32 Mayow 



an appropriate medium, nitro-aerial and igneous 

 particles reside, as will be shown below. 



The particles of nitrous spirit generated in the earth 

 in the manner aforesaid, as soon as they are produced, 

 approach the seeds of the fixed salts which, as has 

 been elsewhere shown, are hidden in the bosom of the 

 earth, and solicit and call them forth into conjugal 

 union as a suitable consort and of their own kin ; 

 and, lastly, from them, combined in the closest alliance, 

 sal nitnim is produced, much as in colcothar or 

 vitriolic earth, other saline particles that have been 

 brought to a fluid condition by nitro-aerial spirit, 

 meeting other saline particles of a nature akin to 

 their own, coalesce to form vitriol as we have indicated 

 above. 



It follows from what has been said that there is no 

 such great repugnance between fixed and acid salts 

 as is commonly supposed. That they indeed boil up, 

 when mixed together, with remarkable violence should 

 not be imputed to any enmity between them but 

 rather to a sort of conjugal affection. These salts, in 

 fact, grind each other in order that they, being divided 

 to the utmost extent possible, may be united in a 

 closer bond. 



From what has been said the reason is clear why 

 nitrous but not purely saline salts are extracted by 

 lixiviation from the earth, for particles of nitrous 

 spirit generated in the earth take into union with 

 them and render nitrous all the fixed salt which has 

 attained to perfect maturity. And, indeed, it is prob- 

 able that the seeds of the fixed salts existing in the 

 bosom of the earth cannot be lixiviated and extracted 

 without the aid of nitrous spirit. 



That nitre is generated in the earth in the manner 

 aforesaid may be inferred also from the fact that it is 



