390 PHYSIOLOGICAL REMAINS. 



the common allay of silver coin is brass, which doth 

 discolour 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 

 serve 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 sil- 

 ver, 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 pur- 

 pose iron is the likest, or coppel stuff, upon which the 

 fire hath no power of consumption. 



The making of gold seemeth a thing scarcely possible ; 

 because gold is the heaviest of metals, and to add mat- 

 ter is impossible : and again, to drive metals into a nar- 

 rower room than their natural extent beareth, is a con- 

 densation hardly to be expected. But to make silver 

 seemeth more easy, because both quicksilver and lead 

 are weightier than silver ; so as there needeth only 

 fixing, and not condensing. The degree unto this 

 that is already known, is infusing of quicksilver in a 

 parchment, or otherwise, in the midst of molten lead 



