continual fire, for seven months, and sometimes ten, untill our water consume three, and leave one; and that _in duplo_, or a double. Then it is nourished with the milk of the earth, or the fatnesse thereof, which is bred in the bowells of the earth, and is governed, or preserved from putrefaction by the salt of Nature. And thus the infant of the second generation is generated. Now let us passe from the Theorie to the Praxis. [Illustration: *decorative divider*] _THE ELEVENTH TREATISE._ _Of the Praxis, and making of the Stone, or Tincture by Art._ Through all these foregoing Chapters, our discourse of things hath been scattered by way of examples, that the Praxis might be the more easily understood, which must be done by imitating Nature after this manner—— Take of our earth, through eleven degrees, eleven graines, of our Gold, and not of the vulgar one grain, of our Lune, not the vulgar, two grains: but be thou well advised, that thou takest not common Gold, and Silver, for these are dead, take ours which are living: then put them into our fire, and let there be made of them a dry liquor; first of all the earth wil be resolved into water, which is called the Mercury of Philosophers; and that water shall resolve those bodies of Gold, and Silver, and shal consume them so, that there shall remain but the tenth part with one part; and this shall be the radicall moisture of Metalls. Then take water of salt-nitre, which comes from our earth, in which there is a river of living water, if thou diggest the pit knee deep, therefore take water out of that, but take that, which is cleer; upon this, put that radicall moisture; and set it over the fire of putrefaction, and generation, not on such a one as thou didst in the first operation: govern all things with a great deale of discretion, untill colours appear like a Peacocks tail; govern it by digesting it, and be not weary, untill these colours be ended, and there appear throughout the whole one green colour, and so of the rest; and when thou shalt see in the bottome ashes of a fiery colour, and the water almost red, open the vessel, dip in a pen, and smeare some Iron with it, if it tinge, have in readinesse that water, which afterwards I shall speak of, and put in so much of that water as the cold aire was, which went in, boil it again with the former fire, untill it tinge again. So far reached my experience, I can doe no more, I found out no more. Now that water must be the menstruum of the world, out of the sphere of the Moon, so often rectified, untill it can calcine Gold: I have been willing here to discover to thee all things; and if thou shalt understand my meaning sometimes, and not the letter, I have revealed all things; especially in the first, and second work. Now it remains that we speak next of the fire. The first fire, or of the first operation is a fire of one degree, continuall, which goes round the matter; the second is a naturall fire, which digests, and