This, in short, is either _Native_ or _Factitious_, and each of Three sorts, _Yellow_, _Red_, and _White_. The _Native Yellow_ is what the Latins call’d _Auripigmentum_; and this _Olaus Wormius_ (126) makes Threefold. The _Red_ is the _Sandaracha_ of the _Greeks_. The _White_ was not known to the Ancients; and indeed _Theophrastus_ seems only to have known the _Red_; but _Dioscorides_ describes both _Red_ and _Yellow_; _Nicander_ had no Knowledge of either; The only Mineral Poisons He mentions are _Litharge_ and _Ceruss_. _Orpiment_ and _Sandaracha_ differ only by their greater or lesser Concoction in the Earth; and therefore from _Orpiment_ Boiled in a close Pot Five Hours in a Furnace Fire, is made the _Factitious Sandaracha_, as perfect as the _Natural_ (127). The _Factitious Yellow_ is made from the Crusts of the _Natural Orpiment_ (128). The _Native White_ is more rare, but found plentifully in some Silver Mines in _Germany_ (129). But the _White Factitious_ is of the most common Use of all; and it is, as _Agricola_ tells us, no other than _Orpiment_ again and again sublimed with an equal part of _Fossile Salt_, till it is brought to a Whiteness. _Orpiment_ and _Sandaracha_ are mostly found in Mines of God; and all Metallic Writers do agree them to be the best Signs of the Richness of the Vein. This is Ground sufficient for the _Chymists_ to take _Arsenick_ for the Subject Matter of their great Work, as they call It; and they have very fondly accommodated some Ænigmatical Lines in the _Sibylline Oracles_ (130) to this _Mineral_. Tho’ the Interpretation be strained, and not fairly made out, (the _Author_ of these Verses, whatever he might mean, being indeed Discoursing of the Name of the _Divine Power_ it self) yet very true it is, that this great Expectation from _Arsenick_ is as old at least as _Caligula_; that is, of more ancient Date considerably than the far greatest part of those Suppositious and Ill-contrived Compositions which do now bear the Name of _Oracles_: For that Covetous Emperor, as _Pliny_ relates (131), ordered a great quantity of _Orpiment_ to be wrought upon, that He might extract _Gold_ out of It, and made some; but as it usually happens in such like Attempts, the quantity did not answer the Expence. It is more to our purpose to take notice, that the later _Pretenders_ to this _Philosophy_, by finding their three _Principles_, _Salt_, _Sulphur_, and _Mercury_ in this Body, will lead Us into its true Nature and Composition. For whether We take _Orpiment_ or _Sandaracha_, either of them will afford a _Regulus_ or Mercurial Substance, more pure than that of _Antimony_. The manner of extracting It _Lemery_ (132) has taught; and to This indeed the Mineral owes its great Ponderosity. The Inflammability and Smell of _Arsenick_ are sufficient Proofs of its abounding _Sulphur_, which may without much difficulty be separated from It (133).