Take Wood which must first bee a Coale, then Ashes, which put into a gourd together with the Resine, Liquor, and Oyle of that tree, of each a like weight, mingle them, and melt them with a soft heat, and there will bee a mucilaginous matter, and so thou hast the three Principles, of which all things are produced, and generated, _viz._ flegm, fatnesse, and Ashes. [Sidenote: The flegme of Wood is its Mercury, the fat its sulphur, the ashes its salt.] The Flegm is Mercury, the Fat is Sulphur, the Ashes is Salt. For whatsoever fumes, and evaporates in the Fire is Mercury: whatsoever flames, and is burnt is Sulphur, and all Ashes is Salt. Now seeing thou hast these three Principles together, put them in Horse-dung, and putrefie them for a time. If afterward that matter bee put in, and buried in fat ground, thou shalt see it live again, and a little tree spring from thence, which truly in vertue is farre more excellent then the former. This Tree or Wood is, and is called Regenerated Wood, renewed, and restored, which from the beginning was Wood, but mortified, destroyed, and brought into coales, ashes, and almost to nothing, and yet out of that nothing is made, and renewed. This truly in the light of Nature is a great mystery, _viz._ that a thing, which had utterly lost its form, and was reduced to nothing, should recover its form, and of nothing bee made something, which afterward becomes much more excellent in vertue, and efficacy then it was at first. [Sidenote: A generall rule for raising of things againe.] But to speake generally of the Resurrection, and Restauration of Naturall things, you must know, that the chiefest foundation here, is, that that bee restored to every thing, and made to agree with it, which was taken from it in mortification, and separated from it, which is hard to bee here specifically explained. Wherefore wee shall conclude this book, and shall speak of these things more at large in the next book, Concerning the transmutations of naturall things. [Illustration: *decorative divider*] OF THE NATVRE Of Things. _THE SEVENTH BOOK._ _Of the Transmutation of Naturall things._ If wee write of the Transmutation of all Naturall things, it is fit, and necessary that in the first place wee shew what Transmutation is. Secondly, what bee the degrees to it. Thirdly, by what Medium’s, and how it is done. [Sidenote: What Transmutation is.] Transmutation therefore is, when a thing loseth its form, and is so altered, that it is altogether unlike to its former substance, and form, but assumes another form, another essence, another colour, another vertue, another nature, or property, as if a Metall bee made glasse, or stone: if a stone bee made a coale: if wood be made a coal: clay be made a stone, or a brick: a skin bee made glew: cloth bee made paper, and many such like things. All these are Transmutations of Naturall things. [Sidenote: There are seven principal degrees of transmutation.]