24 Mayow 



nature of an alkaline than of an acid salt, as is 

 proved by the fact that common sulphur will enter 

 very readily into combination with the fixed salts 

 allied to it. For it must not be said here, that th^e 

 combination of fixed salts with sulphur arises from 

 the secret presence of an acid salt in the sulphur 

 with which the fixed salts seek a union. For if 

 such were the case, effervescence and heat would 

 be produced by the union of the sulphur and the 

 fixed salt, as happens in an encounter between 

 opposite salts. Moreover, when contending salts 

 are mixed together, they destroy each other and 

 are changed into a tertmm quid which is altogether 

 different from what existed before. But, in fact, 

 fixed salt and sulphur ^f melted at a low temperature 

 unite without any effervescence whatever ; and neither 

 of them is destroyed. On the contrary, their powers 

 are mutually increased, as if they had united in a 

 friendly league. 



Wherefore since it is improbable that so acid a spirit 

 is contained in the mass of sulphur and is not elicited 

 unless the sulphur is burned, why should we not sup- 

 pose that the spirit is produced, by the burning of 

 the sulphur, in the following way ? For I suppose 

 that common sulphur contains in addition to its sul- 

 phureous particles pure and simple, a salt of a fixed 

 or rather metallic nature in the closest union with its 

 sulphureous particles, which saline part sometimes 

 crystallises when sulphur is dissolved by the spirit of 

 turpentine. 



Further, it should be noted that the flame of kindled 

 sulphur, as indeed flame of every kind, consists in this 

 that the sulphureous particles of the deflagrating 

 substance and the nitro-aerial particles mutually 

 excite themselves to a very rapid motion, as we have 



