Chapter 21

It may (_Pyrophilus_) somewhat contribute towards the shewing how much some Colours depend upon the less or greater mixture, and (as it were,) Contemperation of the Light with shades, to observe, how that sometimes the number of Particles, of the same Colour, receiv'd into the Pores of a Liquor, or swiming up and down in it, do seem much to vary the Colour of it. I could here present you with particular instances to show, how in many (if not most) consistent Bodyes, if the Colour be not a Light one, as White, Yellow, or the like, the closeness of parts in the Pigments makes it look Blackish, though when it is display'd and laid on thinly, it will perhaps appear to be either Blew, or Green, or Red. But the Colours of consistent Pigments, not being those which the Preamble of this Experiment has lead you to expect Examples in, I shall take the instances I am now to give you, rather from Liquors than Dry Bodyes. If then you put a little fair Water into a cleer and slender Vial, (or rather into one of those pipes of Glass, which we shall by and by mention;) and let fall into it a few drops of a strong Decoction or Infusion of _Cochineel_, or (for want of that) of _Brazil_; you may see the tincted drops descend like little Clouds into the Liquor; through which, if, by shaking the Vial, you diffuse them, they will turn the water either of a Pinck Colour, or like that which is wont to be made by the washing of raw flesh in fair Water; by dropping a little more of the Decoction, you may heighten the Colour into a fine Red, almost like that which ennobles Rubies; by continuing the affusion, you may bring the Liquor to a kind of a Crimson, and afterwards to a Dark and Opacous Redness, somewhat like that of Clotted Blood. And in the passage of the Liquor from one of these Colours to the other, you may observe, if you consider it attentively, divers other less noted Colours belonging to Red, to which it is not easie to give Names; especially considering how much the proportion of the Decoction to the fair Water, and the strength of that Decoction, together with that of the trajected Light and other Circumstances, may vary the Phænomena of this Experiment. For the convenienter making whereof, we use instead of a Vial, any slender Pipe of Glass of about a foot or more in length, and about the thickness of a mans little finger; For, if leaving one end of this Pipe open, you Seal up the other Hermetically, (or at least stop it exquisitely with a Cork well fitted to it, and over-laid with hard Sealing Wax melted, and rubb'd upon it;) you shall have a Glass, wherein may be observ'd the Variations of the Colours of Liquors much better than in large Vials, and wherein Experiments of this Nature may be well made with very small quantities of Liquor. And if you please, you may in this Pipe produce variety of Colours in the various parts of the Liquor, and keep them swimming upon one another unmix'd for a good while. And some have marveil'd to see, what variety of Colours we have sometimes (but I confess rather by chance than skill) produc'd in those Glasses, by the bare infusion of Brazil, variously diluted with fair Water, and alter'd by the Infusion of several Chymical Spirits and other Saline Liquors devoid themselves of Colour, and when the whole Liquor is reduc'd to an Uniform degree of Colour, I have taken pleasure to make that very Liquor seem to be of Colours gradually differing, by filling with it Glasses of a Conical figure, (whether the Glass have its basis in the ordinary position, or turn'd upwards.) And yet you need not Glasses of an extraordinary shape to see an instance of what the vari'd mixture of Light and Shadow can do in the diversifying of the Colour. For if you take but a large round Vial, with a somewhat long and slender Neck, and filling it with our Red Infusion of Brazil, hold it against the Light, you will discern a notable Disparity betwixt the Colour of that part of the Liquor which is in the Body of the Vial, and that which is more pervious to the Light in the Neck. Nay, I remember, that I once had a Glass and a Blew Liquor (consisting chiefly (or only, if my memory deceive me not,) of a certain Solution of Verdigrease) so fitted for my purpose, that though in other Glasses the Experiment would not succeed, yet when that particular Glass was fill'd with that Solution, in the Body of the Vial it appear'd of a Lovely Blew, and in the neck, (where the Light did more dilute the Colour,) of a manifest Green; and though I suspected there might be some latent Yellowness in the substance of the neck of the Glass, which might with the Blew compose that Green, yet was I not satisfi'd my self with my Conjecture, but the thing seem'd odd to me, as well as to divers curious persons to whom it was shown. And I lately had a Broad piece of Glass, which being look'd on against the Light seem'd clear enough, and held from the Light appear'd very lightly discolour'd, and yet it was a piece knock'd off from a great lump of Glass, to which if we rejoyn'd it, where it had been broken off, the whole Mass was as green as Grass. And I have several times us'd Bottles and stopples that were both made (as those, I had them from assur'd me) of the very same Metall, and yet whilst the bottle appear'd but inclining towards a Green, the Stopple (by reason of its great thickness) was of so deep a Colour that you would hardly believe they could possibly be made of the same materials. But to satisfie some Ingenious Men, on another occasion, I provided my self of a flat Glass (which I yet have by me,) with which if I look against the Light with the Broad side obverted to the Eye, it appeares like a good ordinary window Glass; but if I turn the Edge of it to my Eye, and place my Eye in a convenient posture in reference to the Light, it may contend for deepness of Colour with an Emerald. And this Greeness puts me in mind of a certain thickish, but not consistent Pigment I have sometimes made, and can show you when you please, which being dropp'd on a piece of White Paper appears, where any quantity of it is fallen, of a somewhat Crimson Colour, but being with ones finger spread thinly on the Paper does presently exhibit a fair Green, which seems to proceed only from its disclosing its Colour upon the Extenuation of its Depth into Superficies, if the change be not somewhat help'd by the Colours degenerating upon one or other of the Accounts formerly mention'd. Let me add, that having made divers Tryals with that Blew substance, which in Painters shops is call'd _Litmase_, we have sometimes taken Pleasure to observe, that being dissolv'd in a due proportion of fair Water, the Solution either oppos'd to the Light, or dropp'd upon White paper, did appear of a deep Colour betwixt Crimson and Purple; and yet that being spread very thin on the Paper and suffer'd to dry on there, the Paper was wont to appear Stain'd of a Fine Blew. And to satisfie my selfe, that the diversity came not from the Paper, which one might suspect capable of inbibing the Liquor, and altering the Colour, I made the Tryal upon a flat piece of purely White Glass'd Earth, (which I sometimes make use of about Experiments of Colours) with an Event not unlike the former.

And now I speak of _Litmass_, I will add, that having this very day taken a piece of it, that I had kept by me these several years, to make Tryals about Colours, and having let fall a few drops of the strong Infusion of it in fair water, into a fine Crystal Glass, shap'd like an inverted Cone, and almost full of fair Water, I had now (as formerly) the pleasure to see, and to show others, how these few tincted drops variously dispersing themselves through the Limpid Water, exhibited divers Colours, or varieties of Purple and Crimson. And when the Corpuscles of the Pigment seem'd to have equally diffus'd themselves through the whole Liquor, I then by putting two or three drops of Spirit of Salt, first made an odd change in the Colour of the Liquor, as well as a visible commotion among its small parts, and in a short time chang'd it wholly into a very Glorious Yellow, like that of a Topaz. After which if I let fall a few drops of the strong and heavy Solution of Pot-ashes, whose weight would quickly carry it to the sharp bottome of the Glass, there would soon appear four very pleasant and distinct Colours; Namely, a Bright, but Dilute Colour at the picked bottome of the Glass; a Purple, a little higher; a deep and glorious Crimson, (which Crimson seem'd to terminate the operation of the Salt upward) in the confines betwixt the Purple and the Yellow; and an Excellent Yellow, the same that before enobled the whole Liquor, reaching from thence to the top of the Glass. And if I pleas'd to pour very gently a little Spirit of Sal Armoniack, upon the upper part of this Yellow, there would also be a Purple or a Crimson, or both, generated there, so that the unalter'd part of the Yellow Liquor appear'd intercepted betwixt the two Neighbouring Colours.

My scope in this 3d. Experiment (_Pyrophilus_) is manifold, as first to invite you to be wary in judging of the Colour of Liquors in such Glasses as are therein recommended to you, and consequently as much, if not more, when you imploy other Glasses. Secondly, That you may not think it strange, that I often content my self to rub upon a piece of White paper, the Juice of Bodies I would examine, since not onely I could not easily procure a sufficient Quantity of the juices of divers of them; but in several Cases the Tryals of the quantities of such Juices in Glasses would make us more lyable to mistakes, than the way that in those cases I have made use of. Thirdly, I hope you will by these and divers other particulars deliver'd in this Treatise, be easily induc'd to think that I may have set down many Phænomena very faithfully, and just as they appear'd to me, and yet by reason of some unheeded circumstance in the conditions of the matter, and in the degree of Light, or the manner of trying the Experiment, you may find some things to vary from the Relations I make of them. Lastly, I design'd to give you an opportunity to free your self from the amazement which possesses most Men, at the Tricks of those Mountebancks that are commonly call'd Water-drinkers. For though not only the vulgar, but ev'n many persons that are far above that Rank, have so much admir'd to see, a man after having drunk a great deal of fair water, to spurt it out again in the form of Claret Wine, Sack, and Milk, that they have suspected the intervening of Magick, or some forbidden means to effect what they conceived above the power of Art; yet having once by chance had occasion to oblige a Wanderer that made profession of that and other Jugling Tricks, I was easily confirm'd by his Ingenious confession to me, That this so much Admir'd Art, indeed consisted rather in a few Tricks, than in any great Skill, in altering the Nature and Colours of things. And I am easy to be perswaded; that there may be a great deal of Truth in a little Pamphlet Printed divers years ago in English, wherein the Author undertakes to discover, and that (if I mistake not) by the confession of some of the Complices themselves, That a famous Water-drinker then much Admir'd in _England_, perform'd his pretended Transmutations of Liquors by the help of two or three inconsiderable preparations and mixtures of not unobvious Liquors, and chiefly of an Infusion of Brazil variously diluted and made Pale or Yellowish, (and otherwise alter'd) with Vinegar, the rest of their work being perform'd by the shape of the Glasses, by Craft and Legerdemane. And for my part, that which I marvel at in this business, is, the Drinkers being able to take down so much Water, and spout it out with that violence; though Custome and a Vomit seasonably taken before hand, may in some of them much facilitate the work. But as for the changes made in the Liquors, they were but few and slight in comparison of those, that the being conversant in Chymical Experiments, and dextrous in applying them to the Transmuting of Colours, may easily enough enable a man to make, as ev'n what has been newly deliver'd in this, and the foregoing Experiment; especially if we add to it the things contained in the XX, the XXXIX and the XL. Experiments, may perhaps have already perswaded You.

_EXPERIMENT XLV._

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 made Green by this Essence, I dropp'd an Alcalizate Solution, or Urinous Spirit, the Wine would presently grow Turbid, and of an odd Dirty Colour; But if instead of dissolving the Essence in Wine, I dissolv'd it in fair Water sharpen'd perhaps with a little Spirit of Salt, then either the Urinous Spirit of Sal Armoniack, or the solution of the fix'd Salt of Pot-ashes would immediately turn it of a Yellowish Colour, the fix'd or Urinous Salt Precipitating the Vitriolate substance contain'd in the Essence. But here I must not forget to take notice of a circumstance that deserves to be compar'd with some part of the foregoing Experiment, for whereas our Essence imparts a Greenness to Wine, but not to Water, the Industrious _Olaus Wormius_[23] in his late _Musæum_ tells us of a rare kind of Turn-Sole which he calls _Bezetta Rubra_ given him by an Apothecary that knew not how it was made, whose lovely Redness would be easily communicated to Water, if it were immers'd in it; but scarce to Wine, and not at all to Spirit of Wine, in which last circumstance it agrees with what I lately told you of our Essence, notwithstanding their disagreement in other particulars.

[23] Libr. 2do Cap. 34.

_EXPERIMENT XLVI._

We have often taken notice, as of a remarkable thing, that Metalls as they appear to the Eye, before they come to be farther alter'd by other Bodyes, do exhibit Colours very different from those which the Fire and the _Menstruum_, either apart, or both together, do produce in them; especially considering that these Metalline Bodyes are after all these disguises reducible not only to their former Metalline Consistence and other more radical properties, but to their Colour too, as if Nature had given divers Metalls to each of them a double Colour, an _External_, and an _Internal_; But though upon a more attentive Consideration of this difference of Colours, it seem'd probable to me, that divers (for I say not all) of those Colours which we have just now call'd _Internal_, are rather produc'd by the Coalition of Metalline Particles with those of the Salts, or other Bodyes employ'd to work on them, than by the bare alteration of the parts of the Metalls themselves: and though therefore we may call the obvious Colours, Natural or Common, & the others Adventitious, yet because such changes of Colours, from whatsoever cause they be resolv'd to proceed may be properly enough taken in to illustrate our present Subject, we shall not scruple to take notice of some of them, especially because there are among them such as are produc'd without the intervention of Saline _Menstruums_. Of the Adventitious Colours of Metalline Bodies the Chief sorts seem to be these three. The first, such Colours as are produc'd without other Additaments by the Action of the fire upon Metalls. The next such as emerge from the Coalition of Metalline Particles with those of some _Menstruum_ imploy'd to Corrode a Metall or Precipitate it; And the last, The Colours afforded by Metalline Bodyes either Colliquated with, or otherwise Penetrating into, other Bodies, especially fusible ones. But these (_Pyrophilus,_) are only as I told you, the _Chief_ sorts of the adventitious Colours of Metalls, for there may others belong to them, of which I shall hereafter have occasion to take notice of some, and of which also there possibly may be others that I never took notice of.

And to begin with the first sort of Colours, 'tis well enough known to Chymists, that Tin being Calcin'd by fire alone is wont to afford a White _Calx_, and Lead Calcin'd by fire alone affords that most Common Red-Powder we call _Minium:_ Copper also Calcin'd _per se_, by a long or violent fire, is wont to yield (as far as I have had occasion to take notice of it) a very Dark or Blackish Powder; That Iron likewise may by the Action of Reverberated flames be turn'd into a Colour almost like that of Saffron, may be easily deduc'd from the Preparation of that Powder, which by reason of its Colour and of the Metall 'tis made of is by Chymists call'd, _Crocus Martis per se_. And that _Mercury_ made by the stress of Fire, may be turn'd into a Red Powder, which Chymists call Precipitate _per se_, I elsewhere more particularly declare.

_Annotation I._

It is not unworthy the Admonishing you, (_Pyrophilus_,) and it agrees very well with our Conjectures about the dependence of the change of a Body's Colour upon that of its Texture, that the same Metall may by the successive operation of the fire receive divers Adventitious Colours, as is evident in Lead, which before it come to so deep a Colour as that of _Minium_, may pass through divers others.

_Annotation II_.

Not only the _Calces_, but the Glasses of Metalls, Vitrify'd _per se_, may be of Colours differing from the Natural or Obvious Colour of the Metall; as I have observ'd in the Glass of Lead, made by long exposing Crude Lead to a violent fire, and what I have observ'd about the Glass or Slagg of Copper, (of which I can show you some of an odd kind of Texture,) may be elsewhere more conveniently related. I have likewise seen a piece of very Dark Glass, which an Ingenious Artificer that show'd it me profess'd himself to have made of Silver alone by an extreme _Violence_ (which seems to be no more than is needfull) of the fire.

_Annotation III_.

Minerals also by the Action of the Fire may be brought to afford Colours very differing from their own, as I not long since noted to you about the variously Colour'd Flowers of Antimony, to which we may add the Whitish Grey-Colour of its _Calx_, and the Yellow or Reddish Colour of the Glass, where into that _Calx_ may be flux'd.

And I remember, that I elsewhere told you, that Vitriol Calcin'd with a very gentle heat, and afterwards with higher and higher degrees of it, may be made to pass through several Colours before it descends to a Dark Purplish Colour, whereto a strong fire is wont at length to reduce it. But to insist on the Colours produc'd by the Operation of fire upon several Minerals would take up farr more time than I have now to spare.

_EXPERIMENT XLVII._

The Adventitious Colours produc'd upon Metalls, or rather with them, by Saline Liquors, are many of them so well known to Chymists, that I would not here mention them, but that besides a not un-needed Testimony, I can add something of my own, to what I shall repeat about them, and divers Experiments which are familiar to Chymists, are as yet unknown to the greatest part of Ingenious Men.