Concerning The Nature Of Saltpeter And The Method Followed In Making It

AS I told you in the chapter on salts, saltpeter is a mixture composed of many substances extracted with fire- and water from arid and manurial soils, from that growth which exudes from new walls or from that loosened soil that is found in tombs or uninhabited caves where the rain cannot enter. It is my belief that it is engendered in these soils from an airy moisture that is drunk in and absorbed by the earthy dryness. Considering its effects, I do not know how to decide and say exactly what the nature of saltpeter is. The learned and very wise physicians find it salty and with a subtle sharpness both in taste and in their medical experiments. Considering its strong biting qualities, they decide to say that it is of a hot and dry nature; on the other hand when they see that it is engendered from the air and that when touched by fire it becomes inflammable and vaporous, and rises with a fearful impetus when mixed in powder for military guns, it manifestly shows itself to be of a hot and moist airy nature. And then when they see that it is shining and transparent with whiteness and is fusible in every fire in a manner corresponding to a thing of a watery nature, and since it. is heavy, it seems that it can be said to be watery in nature. To this is added the experience of touch and of the great cooling action which it has on water in summertime when wine is to be cooled, and since it crushes and breaks with but little pressure, it might be thought to be earthy in nature; especially when it is seen to change into a hard, white stone when burned with an equal amount of sulphur. Thus it seems that every one of the elemental qualities is predominant in it. Now the ancients called this, or a similar thing, nitrum. [150] Pliny, in Book XXXI of his Natural History, has said that it was a thing not much different from salt, that doctors do not seem to have yet known its nature, that it is found in various places, and that the best is found in Macedonia. But among the moderns and especially in our regions, it is not known today what it is that Pliny and other writers refer -to, since according to the aforesaid Pliny and other ancient writers it is a natural mineral. Some say that in place of, the natural kind the artificial will serve for the same medicinal purposes, since it has the same nature and is perhaps more powerful.