Liquors, you may not onely in most Cases conclude
Affirmatively, but in some Cases Negatively.
As since Spirit of Wine, and as far as I have try’d,
those Chymical Oyles which Artists call Essential,
did not (when I us’d them as I had us’d
the several Families of Salts upon that Syrrup) turn
Syrrup of Violets Red or Green, nor the Solution of
Sublimate White or Yellow, I inferr’d it may
thence be probably argued, that either they are destitute
of Salt, or have such as belongs not to either of
the three Grand families already often mention’d.
When I went to examine the Spirit of Oak or of such
like Concretes forced over through a Retort, I found
by this means amongst others, that (as I elsewhere
show) these Chymists are much mistaken in it, that
account it a simple Liquor, and one of their Hypostatical
Principles: for not to mention what flegm it
may have, I found that with a few drops of one of this
sort of Spirits mix’d with a good proportion
of Syrrup of Violets, I could change the Colour and
make it Purplish, by the affinity of which Colour to
Redness, I conjectur’d that this Spirit had
some Acid Corpuscles in it, and accordingly I found
that as it would destroy the Blewness of a Tincture
of Lignum Nephriticum, so being put upon Corals
it would Corrode them, as common Spirit of Vinegar,
and other Acid Liquors are wont to do. And farther
to examine whether there were not a great part of the
Liquor that was not of an Acid nature, having separated
the Sour or Vinegar-like part from the rest, which
(if I mistake not) is far the more Copious, we concluded
as we had conjectured, the other or remaining part,
though it had a strong taste as well as smell, to
be of a nature differing from that of either of the
three sorts of Salts above mention’d, since it
did as little as Spirit of Wine, and Chymical Oyls,
alter the Colour either of Syrrup of Violets or Solution
of Sublimate, whence we also inferr’d that the
change that had been made of that Syrrup into a Purple
Colour, was effected by the Vinegar, that was one
of the two Ingredients of the Liquor, which was wont
to pass for a Simple or Uncompounded Spirit. And,
upon this account, ’twas of the Spirit of Oak
(and the like Concretes) freed from it’s Vinegar
that I elsewhere told you, that I had not then observ’d
it, (and I have repeated the Tryal but very lately)
to destroy the Caeruleous Tincture of Lignum Nephriticum.
But this onely, en passant; for the Chief thing
I had to add was this, That by the same way may be
examin’d and discover’d, divers changes
that are produc’d in Bodies either by Nature
only, or by Art; either of them being able by changing
the Texture of some Concretes I could name, to qualifie
them to Operate after a New manner upon the above
mention’d Syrrup, or Solution, or both.
And by this means, to tell you that upon the by, I
have been able to discover, that there may be made
Bodies, which though they run per Deliquium,
as readily as Salt of Tartar, belong in other respects,


