The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony. 129 



pared in the following way : Pulverize 

 crude Antimony, pour to it strong min- 

 eral vinegar, put in vessel, close well, 

 and expose to the gentle rays of the sun. 

 After some time the vinegar will assume 

 a blood-red colour. Filter the extract, 

 and distil again in an alembic ; it will 

 then exhibit some admirable and beauti-V 

 ful colours. 



This oil is red as blood, has a 

 considerable sediment, and is of the 

 greatest medicinal value, especially in 

 the cure of leprosy.* It heals the new 



* How timid has the wickedness of his contemporaries 

 made our Valentine ! He does not tell us that from this 

 oil is prepared the quintessence of all things, extolled by 

 Peter of Spain as the greatest secret of philosophy. He 

 speaks so obscurely here of this all-important matter that it 

 is clear he has only written it in order to let the initiated 

 see that he was acquainted with the mystery. But in order 

 that you may not have spent your money in vain in buying 

 this book, and your time in reading it, I will give you clear 

 and straightforward directions which you must take care to 

 follow out in every particular. Take best friable Antimony, 

 for the crude kind, in spite of the advice of Basilius, is of < 

 no use, because in its first distillation it has been deprived of 

 its most subtle sulphur ; pulverise finely, pass through fine 

 sieve, place in broad-bottomed distilling vessel (cucurbita), 

 add vinegar, distilled from its own proper minera, digest for 

 forty days. The vinegar will then be tinged, as it were, with J 



K 



