?# the Pyrites. 199 



indeed it cannot have Jain as a fnow-white powder, 

 yet as a formal arfenic in an ore form ; as neither 

 fulphur is made from pyrites, nor quickfilver from 

 cinnabar, but both of them feparated from thefe bo- 

 dies, is a queftion that has fome difficulty ? The nrft 

 is not impoffible, fimple bodies firft uiually feparat- 

 ing from mixts or compounds ; yet the fecond is 

 the more probable, as the black arfenic-oxt, confe- 

 quently, what is prepared to hand, is not com- 

 bined with any coarfe, fixed earth, to unfit it for 

 fuch a degree of fining and whitenefs; not to men- 

 tion the genuine fmalt-cobald, which ofren, in cer- 

 tain circumftances, is feen diflblveable both in the 

 upper and lower weatherings, a circumftance never 

 obferved in a mijfpickel or arfenic -pyrites, however 

 long expofed, as I myilif have remarked, in all 

 manner of air. 



What makes this fpontaneous purification of the 

 arfenic a difficult matter to be credited, is the pre- 

 judice entertained, that the action of the fire is ab- 

 lolutely neceffary for that purpofe -, though nothing 

 IS more evident than the f;;ontaneous refolution and 

 vitriolifation of the pyrites : and atWenfeen, in the 

 territory of Lauenftein, in the Electorate of Hano- 

 ver, a beautiful, tranfparent, yellow fulphur breaks, 

 befidcs in feveral parts in Hungary, without the 

 action of any obfervable fire; and the mercurifica- 

 tion of metals, or rather their ores, is no other 

 way to be fundamentally laid, than by gentle ma 

 cerations, with appropriated falts and filine waters, 

 and by the action of the infipid, powerful body of 

 the air. 



f 2.; Arfenic is alfo often found in the earth per- 

 fectly native, without any other admixture, yet in 

 a different form •, I mean a femi -metallic fly-done 



O 4 form. 



