or Liver, or of any like noble Member?  To which I answered.  Such a Remedy is exceeding necessary for a Physician, but no man knows, what and how great are the Secrets yet hidden in Nature, nor did I ever, in all my Life see such an Adept Man, although I have read and perused many things, touching the verity of this thing, or Art, in the Writings of Philosophers.  I also enquired of him, whether he (speaking of the Universal Medicine) were not a Physician?  But he answering by denyal, professed, that he was no other than a Melter of Orichalcum, and that in the Flower of his years, he had known many things, from his Friend, rare to the Sight, and especially the way of Extracting Medicinal Arcanums by the force of Fire, and that for this very cause, he was a Lover of this so noble Science of Medicine.  Moreover, long after other discourses, touching Experiments in Metals, made by the violence of Fire, Elias the Artist spake to me thus; Do not you know the Highest Secret, when it is offered to your sight, viz. the Stone of Phylosophers, you having read in the Writings of many Chymists most excellent, touching the Substance, Colour, and strange effect of the same?  I answered, not at all; except what I have read in Paracelsus, Helmont, Basilius, Sandivogius, and like Books of Adept Phylosophers extant.  Nevertheless, I think, I am not able to know the Phylosophick Matter, whether it be true, or not, although I should see it present before me.

Whilst I was speaking thus, he pulled out of his Pocket an Ivory Box, in which he had three ponderous Fragments, in magnitude scarcely equalizing a small Walnut; these were Glass-like, of the colour of pale Sulphur, to which the Interior Scales of that Crucible did adhere, in which this most noble Substance was liquified, for I suppose the Value of it might equalize twenty Tun of Gold.  But after I had plighted my Faith, I held that [Greek:  cheimhelion], [or pretious Treasure] of this Stone, within these my hands for almost a quarter of an hour, and from the Philosophick Mouth of the Owner, I heard many things worthy of note, touching the Wonderful Effect of the same, for humane and Metallick bodies.  Indeed, I, with a sad and afflictedly afflicted Mind, restored this Treasure of Treasures to him, the Lord and Possessor, who gave the same into my hand for a very short space of time; and yet I did that (after the manner of Men overcoming themselves) not without the greatest action of thanks, as was fit in such a Case.  Afterward I asked him, how it came to pass, (since I had otherwise read, that the Stones of Philosophers, were endowed with a Rubinate, or Purple Colour) that this his Philosophick Stone was tinged with a Sulphureous Colour?  He answered me thus:  O Sir; this is nothing to the purpose:  for the Matter is Sufficiently mature.  Moreover, when I entreated him, that he would give to me, for a perpetual remembrance, one small part of the Medicine included in his Box, although no more in bulk than a Coriander-Seed; he denied, answering: