Letter published on 'La Tourbe des Philosophes' N18, 1982,

CORRESPONDENCE ON THE DISSOLUTION OF THE METALLIC BODY To: Mr Magain In Metz Mister and friend, Your invitation fills me at the same time with the pleasure of your friendship and with regret not to be able to be closer to interact with you. It is far from Amboise to Metz. My age makes me sensitive to the hazards of the inn, with the tirednesses of diligence. And then I cannot leave the field between the hands of my people at that time when my absence would be felt. Believe well that I prefer to enjoy your so pleasant hospitality & to continue our hermetic conversations as we did it over these last three years. Your correspondence shows me that you understood extremely well the dissolution of the metallic body and the confection of the egg. You ask me however why you failed in the appearance of the signs, in spite of the accuracy of your operations. Not being able to explain it to you in a lively voice I entrust it to you by this letter that I insistently ask you to hold secret. Your dissolving agent is stripped of virtue. You employ it suitably in vain, its weakness does not allow it to animate the metallic substance. It dissolves well but does not nourish what it dissolves. Remember some general principles which will help you to understand what you have to make. Azoth & ignis tibi sufficiunt (Nitrogen and fire will suffice), one says. They are the two agents of this animation. All your attention must go on Azoth. If you read Arnauld de Villeneuve you will be convinced of this. After more than one half-century during which chemistry was given order, Messrs de Lavoisier, Guytton de Morveau, and Beaum, agreed on a precise nomenclature, but by allotting a bit randomly the known ancient names. However it is Mister de Lavoisier himself who firmly made a point of giving the name of nitrogen to that part of the air that one called moufette (skunk) and that being contrary to the intention of these companions. The name nitrogen was thus adopted. Mister de Lavoisier was much more informed in the science of Hermes than was thought by his successors. Those who understand the two ideas of chemistry will distinguish it without difficulty in his writings. The nitrogen of the air, for certain, is well the nitrogen of the philosophers. One finds it only in the bodies which had life, at the moment of their decomposition, it ends up being solved out of ammonia. Mr Boussingault very recently made remarkable analyses which prove that fog and dew contain nitric acid. It is true that this scientist/chemist had another intention only to prove that the nitrogen of plants 1

comes from the air and the rain; without taking into account the benefit which the mineral earth also gives to it. And that his discovery confirms the Emerald Table which teaches us that the Sun and the Moon are the father and the mother, that the wind carried it in its belly, & that the earth is its nurse. The astral seed of the sun and the moon dissolves in the dew when the latter condenses. It then rests with to us to take it out of the earth where she will be nourished. Here in detail how is how you can operate. You will make provision for at least twelve pounds of gypsum which has been separated from foreign earth and stones. You will crush it into fragments of 3 rows of of inch, but not into powder. It is necessary to calcine it with a light fire in a basin by unceasingly stirring it in order to remove it from its raw water. It becomes white, opaque and friable. It is the pure earth where you will sow the seed of soli-lunar gold. You will lay it out it in a layer of two fingers thickness in dishes or pots made out of glazed earth which is not porous. The operation must be done at the beginning of spring by taking account of the climate specific to the country. Each morning, you will sprinkle the pots with fresh urine to soak the white earth slightly, but without soaking it. They should be exposed to the open sky. The high terrace of your house, where the windows of your physics laboratory are, is completely suitable. Start with the 1st quarter moon, as soon as the sun retires. Bring the pots back in when the sun rises. They will have received the lunar light, then at the end of the night, the dew which remains is impregnated with the rays of the moon. At midday, put the pots in the sun until the decline of its force in order to desiccate the matter. If you see the earth become dry, give it a moderate amount of new urine. Continue this set of operations each night until the last quarter. During the entire morning it is necessary to let the earth digest the spirit, without evaporating this one badly by the way, and not drying it until the afternoon. This work takes approximately 16 days. The remainder of the month, i.e. between the last quarter, the new moon, and the 1st quarter, the moon is not visible at night. You will devote this time to another kind of operation. The contents of each pot will be gently heated in the open air, with heat similar to that of boiling water while stirring continuously with a spatula. Then, one or two hours before the end of the night, expose it to the dew of the morning, and at midday for three hours desiccate it in the sun, and so on to the first following quarter. This cycle of operations will be repeated all summer, from March to October you can carry out seven or eight similar cycles. Keep it from the rain; it would not necessarily ruin the matter but it would delay you much by obliging you to desiccate gently; you 2

would waste time and the benefit of the exposures. Then comes the work comes of winter. You now have the seed of the father, the sun, and of the mother the moon, which were carried in the belly of the wind & fell into the nourishing earth. Gather all your earth in a large container stopped well for 6 weeks with a soft heat from 40 to 45 degrees of the Raumur thermometer. The spirit will be fixed in the body by itself. Then calcine the earth in an open basin by stirring it up without stop to drive out the stinking (foul-smelling) spirits. Use a fire sparingly but strong enough to make smoke. When nothing smokes any more, carry out the extraction of salt. You need for this a good reserve of dew distilled only once to remove it from dust, insects and debris which accompany it. The earth will be washed with this dew at low temperature, the solution filtered, evaporated with tepid to film, crystallized & dried. Rewash the residue so that nothing is lost. This salt is very impure, a calcination with moderate fire blackens it. One second lixivation followed by filtering on Joseph paper and recrystallization will return it more clearly. By reiterating 3 or 4 times this continuation of purification you will have a quite white niter salt which does not blacken any more with the calcination. Such will be the purity of philosophical niter, such will be the purity of the dissolution of the body when you do the second work which you know well, as I could judge some by our conversations, the day of our walk at the edge of the Moselle. This niter alone can give the soli-lunar azoth to the metallic body which was deprived of it by leaving the nourishing mine. It only transcends the subtle virtue of the sun and the moon of which it was impregnated during its preparation. Ordinary salpetre that one manufactures in the saltpeter manufacturing plants truly contains a tiny fraction of it, but to a degree so small that one nose can manage to end to make him animate the incipient metal. If you reflect, you will see that in the artificial saltpeter manufacturing plants one employs lumps of plaster coming from the demolition of the old cattle sheds, impregnated with the urine of cattle, whose nitrogen nourishes the nitrogen of the air to which one exposes the lumps of plaster during two or three years before washing them. The rain and the sun operate bad weather randomly, fixing only very little the astral virtue in it. While our practice which does nothing but follow nature avoiding the unfavourable circumstances and benefitting from the favorable ones. I have the hope that the next year you will have been able to make a good dissolution of your metallic body by helping you with these details. Another thing. The matter that I saw in your laboratory comes from the Vosges. It is not bad quality, but its defect is that it contains much disseminated quartz particles, which 3

makes crushing them difficult. That which I employ comes from Huelgoat in Brittany. It is perfect because it presents approximately brilliant square crystals hardly soiled earth at the outside. After washing one can crush it so finely that one could paint some. If you wish it I will forward some to you. The character which will immediately make you judge kindness of this mineral is its weight. Weighed in water it should lose only 13 percent of its weight, if it loses it more is it is earthy. It always contains small quantities of silver & gold in the process of growth. These metals which are still in a seminal state in this mine awake in the noncorrosive nitrous bath if it itself is animated & animating. You know the turn of hand which makes it possible to make dissolution. Do not hasten it. And apply to understand the invaluable lesson of the chapter Praeludium Prosimetricum du Chymica Vanus of which we so lengthily conversed last year. In spite of its apparent darkness it contains profound sights. And to confirm to you in the clear comprehension of your company, meditate by carefully examining the terms the 2nd paragraph of Memoriale which clots the book, where one reads: Nam dum Rex in sua est reductus principia, sulphurque sive animated solis in promptu, debet per familiarem istum absque Philosophicum-Spiritum ea amiabiliter absque strepitu seu adustione in oleum resolvi etc. Allow me to suggest to you this precaution: The exposure of the pots containing the absorbing white earth would be preferably made on the terrace where one accede only by your cabinet, which would draw aside the curiosity or the awkwardness of your servants. At this height the dew is less abundant than on the meadow, but sufficient to impregnate the earth of its spirit. On the contrary, it would be expedient to collect on the meadow the necessary quantity of dew for the purifications of the salt. This gathering is tiresome but easy & rustic. I noticed that it settles some much in the small valley where there is the mill. If you carry out dissolutions and washings of the earth with exactitude, it will be enough for eight pints of dew in all; without you to tire more. You have time to reflect on all that from now until March-April. If some difficulty comes to your spirit by then, make me aware of your uncertainty and I will try to raise your doubts. I finish, Mister and Friend, while asking you to present my homages to Mrs Magain & by ensuring you of my devotion. October 2, 1862 A.L. de Gerbant