'We must now increase
Our fire to _ignis ardens_,' &c.
770. _matires sublyming_, sublimation of materials. To 'sublimate' is to
render vaporous, to cause matter to pass into a state of vapour by the
application of heat. 'Philosophi considerantes eorum materiam, quae est in
vase suo, et calorem sentit, evaporatur in speciem fumi, et [423] ascendit
in capite vasis: et vocant _sublimationem_'; Theatrum Chemicum, 1659, vol.
ii. p. 125.
'_Subtle._ How do you sublime him [mercury]?
_Face._ With the calce of egg-shells,
White marble, talc.' The Alchemist, ii. 1.
771. _amalgaming._ To 'amalgamate' is to compound or mix intimately,
especially used of mixing quicksilver with other metals. The term is still
in use; thus 'an _amalgam_ of tin' means a mixture of tin and quicksilver.
_calcening._ To 'calcine' is to reduce a metal to an oxide, by the action
of heat. What is now called an oxide was formerly called 'a metallic calx';
hence the name. The term is here applied to quicksilver or mercury. For
example--'When mercury is heated, and at the same time exposed to
atmospheric air, it is found that the volume of the air is diminished, and
the weight of the mercury increased, and that it becomes, during the
operation, a red crystalline body, which is the binoxide of mercury, formed
by the metal combining with the oxygen of the air'; English Cyclopaedia,
Div. Arts and Sciences, s. v. _Oxygen_. 'The alchemists used to keep
mercury at a boiling heat for a month or longer in a matrass, or a flask
with a tolerably long neck, having free communication with the air. It thus
slowly absorbed oxygen, becoming converted into binoxide, and was called by
them _mercurius precipitatus per se_. It is now however generally prepared
by calcination from mercuric nitrate'; id., s. v. _Mercury_.
772. _Mercurie crude_, crude Mercury. See note to l. 820. See the
description of Mercury in Ashmole's Theat. Chem. p. 272. The alchemists
pretended that _their_ quicksilver, which they called the Green Lion, was
something different from quicksilver as ordinarily found. See treatise on
'The Greene Lyon,' in Ashmole's Theat. Chem. p. 280.