And after this manner you may draw forth an acid spirit out of any wood, or vegetable, and that in a great quantity without costs, because the wood to be distilled is put but upon a very few living coals, and upon that another, for one kindles the other; and this spirit requires no more charges than of the wood to be distilled; which is a great difference betwixt this, and the common way of distilling, where besides retorts, is required another fire; and out of a great retort scarce a pound of spirit is drawn in the space of five or six hours; whereas in ours in the space of one day, and that without any cost or labor may be extracted twenty or thirty pound, because the wood is immediately to be cast into the fire to be distilled, and that not in pieces, but whole. Now this spirit (being rectified) may commodiously be used in divers Chymical operations, for it doth easily dissolve animal stones, as the eyes of Crabs, the stones of Perches, and Carps, Corals also and Pearl, _&c._ as doth vinegar of wine. By means thereof also are dissolved the glasses of metals, as of tin, lead, Antimony, and are extracted, and reduced into sweet oyles. This vinegar being taken inwardly of it self doth cause sweat wonderfully, wherefore it is good in many diseases, especially that which is made of Oak, Box; Guaiacum, Juniper, and other heavy woods; for by how much the heavier the woods are, by so much the more acid spirit do they yield. Being used outwardly it mundifies ulcers, wounds, consolidates, extinguisheth, and mitigates inflammations caused by fire, cures the scab, but especially the decoction being made of its own wood in the same. Being mixed with warm water for a bath for the lower part of the body, it cures occult diseases of women; as also malignant ulcers of the leggs. This spirit therefore deserves some place in the shops, _i. e._ it is unjustly rejected in the shops, seeing it is easie to be made. In distilling of wormwood and other vegetables, there remaines in the bottom of the furnace ashes, which being extracted with warm water yields a salt by decoction, which being again dissolved in its own spirit or vinegar, and filtred, doth by the evaporation of the flegm, being placed in a cold place pass into a Crystalline salt, which is of a pleasant tast, not like unto a _lixivium_, nor unto other salts that are dissolved in the air. This salt is also more efficacious (being reduced into Crystals by its proper Spirit) than that which is made by the help of sulphur, or Aqua fortis, and oyl of Vitriol, and otherways which Chymists, and Apothecaries use. _The spirit of paper and linnen cloath._