68 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



it will afford the same acid spirit again, which the sac- 

 cliarum saturni made with vinegar will not do, but 

 returns an inflammable oil with water, but nothing that 

 is acid. And saccharum saturni, made with spirit of viride 

 eeris, doth the same in this respect with spirit of pismires, 

 which no other acid spirit made of vegetables doth that 

 he knows of. 



But, in this particular, spirit of pismires conies nearer 

 vinegar and spirit of nitre than oil of vitriol, spirit of salt, 

 or the acid spirit of sal armoniac, in that it makes an 

 astringent tincture of iron, and the others an aperient. 



When you put the animals into water, you must stir 

 them about to make them angry, and then they will spirt 

 out their acid juice. 



No animal that ever they distilled, except this, yields 

 an acid spirit, but constantly urinous, viz. an oil and a 

 saline spirit ; and they have distilled many, viz. as flesh, 

 fish, and insects. 



They desire you to inquire whether any other animal 

 distilled did ever yield any acid spirit. 



They have made of pismires divers salts, of which you 

 may hear more hereafter if you desire it ; but at present 

 they had not leisure to consult their notes. 



As for what concerns plants, they preserve their ex- 

 pressed juices with some few drops of spirit of sulphur, 

 so little as communicates no sensible taste to the juices. 

 They also perfume the bottles with smoke of sulphur. 

 They desire that, if you make this public, you would be 

 pleased to suppress their names, lest the apothecaries 

 hereabouts should know that this is the way they use. 



Make a strong decoction of Carduus benedictus ; into a 

 quart of it put six or seven drops of spirit of sulphur, 

 and in a few days the decoction will lose most part of its 

 bitterness. They cannot find that the spirit of sulphur 

 hath the same effect upon other bitter herbs. I tasted 

 of the decoctions of wormwood, germander, feverfue, in 

 which they said they had dropped spirit of sulphur, which 

 were extremely bitter ; but a decoction of carduus, into 



