If you desire to refine your gold from the baser metals, swedge or roll it out very thin, then cut into narrow strips and curl up so as to prevent its lying flatly. Drop the pieces thus prepared into a vessel containing good nitric acid, in the proportion of acid 2 oz., and pure rain water ½ oz. Suffer to remain until thoroughly dissolved, which will be the case in ½ hour to 1 hour. Then pour off the liquid carefully and you will find the gold in the form of a yellow powder lying at the bottom of the vessel. Wash this with pure water till it ceases to have an acid taste, after which you may melt and cast into any form you choose. Gold treated in this way may be relied on as perfectly pure.

In melting gold use none other than a charcoal fire, and during the process sprinkle saltpetre and potash into the crucible occasionally. Do not attempt to melt with stone coal, as it renders the metal brittle and otherwise imperfect.