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Moreover, all the world is agreed, that from death to life there is no return. Yet the chemists assure us, if we moisten the calx of lead, and mix it… - Jean Rey
" "Moreover, all the world is agreed, that from death to life there is no return. Yet the chemists assure us, if we moisten the calx of lead, and mix it with water in which samphire (salicot) has been dissolved, then, having dried it, put it in a crucible with a small vent, and heat strongly and quickly, that we shall reduce it to its original state.
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About Jean Rey
John Rey (1583–1645) (or, in French) Jean Rey, was a physician of , France who in 1630 published a tract on , or of metals, after being notified by Brun, an apothecary of Bergerac, France, of Brun's experiments (as early as 1629) on the calcination of tin. Brun had melted 2 pounds six ounces of tin, and after 6 hours the resulting calx weighed seven ounces more than the original tin. More than one hundred and forty years before Antoine Lavoisier, John Rey recognized that in the calcination of lead or tin, part of the air provided an increase in mass to the calcined metal oxide. His work was eclipsed first by the phlogiston theory and then later, by Lavoisier's discoveries disproving the existence of phlogiston. Lavoisier's oxygen theory confirmed Rey's earlier report, of which Lavoisier claimed he was unaware. After the presentation of Lavoisier's 1775 memoir at the Académie des sciences, (1725-1798) wrote a letter to Abbé , director of the journal Observations sur la Physique, sur l'Histoire naturelle and sur les Arts, to ask him to publish an update notice, recognizing the priority Rey's work.
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Additional quotes by Jean Rey
The chemists furnish us with a pretty representation of this, by taking pulverized black enamel, liquor of tartar, brandy tinged blue with litmus, and spirit of turpentine reddened by alkanet, and shaking the whole together in a phial, till it forms one confused mixture. The vessel being then left at rest, it is pleasant to see the clearing off of the confusion. The enamel gains the lowest station, representing earth; the liquor of tartar settles close by it, representing water; the brandy, like the air, occupies the third place; and spirit of turpentine, to shew the nature of fire, arranges itself above them all. All this is effected by the influence of weight, according as it is largely or sparingly distributed amongst these bodies. In the same manner the elements acknowledge no other cause that arranges and disposes each in its proper place, it being needless to introduce levity, which our predecessors vainly devised for that purpose.
Almost all philosophers, ancient and modern, fearing an eternal confusion of the elements, were they all endowed with weight, conceived the two uppermost to be furnished with a certain levity, by means of which they bounded up on high, each to occupy its peculiar place, like as the two lower ones are pushed downwards by their own weight. But having clearly shewn in the last Essay, that levity is not necessary for that effect, weight alone being sufficient, I embrace the maxim, which they themselves have prudently laid down, that we should never multiply existences unnecessarily; assuming that God and Nature do nothing in vain, (which they also teach.) I think it would be otherwise were we to admit levity, since it is of no use.
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