You may I presume (_Pyrophilus_) have taken notice, that in this whole
Treatise, I purposely decline (as far as I well can) the mentioning of
Elaborate Chymical Experiments, for fear of frighting you by their
tediousness and difficulty; but yet in confirmation of what I have been
newly telling you about the possibility of Varying the Colours of Liquors,
better than the Water-drinkers are wont to do, I shall add, that _Helmont_
used to make a preparation of Steel, which a very Ingenious Chymist, his
Sons Friend, whom you know, sometimes employes for a succedaneum to the
Spaw-waters, by Diluting this _Essentia Martis Liquida_ (as he calls it)
with a due proportion of Water. Now that for which I mention to you this
preparation, (which as he communicated to me, I know he will not refuse to
_Pyrophilus_) is this, that though the Liquor (as I can shew you when you
please) be almost of the Colour of a German (not an Oriental) Amethyst, and
consequently remote enough from Green, yet a very few drops being let fall
into a Large proportion of good Rhenish, or (in want of that) White Wine
(which yet do's not quite so well) immediately turn'd the Liquor into a
lovely Green, as I have not without delight shown several curious Persons.
By which _Phænomenon_ you may learn, among other things, how requisite it
is in Experiments about the changes of Colours heedfully to mind the
Circumstances of them; for Water will not, as I have purposely try'd,
concurr to the production of any such Green, nor did it give that Colour to
moderate Spirit of Wine, wherein I purposely dissolv'd it, and Wine it self
is a Liquor that few would suspect of being able to work suddenly any such
change in a Metalline preparation of this Nature; and to satisfie my self
that this new Colour proceeds rather from the peculiar Texture of the Wine,
than from any greater Acidity, that Rhenish or White-wine (for that may not
absurdly be suspected) has in comparison of Water; I purposely sharpen'd
the Solution of this Essence in fair Water, with a good quantity of Spirit
of Salt, notwithstanding which, the mixture acquir'd no Greenness. And to
vary the Experiment a little, I try'd, that if into a Glass of Rhenish Wine