The experience has demonstrated how greedily the motionless and empty earth attracts the nature of salt: as the more the salted water in a bag of clay gets filtered and let through ( know that the clay can be regenerated by adding more clay), the fresher the water is, as the sour taste remains in the clay.
Side note: Mercurius Philosophorum is the Sperm of Metals.
Nobody should be amazed by the fact that there is such value in the neglected Mercurius of salt as much as the principle of metallic generation. In fact, any spermatic thing is a saline liquor, it follows, Mercurius, which is the principle next to the sperm of metals, takes its origin from salt, and with the art, Mercurius can be prepared from any salt. Why what is possible for art cannot be possible for nature? But when investigating with our ratio and eyes, we are prevented from penetrating the abyss; in fact, achieving Archeus is possible only for the hardworking servants of nature and the laboratory.
Side-note: Sun and Moon do provide the Seed.
So in which way the inner and deep areas of the earth through the internal water ducts from the massive depth of the salted sea fecundated and watered: the Sun and Moon, through rain, dew, and other stellar influences, to the surface of the earth, grant a seed, from which herbs, trees, leaves, and shrubs grow up and thrive. So a grease and heavy vapor from the deep of the earth rise upwards, providing a feminine seed, who with addition and impression of the superior firmament influxes, both feminine and masculine, gives birth to metals and minerals in the deep viscera of the earth. In fact, even more subtle, agile, and volatile vapor which is raised up to the surface of the earth, is the liquor of the earth as well as female seed by which, with astral addition and impression, both female and male, on the earth surface may grow up trees and herbs, of which now we may use.
Orthelius Commentary on L. P. Composition.
Now I will treat the matter of metals and first-generation concerning the Composition of the Philosophers Stone. Sometimes the topic shall be understood, and sometimes, it is clearly apparent, either dealing with the form and sulfur from the metallic seed or the matter and Mercurius from the primordial humidity.
The error about L.P. matter.
Someone put the Philosopher Stone matter on the same side as metals first matter; in fact, one thing is the intention of nature, and another is the intention of art. The aim of art is not to generate metals; it neither owns the matter nor processes what nature needs it to create, while what the art makes, and even something of great entity, nature per se doesn’t create in any of its places. In fact, the Opus auspicates other methods and matters. Nevertheless, although in a different way, it imitates nature and does not hinder it; otherwise, it imitates nature, its sources, and principles, which nature derives, look for, and draws.
Within Gold, the Seed is Multiplied.
So the matter of art could be similar to those of nature, even if not the same. On the other hand, the Opus of Nature is the guide and author to the art, both in managing, abundantly, and in forming the aurous Stone, as what in the art does push and multiply. This is what is achieved. Not what the artist achieved in getting the matter: the creator doesn’t need what is created. On the other hand, the ultimate matter in which Nature finishes is always the first, which the art is short, and this is where the art starts; this thing can be found in gold. So, it takes its origin from that. Indeed in nature, nothing grows up without a seed: since everything has a seed, it is with the helping nature and through art we can multiply; its increasing or accretion of the matter is abundant. On the other hand, no one with a healthy mind would deny the presence of a seed within gold. Because of this seed through art, it can multiply. And consequently, gold represents both matter and subject, from which is the form of the seminal Stone and the form of attraction of its primary principle.
Agent and Patient in the Art.
If it is true that parent nature generates everything, and multiplies twofold, as sea and woman or agent and patient, it will be necessary for art to imitate nature. In such a way, the agent of art, or form, will be the above-mentioned seed of gold, making it look like itself to multiplicate its matter. When it comes to patience and matter, Mercurius brings it to multiply the tincture and rise in place of the ferment, which Philosophers said to be there. No matter what their names are, Philosophers get without distinction.
When it is barely perceptible in the beginning, in the end, it becomes evident. If it is allowed for different sexes, Nature points at the necessity of a common origin, and thus we can see the one that is in its own nature enjoy and be happy, store and multiply (These terms do not apply in playful situations, but express in encryption the Mercurius interactions with itself and the substances derived from it.).
Child of the Sun.
In fact, Nature conquers, gets, and keeps Nature. In the same way, the seed of gold in its first generation gets its origin from the heavenly influx. The same concerning its regeneration and multiplication, the Mercurius Philosophorum is expected to result from the Sun and Moonbeams and other Stars called natural ratio. One is the solving air, the other the solute, and one is volatile: the other is fixed. From whose conjunction, and to us, the regal and very noble child is being born, child of the Sun.
The Receptacle of Heavenly Influx.
Furthermore, because of the astral influx, the material principle of the Stone as well as other ones, are all universal and spiritual, but because of a specific body, they are not detectable with our senses: of those a receptacle-body, to exist in the universal nature or situation, not even it has to be close to the excellent simplicity of the elements. As the element Earth has in within, it is not a general receptacle of all the celestial influxes, equally nurse and mother of all growing up things ( nevertheless, it doesn’t have in itself the mother-water, as the sky is the real father and genitor of all natural things).
We conclude here the earth is a subject of the first order, in which the hermetic art, Philosophical subject, and magnet, the above-mentioned celestial influx, is attracted and incorporated.
In conclusion, we can say that the first matter of the Stone, no less than the matter of metals, similarly participates in heaven and earth, and for its making, that thing from its origin to itself is claimed.
The general speech will be schematically represented in the following diagram: 
Next chapter Orthelius Commentary on Sendivogius. Chapter 1 .