Experiment VI
And this also brings into my mind another Experiment that I made about the production of Blackness, whereof, for Reasons too long to be here deduced, I expected and found a good Success, an it was this: I took Rectifi’d Oyl of Vitriol (that I might have the Liquor Clean as well as Strong) and by degrees mixt with it a convenient proportion of the Essential Oyl, as Chymists call it, of Wormwood, drawn over with store of Water in a Limbec, and warily Distilling the mixture in a Retort, there remain’d a scarce credible quantity of dry Matter, Black as a Coal. And because the Oyl of Wormwood, though a Chymical Oyl drawn by a Virtuoso, seem’d to have somewhat in it of the Colour of the Plant, I Substituted in its Room, the Pure and Subtile Essential Oyl of Winter-Savory, and mixing little by little this Liquor, with (if I mis-remember not) an Equal weight of the formerly mention’d Rectifi’d Oyl of Vitriol, and Distilling them as before in a Retort, besides what there pass’d over into the Receiver, even these two clear Liquors left me a Considerable Proportion, (though not so great as the two former) of a Substance Black as Pitch, which I yet Keep by me as a Rarity.