SECT. 3] AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 185 



[cucurbita] and I duly cover it by fitting on an alembic and add a receiver. 

 By the rules of the (chemical) art I place the whole retort in a bath of 

 water and I apply to it successive degrees of fire until the whole bath is 

 boiling. No vaporous streaks [^strid] of spirits are given off but simple 

 water in dewy drops and this in incredible quantity, more than nine-tenths. 

 I continue so with patience until by the heat of boiling water no more 

 drops of this humour are given off. Then this water shows no trace of oil, 

 salt, or spirit ; it is perfectly transparent and tasteless, except that it eventu- 

 ally grows rather sour. It is odourless, save that towards the end it gives 

 off a slight smell of burning. It shows absolutely no sign of the presence 

 of any alkali, when I test it in every way, as you can see for yourselves ; 

 nor does it reveal any trace of acid, when tried how you will. Here you 

 see pounds of this water, but in the bottom of the now open retort see, 

 I beg of you, how little substance remains. Behold, there are fragments 

 contracted into a very small space in comparison with the former quantity. 

 They are endowed with a golden yellow colour, especially where they have 

 touched the glass, but yet they are transparent after the manner of coloured 

 glass. When I take them out I find them very light, very hard, quite fragile, 

 and breaking apart with a crack, smelling slightly of empyreuma, with 

 a taste rather bitter from the fire, and without any flavour of alkali or 

 acid. This is the first part of the analysis. Now I take these remaining 

 fragments in a glass retort [retortam] in such a way that two-thirds remain 

 over. I put the retort into a stove of sand, first arranging a large receiver. 

 Then thoroughly luting all the joints I distil by successive grades of fire 

 and finally by the highest which I call suppressionis. There ascends a spirit, 

 running in streaks [^striatim] fat and oily, and at the same time, volatile 

 salts of solid form everywhere on the walls of the vessel, rather plentiful 

 in proportion to the dried fragments but small in proportion to the whole 

 albumen before the water had been removed from it. Finally an oil appears 

 besides the light golden material mixed with the first, black, thick, and 

 pitchy. When by the extreme force of the fire this oil is finally driven forth, 

 then the earth in the bottom, closely united with its most tenacious oil, 

 swells up and is rarefied and rises right up to the neck of the retort so that 

 had the retort been overfull it would have entered into the neck and 

 clogged it up, even causing it to burst, with danger to the bystanders. The 

 operation is to be continued till no more comes out. That first spirit, oily 

 and fatty, is clearly alkaline by every test, as you may tell from the way it 

 effervesces when acid is poured on it. If we rectify it we resolve it into 

 an alkaline volatile salt, an oil, and inert foetid water. The salt fixed to 

 the walls is completely alkaline, sharp, fiery, oily, and volatile; and the 

 final oil is specially sharp, caustic, and foetid. The black earth which 

 remains in the retort is shiny, light, thin, and fragile, foetid from the final 

 empyreumatic oil, and soft because of it. If then it is burnt on an open 

 fire, it leaves a little fixed earth which is white, insipid, tasteless, and 

 odourless, from which scarcely any salt can be extracted, but only a very 

 heavy dusty powder \^pollinein\. 



Cf. the dry distillation of egg-white by Pictet & Cramer in 1919. 



