t sees not
a Green Body, but a Heap of Blew and Yellow Corpuscles.
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 Soluti
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