192 PHYSIOLOGICAL REMAINS. 



more fixt ? For if it be in beauty and all the uses 

 aforesaid equal to silver, it were a thing of singular 

 profit to the state, and to all particular persons, to 

 change silver plate or vessel into the compound stuff, 

 being a kind of silver electre, and to turn the rest 

 into coin. It may be also questioned, whether the 

 compound stuff will receive gilding as well as silver, 

 and with equal lustre ? It is to be noted, that the 

 common allay of silver coin is brass, which doth dis 

 colour more, and is not so neat as tin. 



The drownings of metals within other metals, in 

 such sort as they can never rise again, is a thing of 

 great- profit. For if a quantity of silver can be so 

 buried in gold, as it will never be reduced again, 

 neither by fire, nor parting waters, nor otherways : 

 and also that it serves all uses as well as pure gold, it 

 is in effect all one as if so much silver were turned into 

 gold ; only the weight will discover it ; yet that 

 taketh off but half of the profit ; for gold is not fully 

 double weight to silver, but gold is twelve times 

 price to silver. 



The burial must be by one of these two ways, 

 either by the smallness of the proportion, as perhaps 

 fifty to one, which will be but six-pence gains in 

 fifty shillings ; or it must be holpen by somewhat 

 which may fix the silver, never to be restored or 

 vapoured away, when it is incorporated into such a 

 mass of gold; for the less quantity is ever the 

 harder to sever : and for this purpose iron is the 

 likest, or coppel stuff, upon which the fire hath no 

 power of consumption. 



