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continually till your Gold begin to dissolve, and come upon the water like aCream. Then continue your decoction till the colour begin to change into animperfect Citrine, with moisture, and send up yellowish vapours. ThisCitrine will soon be mixed with a blewish black, and yet continue yourboyling, till breath fail, that is, the Clouds and Fumes arise no more; thenthe Compound boyl at the bottom without Fumes, and will shew dark,obscure, reddish, yellowish, blewish, gray and blackish colours; thencontinue your decoction till the Body and whole Compound begin to rotinto Atoms, which the 50th day will give you a Harbinger or fore-runner of,with Pitchy blackness; then know that all is thorowly mingled together andwill never cease till the damned Earth come, the Earth of Leaves, which isa dust impalpable.The Head of the Crow taken do call we,And some do call it the Crowes Bill,Some call it the Ashes of Hermes Tree;And thus they name it after their will,Our Toad of the Earth which eateth his fill.Some call it by what is mortificate,Our Spirit with Venom intoxicate.But it hath names I say to thee infinite;For after each thing that blackness is to sightNamed it is, till time it waxeth white;Then hath it names of more delight,After things that been full white.And the red likewise after the same,After all red things doth take the name,At the first Gate, &c.This token then is called the Crow, the Crow’s Head, and the Crow’s Bill,for it is a shining blackness, like unto Printers Ink, or a solid Coal newbroken, or the most black and compacted broken Pitch.Others name it the Ashes of Hermes Tree, for it is Ashes out of whichgrows a Tree afterwards, beautiful and glorious with Sprigs and Branches,and changeable colours.And indeed this liberty the Philosophers have taken, to call it what they list:they call it their Toad which crawleth on the ground, and feedeth upon theslime of the earth; because before it is quite black, it may resemble thecolours of a Toad, and its likeness, puffing and swelling, and rugged withbunches and blisters, and knobs.Others call it a Spirit killed with its own deadly poison, that is, Mercurydissolving Gold, in which dissolved Body (which then seems a Spirit) there92