And in the third place, I demand what either Sulphur, or Salt, or Mercury has to do in the Production of this Green; For neither the Bise nor the Orpiment were indu’d with that Colour before, and the bare Juxtaposition of the Corpuscles of the two Powders that work not upon each other, but might if we had convenient Instruments be separated, unalter’d, cannot with any probability be imagin’d either to Increase or Diminish any of the three Hypostatical Principles, (to which of them soever the Chymists are pleas’d to ascribe Colours) nor does there here Intervene so much as Heat to afford them any colour to pretend, that at least there is made an Extraversion (as the Helmontians speak) of the Sulphur or of any of the two other supposed Principles; But upon this Experiment we have already Reflected enough, if not more than enough for once.
EXPERIMENT XVIII.
But here, Pyrophilus, I must advertise you, that ’tis not every Yellow and every Blew that being mingl’d will afford a Green; For in case one of the Ingredients do not Act only as endow’d with such a Colour, but as having a power to alter the Texture of the Corpuscles of the other, so as to Indispose them to Reflect the Light, as Corpuscles that exhibit a Blew or a Yellow are wont to Reflect it, the emergent Colour may be not Green, but such as the change of Texture in the Corpuscles of one or both of the Ingredients qualifies them to shew forth; as for instance, if you let fall a few Drops of Syrrup of Violets upon a piece of White Paper, though the Syrrup being spread will appear Blew, yet mingling with it two or three Drops of the lately mention’d Solution of Gold, I obtain’d not a Green but a Reddish mixture, which I expected from the remaining Power of the Acid Salts abounding in the Solution, such Salts or Saline Spirits being wont, as we shall see anon, though weakn’d, so to work upon that Syrrup as to change it into a Red or Reddish Colour. And to confirm that for which I allege the former Experiment, I shall add this other, that having made a very strong and high-colour’d Solution of Filings of Copper with Spirit of Urine, though the Menstruum seem’d Glutted with the Metall, because I put in so much Filings that many of them remain’d for divers days Undissolv’d at the Bottom, yet having put three or four Drops of Syrrup of Violets upon White Paper, I found that the deep Blew Solution proportionably mingl’d with this other Blew Liquor did not make a Blew mixture, but, as I expected, a fair Green, upon the account of the Urinous Salt that was in the Menstruum.
EXPERIMENT XIX.


