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without much wringing, which makes the Glass brittle; but being nipt up,and after that staying in the same heat, turning it to and fro in the clear heat,the Glass will come to as exactly close and smooth a superficies, as in anyother place.This is the true and sure way which Philosophers have secured theirGlasses by. Let it cool by degrees, and be very wary that it get no crack incooling, which if it do so, though never so little, you must not connive at it,lest the winds within cause it there to burst, as being a weak defectiveplace.The Water wherewith thou mayst revive thy Stone,Look thou distill before thou work with it.Oftentimes by it self alone,And by this sight thou shalt wit,From faeculent faeces when it is quit:For some men can with Saturn it multiply,And such like substance, which we defie.Thus thou seest how our Work must be ordered in reference to its Regimen,but the main matter is our Water. Which Water, as saith Artephius, is theVinegar of Mountains, and it is the only Instrument for our Work: itsPreparation consists in Cohobation, which we will discover. In my littleTreatise called Introitus Apertus, and in my other Tractate called ArsMetallorum Metamorphoseas, I speak as much of it as a man can speak,without giving a Receipt; but to the Ingenious, what there is written if farbetter than any Receipt.This I say, that it must first be cohobated in a very wonderful way, (for it issuch a Cohobation that hath not its like in the World) and for several times,to a determinate number, and after it may and ought to be distilled per se,without any addition, again and again, that thou mayst have the Waterclean from any Exotical mixture.When it ascends like to the pearled dew, thou mayst then know that it issufficiently pure, which is not till all the filthiness be cast from the center,and wash’d from the superficies: Thy Water then hath so excellent aPontick faculty, that it will dissolve Jupiter, Saturn, or Venus, into Mercuryand Sulphur; for it commands Metals as their true Water Mineral, which noMercury in the World is, but our Mercury, nor can be, for Reasons knownto the Adepti, which if I should give, there would be none almost so stupidbut that would easily apprehend them, for they are most demonstrable. Thisonly I at present say of this Mercury, that it is the Mother of Metals, andtherefore hath power to reduce them, by dividing their principles ofSulphur and Mercury; but we count it a loss to imploy our Mercury to such116