608 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
seems the metals had received a kind of apotheosis or translation into heavenly 
bodies. The explanation is somewhat as follows : 
Sol, the Sun—Gold. 
Luna, the Moon—Silver. 
Venus—Copper. 
Mercury— Quicksilver. 
Gold is a circle because it is perfection. 
Silver. This figure would be a perfect circle if the inner part were properly 
applied to the outer. Now the chemists all agree that silver is half gold; but 
the gold lies hid. And they say if you could turn the gold part outward, your 
silver would be converted into gold, and the crescent signifies as much. 
Copper is a circle with a cross underneath, 7. e., Gold with some corro- 
sive menstruum. . 
The cross was the symbol of fire, aqua fortis, vinegar, etc. As the cross 
was to crucify or torture men, so these things serve, so to speak, to torture gold 
into other metals. 
Mercury, the sign for quicksilver, shows gold in the middle, silver at 
the top, and a corrosive at the bottom; accordingly all the adefts say of Mercury, 
that it is gold at heart, whence its heaviness; silyer on the outside, whence its 
whiteness; but there is a pernicious corrosive sulphur adhering to it denoted by 
the cross. So if it were perfectly calcined and purified, and its color changed, it 
would be gold. Take away the corrosive and the silver, and the gold will be left. 
Hence that maxim on mercury: Strip me of my clothes, and turn me inside 
out, and all the secrets of the world will come forth. 
He then takes up the subject of specific gravity. He says: The character 
of the air influences specificegravity. There would be great difference between 
the pure fine air of London or Paris and the grosser air in most parts of Holland. 
The specific gravity of metals is very great, the lightest of them being more 
than six times the weight of water. Hence this might be added to our definition 
of a metal: it is at least six times heavier than water. This fact is very useful 
in the business of mining. If in digging you find a glebe or mineral whose 
weight is six times as great as water, you may safely conclude there is a metal 
therein. 
In a discussion of the properties of elementary bodies, his remarks are of 
the following nature: 
It was a common saying of the ancient chemists that the SUN and SALT con- 
tain all things. 
The truth is, sea salt is a thing of so beneficial a nature that we had better 
be without gold than salt. 
Because gold is so little influenced by fire, some have argued that gold alone 
has its just proportion of fire, and is itself no other than fire perfectly concen- 
trated. Gold is not sonorous. Hence the chemists hold that whoever would 
convert another metal into gold, must first take away the sound. 
