Salt works

“ The whole Orb of the Earth would at length grow dry, and perish, which nevertheless by the perpetual access of salt, never intermitteth, but is encreased and sustained.
There is no Stone which can want Salt, which argueth Salt to be its beginning and nourishment, and that those Mountains, in which is a great quantity of a saline nutriment, do grow and encrease thereby, as receiving it in a plentiful manner from the nearest sea. ”

“ To prepare a Salt in an hours time, and without extraordinary charges, which makes all fixt matters63 volatile, and is of such virtue that when a little of it is joyned with Spirit of Wine it makes it so strong and fiery, that it dissolves all Metals, Minerals, Animals and Vegetables, carrying their Q. Essence over the Helm, and is the effecter of wonders in Physick and Alchymy: so that he who knows how to prepare and make use of this wonderfull Salt, needs never want either bodily health, or a competent supply of maintenance. ”

“ In the Creation of the World salt was first made, from which afterwards the four Elements proceeded, so that by the Philosophers salt is called The Center of the Elements concentrated; and by the same reason, by which it was the first, it still is, and remaineth the last. All things arise from salt, and after they are destroyed by death, do again return into the same. Et sal thesauros grandes & possidet ignis. In Salt and Fire are contained great Treasures. Salt is Fire, and Fire is Salt, and they contain in themselves a third thing, to wit, an hidden Spirit. ”

“ Seeing therefore that Salt, whilst it is yet gross and rude, and defiled with many impurities, performeth such things in living Creatures, and preserveth Flesh and Fish, as also all Herbs and Grass, long from Corruption; What could not such a salt do, which by the help of Art hath received a greater purity than Nature hath bestowed upon it? For the Fire containeth a power of correcting and purifying salt, and converting it into a finer and better substance. The common salts which we daily use, do indeed give a relish to all Edibles, and preserve them from putrefaction ”

“ Such a Salt, although it doth not presently conceive flame, and burn like Salt-petre, yet it is now brought to that pass, that in the manuring or dunging of poor and barren ground, it doth the same thing as the dung of any Cattel is wont to effect. Hence by the same Salt every pure Sand destitute of all fatness, is quickly so fatted, that it is rendered fit for the sowing and bringing forth Corn. Few will believe what Salt can perform, when spoiled of its Corrosive force. ”

“ The Truth of which no man hath cause to doubt; for I have shewed in various places, that barren grounds are made fruitful by the addition of that. Of this salt, which we may use instead of Dung, there is great diversity, for it is prepared of Wood-ashes, of Stones burnt to Lime, and of other bodies putrefied by length of time. But the Chief of all these is Salt-petre, being the salt of Vegetables, Animals, and Minerals putrefied, especially because it is endowed with a certain occult and sweet Fire. ”

“ For the salt of the World, or the Universal Essential salt, is nothing else but Salt-petre, when it hath after a due time attracted a life out of the air, to which end my secret circulatory instrument was invented, that such an animation might be the more conveniently brought to pass. ”

“ I say, that the salts must (by the help of Fire and Art) first get a magnetick and attractive power and faculty afore they can draw a Life out of the air. Now then, after that the universal Life of the World is caught and fettered as it were by the salts, and hath turned the dead salts into living nitre, yet that life lies hidden in that Salt-petre invisibly, and can but a little or scarce any thing at all shew out or display its virtues by reason of the Gross body of the salt. ”

“ Here some one ignorant of natural things may object, and say, How can it be that Salt should repel Thirst, seeing that when it is eaten, it exciteth and encreaseth the same? To this I answer, That common salt, as it is first extracted or boiled, can in no wise restrain the Appetite of drinking, but rather provoke it, except its pravity be first corrected and depurated; for every salt seems to have laid aside its nature and property, so long as it contains earthy and gross fæces, which nevertheless may be removed from it by solution, filtration, and coagulation ”

“ But that it may be understood how the common Salt (which otherwise is wont to corrupt or extinguish all the faculty of growth in those things it is mixed withall) is to be inverted or turned in and out, that its hurtfull corroding property being put off it may put on the nature of Alkalies or urinous Salts, I do here covertly set down the manner of the operation, so that it may remain hidden to mine enemies and be communicated onely to my friends. ”

“ Sugar, Honey, by the help of putrefaction and Fermentation alone, is made an acid Tartar, a strong Vinegar, and a volatile burning Spirit; all these will presently return into a nitrous salt, which few understand, those especially who are believed to know much. Not only Man is delighted with salt, without which he cannot be sound and in health, but also all Animals. Mice, above all, are very greedy of Salt, the which if they find not, they lick the saline efflorescences of Walls, and make a very nitrous Urine. Pigeons also frequent old Walls, which abound with salt. ”

“ And indeed, common salt-petre may be implanted into other salts, even as a Vegetable Seed is sown in the Earth, so as thence to get in a short space of time a great encrease, even an hundred, or a thousand-fold. ”

“ But forasmuch as this nutriment which all the Vegetables do extract out of the Dung of the Beasts is nothing else but a urinous Salt, and that we know how to prepare out of the common Salt, such a urinous Salt which may be used about dunging and fatning the Earth instead of Dung, therefore verily we may be without that said Dung, being but furnished with such a Salt; the which being Alkalizated by the fire doth extend it self much wider, or goes farther, and dures much longer in the Earth, nourishing and dunging it, than the Beasts Dung doth. ”

“ But if it be sublimed with Salt, or shall be dissolved by some other corrosive Water, and be administred to a man to drink the quantity of 1, 2, or 3 Grains it will shrewdly hazard his Life, because the Salts have made its hidden lurking Poyson manifest. ”

“ Forasmuch therefore as both sorts of Salt are used in great quantity throughout the whole World, and that there can scarcely be had so much as serves for necessary use, and upon that account are always good Commodities, and that Salt-petre is twice the value of Tartar, therefore ’tis but fitting, and well worth while to extract Salt-petre out of the Juices of Herbs and Trees, it being of more value, and better price than other Salts. ”

“ For it is commonly known, that Flesh, Fish, and Sallets being salted, do far better satisfie and nourish, than if those Foods should be received into the stomach wholly destitute of Salt. For this reason men that undergo hard labours eat Flesh, Fish, Herbs, and other Foods, plentifully seasoned with salt, whereby their Bodies are preserved in their due strength; but those who are not exercised with Such labours, feed upon Foods not so salt, but of a more easie digestion. Salt therefore is the only nutriment not only of Vegetables and Animals, but also of Minerals ”

“ Hence it comes to pass, that in one days digestion six pounds of Spirit of Salt will give seven pounds of the same; unto which, if you again add one pound of Water, and one pound of Salt, you shall have eight pound of Spirit of Salt: which by the addition of another pound of Salt, and one pound of Water more, it may be farther augmented; insomuch that the Spirit of Salt, by a continually-repeated addition of Water and Salt, gets a perpetual encrease, and the Metal is so far from being at all hindred in its maturation, as that it is daily ripened more and more. ”

“ For having once made onely some pounds of Spirit of Salt, you will not need to make any more anew, for in the digestion and maturation of the Metals, it will daily encrease, and that in a plentifull manner, and that too without any considerable costs, seeing that the Salt it self, which is to be added, is likewise cheap enough. ”

“ Therefore, because the growing faculty of Vegetables, Animals, and Minerals, or Metals, taketh its rise from the only and Universal Salt of the Earth, and this from the Salt of the Sea, and the Sea Salt, from the Sun, if the Divine Goodness shall grant me Life, I will shew to my Friends, how by small labour and charge, the Universal Salt fatness, fit for the rendring all barren and sandy ground fruitful, instead of Dung, may be copiously separated from Sea Salt. ”

“ Those who take pleasure in decrying the inimitable works of nature, and affirm that they are provocative of evil, can only support their arguments by brazen assertions and subtle paralogisms.
Common salt is considered by most persons as a mere luxury, as if its use were only to gratify the taste, although it is essential to health and life, and is indeed as much an aliment or food as either bread or flesh. ”

“ It is the interest of great men (if not of others) who have the government of many Subjects, to preserve a firm health of Body, and to cause such salt to be prepared for the use of their Tables. The Cost required for the doing this is small, by which the salt is made so sweet, that by its pleasantness it will invite every one to covet it. ”

“ Nor ought it to seem at all wonderfull, that common Salt doth so easily obtain by the Operation of the Fire, a better and sweeter quality. I do in very deed affirm, that not onely the common Kitchin Salt, but even those too, which are of a most biting corrosivity, as Aqua Fortis, Aqua Regia, Oil of Salt, of Sulphur, and of Vitriol, may by a certain sweet Vegetable, (without the addition of any contrary Salt) be brought to such a pass in three hours time, as that a Man cannot perceive the least Corrosion at all in them. ”

“ N. B. That the operation of the Liquor doth always exceed the virtues of the salts. When the sharp spirits of salt are not mortified with a Lixivium of Tartar, but with the spirits of Urine or of Sal. Armoniack; the salt and liquor become far stronger, than when the precipitation is done with Salt of Tartar. For the spirit of Sal. Armoniack doth for the most part precipitate the dissolved and corrected Vermine into a Powder, which being washed off with common water, and freed from all Acrimony or sharpness is used in medicine, in a dry form. ”

“ So Common Salt sublimed, as is done in this Labour, will operate far stronger than Common Salt it self unsublimed. Besides, there are Salts to be found which work yet far more powerfully, yea so strongly, as that they need not the help of an external fire, but doe produce their effects even in the cold. The operation of which, in the moist way, if any be desirous to promote and strengthen by an external fire, he may so doe, in a Lamp-Furnace, and free himself of the charge of Coals, and be exempt from that frequent Labour by which the Fire is to be maintained. ”

“ If any man will prepare this Menstruum of Salt-Petre, he must extract and coagulate that Salt from the earth with common water, and adding coals or some other vegetable Sulphur, fix or calcine it so long, till it be resolv’d in the Air into a fiery liquor, then the preparation is finished. ”

“ Therefore being furnished with Salt, a piece of Copper of some old Kettle shall easily supply him, the which it shall be free for him, by fire and salt to trans-change into a better and more noble body, but because Man hath a far better and commodious Salt for the transmutation of Metals in his possession, which excells common Salt in its goodness, he may of right and worthily make use of his own proper Salt before a strange and foreign one, and that after this manner. ”

“ It evidently appears from hence that the faculty of growing and increasing, in all things proceedeth from Salt onely. If so be therefore, that Pease, Beans, Oats, Barly, Rye, Wheat, Wine, and all kinds of Fruits, do grow, and are increased by the benefit of Salt, it necessarily follows, that Salt is the subject and universal nutriment. ”

“ But that one Salt Fountain is richer in Salt than another, the cause of the difference is in the Water, which passing by, doth more or less associate it self with the Salt, and so is made stronger or weaker. ”

“ But such ways of sowing Grain, are tedious and laborious. I have a far other preparation of salt, which without much cost and labour, rendereth a great quantity of it fit to make sandy ground fruitful, and yet is not washed away by the Rain, salt is to be rendered sulphureous, that it may generally and universally nourish. ”

“ For, that Spirit of Salt serves instead of them all, nor is it at all subject to corrupt as other Juices are, but conserves its sweet and pleasant essence without any decay. But if you would make use thereof singly or alone, then must a little Water or Sugar be mixed therewith, that the acidity or sharpness thereof may be a little allayed, and thus may it serve instead of a Sawce to be added to either baked or boiled Flesh or Fish. But now if a man be minded to add green Herbs for alterations sake of the tast, such as are Parsly, Garden Cresses, Spanish Pepper, and the like ”