For first, it may well be suspected that many Substances pass among Chymists under the name of Earth, because, like it, they are Dry, and Heavy, and Fixt, which yet are very farr from an Elementary Nature. This you will not think improbable, If you recall to mind what I formerly told you concerning what Chymists call the Dead Earth of things, and especially touching the copper to be drawn from the _Caput Mortuum_ of Vitriol; And if also you allow me to subjoyn a casual but memorable Experiment made by _Johannes Agricola_ upon the _Terra Damnata_ of Brimstone. Our Author then tells us (in his notes upon _Popius_ [Transcriber's Note: Poppius],) that in the year 1621 he made an Oyle of Sulphur; the remaining _Faeces_ he reverberated in a moderate Fire fourteen dayes; afterwards he put them well luted up in a Wind Oven, and gave them a strong Fire for six hours, purposing to calcine the _Faeces_ to a perfect Whiteness, that he might make someting [Transcriber's Note: something] else out of them. But coming to break the pot, he found above but very little _Faeces_, and those Grey and not White; but beneath there lay a fine Red _Regulus_ which he first marvell'd at and knew not what to make of, being well assured that not the least thing, besides the _Faeces_ of the Sulphur, came into the pot; and that the Sulphur it self had only been dissolv'd in Linseed Oyle; this _Regulus_ he found heavy and malleable almost as Lead; having caus'd a Goldsmith to draw him a Wire of it, he found it to be of the Fairest copper, and so rightly colour'd, that a Jew of _Prague_ offer'd him a great price for it. And of this Metal he sayes he had 12 _loth_ (or six ounces) out of one pound of Ashes or _Faeces_. And this Story may well incline us to suspect that since the _Caput Mortuum_ of the Sulphur was kept so long in the fire before it was found to be any thing else then a _Terra damnata_, there may be divers other Residences of Bodies which are wont to pass only for the Terrestrial _Faeces_ of things, and therefore to be thrown away as soon as the Distillation or Calcination of the Body that yielded them is ended; which yet if they were long and Skilfully examin'd by the fire would appear to be differing from Elementary Earth. And I have taken notice of the unwarrantable forwardness of common Chymists to pronounce things useless _Faeces_, by observing how often they reject the _Caput Mortuum_ of Verdegrease; which is yet so farr from deserving that Name, that not only by strong fires and convenient Additaments it may in some hours be reduc'd into copper, but with a certain Flux Powder I sometimes make for Recreation, I have in two or three minutes obtain'd that Metal from it. To which I may add, that having for tryall sake kept Venetian Taclk [Errata: Talck] in no less a heat than that of a glass Furnace, I found after all the Brunt of the fire it had indur'd, the remaining Body though brittle and discolour'd, had not lost very much of its former Bulke, and seem'd