With this view he made a great number of different trials, wherein he employed Sea-salt in substance, Sal Ammoniac, Plumbum corneum, Luna cornea, fixed Sal Ammoniac, otherwise called _Oil of Lime_. These several substances, all of which contain the Acid of Sea-salt, he mixed with sundry matters abounding in Phlogiston, different vegetable coals, and even animal matters, such as the oil of hartshorn, human blood, _&c._ varying the proportions of these substances many different ways, without ever being able to produce a single atom of Phosphorus: which gave this able Chymist just cause to suspect, that the Marine Acid, while pure and crude, is not capable of combining with the Phlogiston in the manner requisite to form a Phosphorus; that for this purpose it is necessary the Acid would have contracted a previous union with some other matter; and that the Acid found in urine hath probably undergone the necessary change. M. Marggraff is of opinion that the matter, which by its union renders the Marine Acid capable of entering into the composition of Phosphorus, is a sort of exceedingly subtle vitrifiable earth. The experiments he made upon the Acid of Phosphorus, will shew that his notion is not altogether groundless. M. Marggraff having let some urine, evaporated to the consistence of honey, stand quiet in a cool place, obtained from it, by crystallization, a Salt of a singular nature. By distilling this urine afterwards, he satisfied himself that it yielded him much less Phosphorus than urine from which no Salt had been extracted; and as it cannot be entirely deprived of this Salt, he thinks that the small quantity of Phosphorus, which this urine yielded him, came from the Salt that was still left in it. Further, he distilled this salt separately with lamp-black, and obtained from it a considerable quantity of very fine Phosphorus. He even mixed _Luna cornea_ with this Salt, in order to see whether it would not increase the quantity of his Phosphorus; but without success: whence he concluded, that in this Saline matter resides the true Acid that is fit to enter into the composition of Phosphorus. This opinion is confirmed by several experiments on the Acid of Phosphorus, which he found to have some properties resembling those of this Salt. The Acid of Phosphorus seems to be more fixed than any other: and therefore if you would separate it, by burning, from the Phlogiston with which it is united, there is no occasion for such an apparatus of vessels as is employed for obtaining the Spirit of Sulphur. For this Acid will remain at the bottom of the vessel in which you burn your Phosphorus: indeed, if it be urged by the force of fire, its most subtile part evaporates, and the remainder appears in the form of a vitrified matter.