Sabine Stuart Chevalier brings here to an end her Discours Philosophique on the element Fire. Combustion, Transmutation, glass penetration, and Secret Fire corpuscles are examined here, indeed not in a systematic way, but it is definitely worth the reading.
I wanted to begin with the same ending paragraph of my previous post on Stuart Chevalier, to add some commentary. My verbatim translation from the original French. Discours Philosophique, page 33: “If combustion is beyond the time necessary for fermentation, the saline parts rise and dominate saline over sulfides which from coal become acid salts, such as soot. After the combustion of a substance, it remains coals, ashes, and soot since oily ones have gone and become flames and then soot. Another part stays in the ashes, where the salt alkali is collected, which is nothing more than a highly condensed and concentrated sulfur. The volatile salt is in the soot because its sulfur content is very condensed and concentrated. When feces are earthy after fermentation, they can attract the spirit”. Combustion, or too much violent fire action on a substance, in ancient chemistry, generally stood for either incineration or vitrification. And also for the reduction of bodies into calx by the action of fire. But in the aforementioned case, fermentation seems to be involved. Have you ever heard of chemical combustion by means of fermentation? But since this chapter is about the alchemical element fire and not common fire, hardly Stuart Chevalier would have wasted her time talking of ordinary combustion performed by standard fire. What’s going on with a substance that has undergone a special menstruum containing a certain amount of Secret Fire/Mercurius, soaking (1) for an unusually exceeding time? Be aware that certain chemists used menstruums very rich in Secret Fire ( or a Mercurius Philosophorum very poor) ) to perform simple metal calcinations (2).
But I wanted to point out here that salt alkali can be where to find and extract Secret Fire (…salt alkali, which is nothing more than a highly condensed and concentrated sulfur…) while the other substances are helpful in operating this extraction. For example, the volatile salts inside soot can help volatilization of not volatile, and more important to us, salts (3). To earth a substance after fermentation, we need calcination. We are used to thinking of alchemical Sulphur as an accomplished and final substance, but in the no man’s land, as ancient chemistry was, sulfur was also the definition of a flammable substance, as wine after fermentation, for example, this feature is what differentiated sulfur from incombustible Mercurius. Fermentation and fire ( also alchemical fire) cause volatile parts to fly off. In fact, fermentation produces an inner warm, just as Secret Fire does. Volatile salts are so helpful to help not volatile, so they are more attractive to volatilize from an alchemical point of view.
Let’s go further now. Discours Philosophique, page 34: “We can observe that combustion and the fermentation without combustion of things are very depending on their sulfurous and saline particles: in the case the first ones are predominant, bodies always tend to burn, on the contrary, if acids are predominant those bodies can avoid combustion. The matter pores also prevent bodies from getting divided and compacted and open to receiving the action of fire.
Sulfur, for example, in spite of its vast amount of greasy parts, causes it to be very inflammable, can be made incombustible by adding some lemon juice, lime, or other mercurial parts.”
In these examples, Stuart Chevalier is more interested in molecular purity than the average chemist of her age. And that’s a euphemism since eighteenth-century chemistry essentially allowed chemical impurities. If you remember, in her previous pages, she has given a very to-the-bone definition of Sulphur and Mercurius at large, just stating a general texture for our two principles: “a grease like for Sulphur and a white emulsion like for Mercurius”. Both are our fires.
“Gold, which can live for centuries into a violent fire with no alteration, can be made subtle to the point of catching fire and burning because it contains earth as subtle as its atoms. Unquestionably, one can make incombustible even more prone to catch fire matter and reduce to fuel what has the power to withstand fire”.
Page 35: “These truths which may seem trivial at first sight, but they are full of consequence since these are the very methods used by nature to shrink to its first principle”.
As well as being the same methods alchemists can use to achieve the same first principle or “this earth as subtle as its atoms”.
“If you melt metal and if you gradually cast sulfur powder into it, a part of the sulfur shall burn as well as a part of the metal, but the metal will take the substance of the sulfur, what lost in the fire, and after having been detained several hours in melting, under the caput mortuum of sulfur, little by little you shall find the same weight of metal that you had used in the beginning and it will be dyed with the substance of sulfur: you can melt it all the times you want, it always retains the dye. But if you melt it in Aqua Fortis (strong water), the sulfur will precipitate at the bottom of the vessel: then make this powder dry, and it will be subjected to burn like fuel in the same way gold is made combustible. The slag of antimony shares the same properties when fixed in sulfur by means of an alkali”.
The whole paragraph sounds like a transmutation set. Sulfur is here, our fixed powder of transmutation, indeed. A fixed powder is a Mercurius finally calcined or made dry (4). The rest is to be learned and kept in mind without any other explanation. Be aware that many alchemists wrote of a much shorter melting time.
Page 36: “Have the same metal you have tinged (5)with sulfur dissolved in the spirit of salt (6) and put the liquid into a flask, and then distill to dry, you will have a mass that will burn like sulfur and lay a bluish flame. But if you condense the same mass, it will become metal again. So in any way you can operate on sulfur, you can always return to the first constitution; you can make it incombustible and then combustible later.
These lessons can give a great light to those who want to make progress in chemistry”.
Above and beyond some evident chemical superstitions in the aforementioned paragraph, together with the next one, Stuart Chevalier assumes combustibility as evidence of an inner element fire. In the previous post, we saw how Stuart Chevalier put Mercurius, Sulphur, and Salt among the four elements. She has a hard time explaining exothermic reactions, strong oxidations, and alchemical Secret Fire and puts forward the all-comprehensive element fire for that.
“The mercurial substance can also be made combustible and then incombustible again: this proves that all that is combustible is not always volatile and all that is incombustible is not always fixed. From that, we have to conclude that fire is not a common and natural element but is produced by the rarefaction of the atoms and the subtle and earthy corpuscles that are reduced in bodies, as we can see in the reaction of iron, whereas it acquires weight”.
Stuart Chevalier argues here that both state changes, in this case, the combustibility and Secret Fire, are composed of corpuscles of a certain weight. Secret Fire is an all-comprehensive term to define both Sulphur and Mercurius. Both chemical changes towards flame state and Secret Fire in its passage from Mercurius to Sulphur are called element fire by Stuart Chevalier. Page 37: “There is a big difference between the actual fire and potential fire-throwing flames and lights. the real fire heats, the potential fire cools down and ceases after throwing flame. There is also a fire illuminating and heating without being consumed: in fact, we can observe that the fire in the atmosphere makes a long way and produces flames which augment in power and extension.
It would be of some interest to know if the atoms of fire penetrate the gold vitrified and if they mix with the other bodies to augment their weights and volumes. Nevertheless, in this case, it would be necessary to distinguish between atoms of gold and fire. Sun does not seem to emit the real fire-throwing flames even if it burns corpuscules and other matter of this kind”.
Let’s suppose that Stuart Chevalier gives the name potential fire to our common fire and real fire to cover an extensive area from exothermic reactions to our alchemical Secret Fire since she appears not to draw lines in between. Pay attention to the actual fire capability to be absorbed by the glass. We know that our perfect sulfur can actually penetrate it, even if gold vitrified is something different from our common glass. Some contemporary alchemists believe that Secret Fire can reside in atomic electronic clouds.
Page 38: “Nobody ignores that lead augments its weight during cupell operation (7); how does it come if fire atoms don’t concentrate to fix in a body? The texture variations we can observe during different digestions prove nothing. In fact, they largely rely on either matter or on fire regimens. Depending on balneum mariae, on cinders, on sands, on fire, under the sun, or horse’s dung. All those variations are caused by the atoms engaged with corpuscules during digestion. All these corpuscules of fire accompanying the elements seem like fumes since they are so subtle to penetrate glass. This truth is demonstrated by the “lover” whose corpuscules penetrate the iron ones even if closed inside a vessel and a glass”.
Be aware that the serpent symbol was taken by ancients to represent our Mercurius ( a Sulphur yet unripe) since both Mercurius and serpents used to move as a flux. The “lover” actually is the Mercurius set apart and in its dissolving metal function. Of course, a lover then will need a mate (8).
To be continued at Stuart Chevalier, Lessons on Earth: a Virgin Marriages.
- See also Lancillotti & Extraction without Distillation;
- See also Fioravanti & Metals Calcination;
- See also Lemery & Sal Armoniac;
- See also Atalanta Fugiens & Coral Tree;
- See also Guido Montanor & the latin verb tingo-tinxi;
- Hydrochloric acid;
- See also Hollandus de Lapide Philosophico 2;
- See also Introitus Apertus vs Waite’s Open Entrance chapter 4 and Atalanta Fugiens & the Golden Apples;