In his “Cours de la Chimie”, Nicolas Lemery walks through a step-by-step Aqua Regia preparation. But before he instructs us to get a chemical Sal Armoniac, as seventeenth-century iatrochemists called a very indefinite, as well as not so pure, salt between salarmeniac and salmiac obtained out of urine salts.
Like his teacher Christophle Glaser, Lemery was a royal apothecary and tried to walk in his teacher’s footsteps when writing, in 1675, a treatise with a similar name: “ Cours de la Chymie”.
Luckily for us, they are complementary. But, unlike Glaser, the examination of Lemery’s treatises is all but plain, and consequently, my original French translation was not so effortless.
For us moderns, it is chiefly the lack of a chemically accepted definition of sal armoniac to prevent a smooth reading. Lemery’s Sal Armoniac is neither sal armeniacum nor sal armoniacum, whose definitions you can find in my post-Universal Sal Armoniacum & Hollandus Sal Armeniacum, and apparently nor the very sal ammoniacum, or Ammonium Chloride, needed in the classic ancient process to obtain Aqua Regia. Nevertheless, the Sal armoniac here presented by Lemery appears to be volatile enough to certainly own something to alchemical sal armeniacum and partaking in Aqua Regia preparation as a common Sal Ammoniacum, Ammonium Chloride.
As we will see, in Lemery, the preparation of Aqua Regia is slightly different from the modern one presented by Phantomplay.com in 2005, which I retook in my post-Aqua Regia & Fulminating Gold. But we cannot define Lemery’s recipe as quite alchemical just due to his poor concern about salt purity or because the volatilization of salts is involved. Nevertheless, if we read this preparation carefully, we will notice how Lemery prepares us for the alchemical idea of volatilization of no volatile salts. But let’s get down on the very pages now:
Nicolas Lemery Cours de la Chymie, page 307, chapter XVI, On Sal Armoniac: “Sal armoniac is either natural or artificial. The natural one is formed in very warm countries, like Africa, in its hot zone. We can find it on the ground soaked in animals’ urine. That’s to say, these volatile urine salts get sublimated by the sun’s heat, and these salts are known under the name Sal Armoniac. The artificial one comprises urine salts, soot, and sea salts”.
Urine salts (1) have a place that not only contains the nitrogen compounds useful to 
obtain the ancient Sal Ammoniacum but also because one of its components seems to be benzoic acid. This subtle powdery white substance easily sublimes. And Lemery does not seem so concerned about salt purity. In ancient french, suye, then suie, means soot. Does Lemery intend that black powder consisting mainly of amorphous carbon we find in our flues? Or the Potassium and Sodium salts produced by the burning of organic matter? As sea salts are plural, seventeenth-century chemists used to differentiate rock salt, sea salt, and fountain salt.
“These three salts are a mixture that seems fixed since acid sea salt prevents the other ones’ volatility. If sal armoniac is to get calcined inside a crucible, it flies away because the volatile salts lift the fixed ones with them”.
Don’t be concerned about Lemery pointing at sea salts, which we know as Sodium Chloride, as acid predominantly. In the coming post, we will see some ancient chemists’ theories. Instead, pay close attention to Lemery’s last sentence since this is an Alchemy key, axiom, and foundation: volatile salts, or easily sublimated, can lift the other ones. And we know volatilization of not volatile salts is the ultimate method to achieve or extract Secret Fire/Mercurius.
“To purify Sal Armoniac, you have to dissolve it in sufficient water and then make it evaporate till dry into a glass vessel. You will obtain a white salt which can be given from six to twenty-four grains in some suitable liquor.
Flowers of Sal Armoniac, page 308: powder and put exact equal parts of Sal Armoniac and sea salt “decrepité”. Pour the mixture into an earthen cucurbit (2) placed on the sand and fit over a blind hat. You need to give it a bit of fire at the beginning and increase it little by little until you can see your Sal Armoniac raising, getting floor texture, and sticking to the hat and top part of the cucurbit. Keep on with fire till nothing rises again, then let chill the vessels. You will cautiously remove your cap and gather your flowers (3) with a plume. Keep all in a well-closed phial. These flowers have the same virtue as Sal Armoniac, but you will use a lesser quantity, from four to fifteenth grains”.
In the seventeenth century, there was a poor concern about salts’ chemical purity. Pure salt was mainly salt-free from humidity. That’s what the decrepitation process was for, from latin de+crepitus or out creaked-rattled. Sea salt used to be calcinated before any chemical use; that’s to say, put in a pot with a great fire to remove any residual humidity till cracking sounds were no more heard. Lemery presents the process in the same Cours de la Chymie, page 274, when talking of common salt.
“Notes, page 309: This operation is performed to have the sal armoniac volatilized since we will set the part of its salt fixed by the calcinated sea salt. Thus its flowers are a bit more penetrating than sal armoniac, even if they are composed of the same salts. According to Schroeder, one can also use either iron or steel powder in place of sea salt, and that will result in yellowish powder since flowers take the color of Mars (4).”
Sal armoniac was all but pure, as we have already observed; thus, in Lemery’s proceeding, the sal armoniac, not volatile parts, bond with the calcined sea salt. Of course, the volatile parts of this not-so-pure sea salt enhance sal armoniac flowers’ volatility.
Next: Lemery & the Spirits of Salt Armoniac , the conclusive is Aqua Regia and Fulminating Gold According to Lemery .
- On Urine Volatile Salts see also Hollandus, How Urine Salts Extract a White and Red Dye , Lancillotti and the Magisterium of Urine on Caput Mortuum , Glaser and the Unladylike, but Volatile, Salt of Urine ;
- Cucurbit is the main part of an alembic, the very place where matter is being put;
- Flowers is an allegory for salts, either volatilized or sublimated;
- In Alchemy Mars, among other meanings, also stands for iron and alloys;