lackness, or of any other Colour, than its own
pure White, upon this Vegetable concrete. But what shall we say to Spirit
of Wine, which being made by a Chymical Analysis of the Liquor that affords
it, and being totally Inflamable, seems to have a full right to the title
they give it of _Sulphur Vegetabile_, & yet this fluid Sulphur not only
contracts not any degree of Blackness by being often so heated, as to be
made to Boyl, but when it burns away with an Actual flame, I have not found
that it would discolour a piece of White Paper held over it, with any
discernable soot. Tin also, that wants not, according to the Chymists, a
_Sulphur Joviale_, when throughly burned by the fire into a _Calx_, is not
Black, but eminently White. And I lately noted to you out of _Bellonius_,
that the Charcoals of Oxy-cedar are not of the former of these two Colours,
but of the latter. And the Smoak of our Tinby coals here in _England_, has
been usually observ'd, rather to Blanch linnen then to Black it. To all
which, other Particulars of the like nature might be added, but I rather
choose to put you in mind of the third Experiment, about making Black
Liquors, or Inks, of Bodies that were non of them Black before. For how can
it be said, that when those Liquors are put together actually Cold, and
continue so after their mixture, there intervenes any new _Adustion of
Sulphur_ to produce the emergent Blackness? (and the same question will be
appliable to the Blackness produc'd upon the blade of a Knife, that has cut
Lemmons and some kind of Sowr apples, if the juyce (though both Actually
and Potentially Cold) be not quickly wip'd of) And when by the instilling
either of a few drops of Oyl of Vitriol as in the second Experiment, or of
a little of the Liquor mention'd in the Passage pointed at in the fourth
Experiment, (where I teach at once to Destroy one black Ink, and make
another) the Blackness produc'd by those Experiments is presently
destroy'd; if the Colour proceeded only from the Plenty of Sulphurous
parts, torrify'd in the Black Bodies, I demand, what becomes of them, when
the Colour so suddenly dissappears? For it cannot Reasonably be said, that
all those that suffic'd to make so great a quantity of Black Matter, should
resort to so very small a proportion of the Clarifying Liquor, (if I may so
call it) as to be deluted by it, with out at all Denigrating it. And if it
be said that the Instill'd Liquor dispers'd those Black Corpuscles, I