Credimus Aerem esse Aquam seu humorem dilatatum ad legem aequilibrii quaquaversum se extendentem If it b● so it is a vain supposition which attributes such a structure to the Air as is repugnant to the water Others there are which make the Atmosphere to be an aggr●gate of heterogeneous particles exhal●d from this Globe whose structure must be as discrepant as the vapours are and what a difference there is in them we may guess by the infinite variety of Meteors Rains Snows Hail Winds Dews c. and their component corpuscles If this latter be true as 't is probabl● that it is at least that there is no more besides but an intercurrent Aether or materia subtilis of the Cartesians what becomes of this