threw it into the fire, and wrapping the other up in blew paper, he gave to me, faying, It is yet sufficient for thee.  To which, I with, a sad Countenance and perplexed Mind, answered:  Ah Sir!  What mean you by this?  Before I doubted, and now I cannot believe, that so small a quantity of this Medicine will suffice for transmuting four grains of Lead; O, said he, if you cannot rightly handle your Lead in the Crucible, by reason of the so very small quantity thereof then take two drams, or half an ounce, or a little more of the lead, for more must not be tinged, then well may.  To him I again said:  I cannot, easily believe this, viz. that so little of the Tincture will transmute so great a quantity of Lead into Gold.  But he, answered; what I say is true.  In, mean, while, I, giving him great; thanks, inclosed my diminished and in the Superlative degree concentrated Treasure, in my own Casket, saying:  To morrow I will make this Tryal; and give no notice to any Man thereof, as long as I live.  Not so, not so, answered; he, but all things, which tend to the Glory of God Omnipotent, ought by us, singularly to be declared to the Sons of Art that we may live Theosophically, and not at all dye Sophistically.

Then, I confessed to him; that when held the Mass of his Medicine, in that short space of time, I attempted to raze something there-from with my Finger Nayl, But I got no more, than a certain invisible Atome; and, when I had cleansed my nayl, and had injected the collected matter, wrapt in paper, upon Lead in Flux, I could see no Transmutation of it into Gold; but almost the whole Mass of Lead vanished into Aire, and the remaining Substance was transmuted into a Glassy Earth.  At the hearing of this, he smiling, say’d You could more dexterously play the Thief, than apply the Tincture.  I wonder, that you, so expert in the Fire, do no better understand the fuming Nature of Lead.  For if you had wrapped your Theft in yellow Wax, that it might have been conserved from the Fume of Lead, then it would so have penetrated into the Lead, as to have transmuted the same into Gold.  But now a Sympathetick Operation was performed in Fume, and so the Medicine permixed with the Fume, flew away:  For all Gold, Silver, Tin, Mercury, and like Metals, are corrupted by Lead Vapours, and likewise converted to a brittle Glass.  While he was thus speaking, I shewed him my Crucible, who, viewing the remaining Substance, perceived a most beautiful Saffron-coloured Tincture, adhering to the sides of the Crucible, and say’d, To-morrow at nine of the Clock, I will return, and shew you; how your Medicine must be used to transmute Lead into Gold.  In which promise of him, I rested secure.  Yet, in the mean while, I again and again requested information of him, whether this Philosophick Work, required great Charges in the preparing, and a very long Time.  O my Friend, answered he, you very accurately affect to know all things, yet I will open this to you; The Charge is not great, nor is the Time long.  But, as touching the matter of which our Arcanum is made, I would have you to know; there are only two Metals and Minerals, of which it is prepared.  And because the Sulphur of Philosophers is more abundant in these Minerals, therefore it is made of them.