Out of every material- thing there is produced a cinder, from the cinder there is made a sa1t, from the

salt there are separated water and the mercury, out of the mercury there is produced or prepared an Elixir or a Quintessence. The body is reduced to cinder so that it may be cleansed of its combustible parts to salt to separate it from its earthliness i to water to purify arrd putrify to spirit so that it may become Quintessence. Thus the salts are the !eys both of art and of nature unless they are lceown it is impossible to imitate nature in her operations it is necessary to !now their sympathy and their antipathy towards metals as well as amongst themselves properly there is only one "alt of #ature, but it divides into three sorts to form the principles of bodies these three are #i-tre, Tartar and $itri.ol, allother salts being composed of them. "ubl-imation, precipitation and cocti-on are three methods which #ature uses in the perfection of her wor!s by the first she ta!es off the superfluous humidity which would suffocate the fire and prevent its action in the earth, which is i.ts %atrix.