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Figure as heavy as before, and like a moderately thick paste & that it is not so easy to handle, as when it is liquid. It is a sign that it is cooked enough, which you will know when it also throws big bubbles or exhalations in the middle & around, as long as a finger. Seeing it in this state, remove it from the fire for it is heated enough, because if you were to reheat more, it would be too much & would not set as well. For, when it becomes red & overheats, it loses its strength & spoils the sand. Leave it to cool before mixing it within the other sands. And when it is cold, mix and mold, for as soon as you will use it after its cooking, the sooner it will set.

Catching lizards and snakes

Take a stick and attach a string at the end, which has a knot eyelet slip eyelet at the end. And, being two to three, to distract the lizard while whistling, approach the eyelet towards his neck, and when his head is inside, pull. The lizard is more tedious to catch by hand than the snake & bites without letting go & grips like pincers.

Snakes can be caught by hand, provided that it is covered by a thick woollen cloth, for the teeth of the snake stay in the cloth, & cannot pierce like they would with a linen. The dangerous ones are recognisable by their blue eyes & asses deep azur azures. They hardly ever bite in water, which crayfish catchers experience.

The sand mixture is of two parts of plaster pulverized & reheated as said, & of one part of tile, reddened et p pre in a good fire, after the first cooking & then finely pulverized, and of alum de plume, half of brick, namely two full crucibles of plaster, one of brick & a half of alum de plume. There can never be too much alum de plume,s for this is what gives bond to the sand, and because it does not burn, it makes sand withstand the fire without cracking & bursting. Otherwise, without it, the sand would not withstand it. This sand, thus composed, is proper for all metals, but if you want to use it for gold, one needs more alum de plume & than the above mentioned composition, and mix in some crocum ferri, and for it is this one that attracts gold.

It is necessary that all sand with which you want to cast well, withstands the fire well, that is to say that it withstands abon c a great firing without getting spoiled.

Alum de plume is uneasy to pestle, and it does not pass through the sieve. Thusly one needs to grind it finely on marble. And the one, white, que v in powder, that apothecaries sell, is good. It is grinds better su in the mortar by pestling &dragging the pinon, thus you will render it very fine.

Crocum ferri must be set ablaze in a glassworker’s furnace for four days.