[ 8 37 ] 
ings. But let me add, by the way, that if the vi- 
trum ceratum antimonii, after it hath been long made, 
is afrefli rubbed to a fine powder, it proves much 
more draftic, the wax being rubbed off from it, and 
leaving its points more naked : fo that even this 
feems to prove what I juft now hinted. Hartman’s 
chylifta, or the old preparation of glafs of antimony 
with gum-maftic, diffolved in fpirit of wine, and 
then evaporating the fpirit, feems to be on the fame 
foundation, but, I fhould imagine, nothing near fo 
fafe : however, I never tried it, nor that other pre- 
paration of the vitrum antimonii, by the repeated de- 
flagration of fpirit of wine in it, which, Geoffroy 
fays, may be given fafely to ten or even twenty 
grains ; the oleofe part of the fpirit of wine inve- 
loping or blunting the ftibiate fpicula, and reducing 
the glafs in fome meafure back again to its original 
antimonial ftate. ’Tis certain the faline-mercurial 
preparations are rendered much milder by burning 
fpirit of wine upon them repeatedly. 
The lefs therefore of the external fulphur adheres 
to the reguline part of antimony, the more vehe- 
ment is its operation, and vice verfa. Thus in pre- 
paring the common liver of antimony, the nitre de- 
flagrates with, and carries off, a great part of the 
fulphur, whence the antimonial hepar becomes very 
ftrongly emetic (I do not confider at prefent what 
the alkalization of the nitre in the procefs doth fur- 
ther). And ’tis much the fame in making the com- 
mon regulus ; and, when filings of fteel are ufed 
in preparing the martial regulus, it is, that the iron 
may abforb the antimonial fulphur. So likewife, in 
calcining antimony for the glafs, the fulphur is firft 
driven 
