[Illustration] SOME EXPERIMENTS CONCERNING _MERCURY_. [Illustration] [Price One Shilling.] SOME EXPERIMENTS CONCERNING _MERCURY_. _By J. H. BOERHAAVE, Professor of Physick at LEYDEN._ Translated from the _Latin_, communicated by the Author to the ROYAL SOCIETY. [Illustration] _LONDON_: Printed for J. ROBERTS, near the _Oxford-Arms_, in _Warwick-Lane_. MDCCXXXIV. [Illustration] SOME EXPERIMENTS CONCERNING _MERCURY_. They who by Experiments have most diligently enquired into the Origin of Bodies, and their peculiar Powers and Properties, are the only Men who have discovered sure Methods of acquiring a true Knowledge of these Things: And whenever the Lovers of natural Knowledge enumerate the Instruments of this Science, they universally agree that Chemistry has done the greatest Service, in most industriously promoting such Discoveries: And when they come carefully to examine the most celebrated Writers in this Art, they plainly perceive, that the most ancient Alchemists far surpassed the rest in their Accounts of the Nature of Things. Of this _Geber_ is an Instance, and the Writers nearest to him; for they are content to describe, in the plainest manner, such Things only as they had discovered by their Art; to improve which was their great Application, having no other Design in view. And indeed no other Men whatever have so strictly and obstinately labour’d in the Search after natural Things, or have taken such great Pains to turn Matter, thro’ all the various Modes of Enquiry, as the Alchemists. This is what will be readily granted by all those who read the Hermetic Writers, when they openly relate common Discoveries: But, on the contrary, when these Writers treat of the Grand _Arcanum_ (or Secret of the Wise) they are accused of making a bad Use of their Knowledge, out of a Desire to conceal it, as if they intended, on that Occasion, not to be understood. They are said to deal in Paradoxes, to write in a strange manner, perfectly foreign to all that is known, and their Style is swell’d with hyperbolical and sublime Expressions; which makes them be exploded as Men out of their Senses, fabulous, false, and Liars: For whilst they affect to write in the gravest Terms, and are rich in Promises, they so cover the Thing they are treating of in Obscurity and Darkness, that they seem unwilling the Secret should be reveal’d. And on this account it is, that very many wise Men are of Opinion, that what the Alchemists