Volume 1
The works of Sir Thomas Browne / edited by Simon Wilkin.
- Thomas Browne
- Date:
- 1890-1893
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The works of Sir Thomas Browne / edited by Simon Wilkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
527/608 page 515
![aud wee have a way to counterfeitt itt very handsomely, whicli he has taught race, and, if wee had a workman to help us, might doe many pretty thinges of that nature. He has seuerall peeees of the mineralls of Dronthem ; he has brought over a vege- table cvdled the alffa saccharifica, which, when he putt itt in the box, had nothing on the leaves, and in bringing has attracted a matter in tast and feeling licke sugar. He tells mee t]\e former King of Denmark was curious in all manner of rarities, and has one of the best collections of that kind in the world, as allsoe i\ most famous library of choyse collected bookes, butt this king's dehghts are in horses, and the discipline of an army, of which he has thirty thousand brauely equipped, which Mr. Henshaw saw encamped att the rendevous att Colding, in Juteland ; allsoe a ?otent navy ready to assist those that will pay the most for them, he king, att his comming away, gave him considerable presents to the value of betweene five and six hundred pounds, and has written such a character of him that I feare may invite him thither agayne, if our king has any occasion to send one. He was there acquainted with the principle physitian, one Bouchius, a great louer of chymistry, butt I thinke nott much experienced in itt, who assumed that leafe gold by continuall grinding for som fourteen dayes, and then putt into a retort in nudo igne yields some dropps of a blood red licquor, and the same gold exposed to the ayre, and ground againe, doth toties quoties yield the same; this is now under the experiment of a physitian in this towne, to whome I gave the process to undertake the tryall, and shall bee able shortly to give you an accompt of itt. I have little leysure and less convenience to try anything heere, yett my owne salt wiU sett mee on work, having now arrived to this that I can with foure drachmes of itt dissolve a drachme of leafe gold into an high tincture, which by all the art I have is nott sepe- rable from the menstruum which stands fluid, and is both before and after the solution of the gold as sweet almost as sugar, 806 farr is itt from any corrosive nature. I am gooiug to seale up two glasses, one of the menstruum with gold dissolved in. itt, and another of the menstruum per sa, and to putt them in an athanor, to see if they will putrify, or what alteration will happen. I have att Oxned scene this salt change as blacke as inke, I must, att the lowest, have an excelent aurum potabile, and if the signes wee are to judge by in Sendivogius' description, bee true, I have the key which answers to what he says, that if a man have that which will dissolve gold as warme water doth ice, you have that out of which gold was first made in the earth. My solution is perfectly agreeable to itt; dissolves itt without hissing, bubble, or noyse, and doth itt in frigido : that which encourages mee is that I shall make my lump with spiritt of 2 L 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22650337_0001_0529.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
