Chapter 18

_Secondly_, above the ignobler _Productions_ of the Earth, there must be a careful account given of the _Inhabitants_ themselves, both _Natives_ and _Strangers_, that have been long settled there: And in particular, their Stature, Shape, Colour, Features, Strength, Agility, Beauty (or the want of it) Complexions, Hair, Dyet, Inclinations, and Customs that seem not due to Education. As to their Women (besides the other things) may be observed their Fruitfulness or Barrenness; their hard or easy Labour, &c. And both in Women and Men must be taken notice of what diseases they are subject to, and in these whether there be any symptome, or any other Circumstance, that is unusual and remarkable.

As to the _External_ Productions of the Earth, the Inquiries may be such as these: What Grasses, Grains, Herbs, (Garden and Wild) Flowers, Fruit-trees, Timber-trees (especially any Trees, whose wood is considerable) Coppices, Groves, Woods, Forrests, &c. the Country has or wants: What peculiarities are observable in any of them: What Soyles they most like or dislike; and with what Culture they thrive best. What _Animals_ the Country has or wants, both as to wild Beasts, Hawks, and other Birds of Prey; and as to Poultrey, and {189} Cattle of all sorts, and particularly, whether it have any _Animals_, that are not common, or any thing, that is peculiar in those, that are so.

The _Internal_ Productions or Concealments of the Earth are here understood to be, the riches that ly hid under the Ground, and are not already referr'd to other Inquiries.

Among these _Subterraneal_ observations may be taken notice of, what sorts of Minerals of any kind they want, as well as what they have; _Then_, what Quarries the Country affords, and the particular conditions both of the Quarries and the Stones: As also, how the Beds of Stone lye, in reference to North and South, &c. What Clays and Earths it affords, as Tobacco-pipe-clay, Marles, Fullers-earths, Earths for Potters wares, Bolus's and other medicated Earths: What other Minerals it yields, as Coals, Salt-Mines, or Salt-springs, Allom, Vitrial, Sulphur, &c. What Mettals the Country yields; and a description of the Mines, their number, scituation, depth, signs, waters, damps, quantities of ore, goodness of ore, extraneous things and ways of reducing their ores into Mettals, &c.

To these General Articles of inquiries (saith their _Proposer_) should be added; 1 _Inquiries_ about _Traditions_ concerning all particular things, relating to that Country, as either peculiar to it, or at least, uncommon elsewhere, 2 _Inquiries_, that require _Learning_ or _Skill_ in the Answerer: to which should be subjoyned _Proposals_ of ways, to enable men to give Answers to these more difficult inquiries.

_Thus far_ our Author, who, as he has been pleased to impart these _General_ (but yet very _Comprehensive_ and greatly _Directive_) Articles; so, 'tis hoped from his own late intimation, that he will shortly enlarge them with _Particular_ and _Subordinate_ ones. These, in the mean time, were thought fit to be publisht, that the Inquisitive and Curious, might, by such an Assistance, be invited not to delay their searches of matters, that are so highly conducive to the improvement of _True Philosophy_, and the wellfare of _Mankind_. {190}

* * * * *

_An Extract of a Letter, Written from _Holland_, about _Preserving of Ships from being Worm-eaten_._

This _Extract_ is borrowed from the _French journal des Scavans_ of _Febr._ 15. 1666. and is here inserted, to excite Inventive heads _here_, to overtake the Proposer in _Holland_. The letter runs thus:

Although you have visited our Port (_Amsterdam_) I know not whether you have noted the ill condition, our ships are in, that return from the _Indies_. There is in those Seas a kind of small worms, that fasten themselves to the Timber of the ships, and so pierce them, that they take water every where; or if they do not altogether pierce them thorow, they so weaken the wood, that it is almost impossible to repair them. We have at present a Man here, that pretends to have found an admirable secret to remedy this evil. That, which would render this secret the more important, is, that hitherto very many ways have been used to effect it, but without success. Some have imployed Deal, Hair and Lime, &c. and therewith lined their ships; but, besides that this does not altogether affright the worms, it retards much the ship's Course. The _Portugals_ scorch their ships, insomuch that in the quick works there is made a coaly crust of about an _Inch_ thick. But as this is dangerous, it happening not seldom, that the whole vessel is burnt; so the reason why worms eat not thorow _Portugal_ ships, is conceived to be the exceeding hardness of the Timber, employed by them.

We expect with impatience the nature and effect of this Proposition. Many have already ventur'd to give their thoughts concerning it. Some say, there needs no more, but to build Ships of a harder kind of Wood, than the usual. Others having observed, that these Worms fasten not to a kind of wild _Indian_ Pear-tree, which is highly bitter, do thereupon {191} suggest, that the best Expedient would be, to find out a Wood having that quality. But certainly there being now no Timber, fit for Ships, that is not known, 'tis not likely that any will be found either more hard, or more bitter, than that, which has been hitherto employed. Some do imagine, that the Proposer will, by certain _Lixiviums_, give to the ordinary Wood such a quality and bitterness, as is found in the already mention'd _Indian_ Pear-tree. But this also will hardly succeed, since it will be requisite not only to make _Lixiviums_, in great quantities at an easie rate, and strong enough to penetrate the thick sides of a Ship, but also to make them durable enough, not to be wash't out by the Sea. Yet notwithstanding, in these matters one ought to suspend on's judgement, untill experience do shew, what is to be believed of them.

_So far the Extract._ To which it may perhaps not be unseasonable to add, that a very worthy person in _London_, suggests the Pitch, drawn out of Sea coles, for a good Remedy to scare away these noysome insects.

* * * * *

_An Account of a Book, very lately publish't, entituled, _The Origine of Forms and Qualities_, illustrated by Considerations and Experiments, by the Honourable _Robert Boyle_._

This Curious and Excellent Piece, is a kind of _Introduction_ to the _Principles_ of the _Mechanical Philosophy_, explicating, by very Considerable Observations and Experiments, what may be, according to such Principles, conceived of the _Nature and Origine of Qualities and Forms_; the knowledge whereof, either makes or supposes the Fundamental and Useful part of _Natural Philosophy_. In doing of which, the Author, to have his way the clearer, writes rather for the _Corpuscularian_ Philosophers (as he is pleased to call them) in _General_, than any {192} _Party_ of them, keeping himself thereby disengaged from adopting an _Hypothesis_, in which perhaps he is not so throughly satisfied, and of which he does not conceive himself to be necessitated to make use here; and accordingly forbearing to employ Arguments, that are either grounded on, _or_ suppose _Atoms_, _or_ any _Innate Motion_ belonging to them; _or_ that the Essence of Bodies consists in Extension; _or_ that a _Vacuum_ is impossible; _or_ that there are such _Globuli Cælestes, or_ such a _Materia Subtilis_, as the _Cartesians_ imploy to explicate most of the _Phænomena_ of Nature.

The _Treatise_ consisting of a _Speculative_, and an _Historical_ part, the Author, with great modesty leaves the _Reader_ to judge; _Whether_ in the _First_ part he hath treated of the _Nature_ and _Origine of Forms and Qualities_ in a more Comprehensive way, than others; _Whether_ he has by fit Examples, and other means, rendred it more intelligible, than they have done: _Whether_ he has added any considerable number of Notions and Arguments towards the compleating and confirming of the proposed _Hypothesis_: _Whether_ he has with reason dismissed Arguments unfit to be relied on; and _Whether_ he has proposed some Notions and Arguments so warily, as to keep them from being liable to Exceptions and Evasions, whereto they were obnoxious, as others have proposed them. And, as to the _Second_ and _Historical_ part, he is enclin'd to believe that the _Reader_ will grant, he hath done that part of _Physicks_, he is treating of, some service, by strengthning the doctrines of the _New Philosophy_ (as 'tis call'd) by such particular Experiments, whose Nature and Novelty will render them as well Acceptable as Instructive.

The _summe_ of the _Hypothesis_, fully and clearly explicated in the _First_ Part, is this;

That all Bodies are made of _one Catholick matter_, common to them all, and differ but in _Shape, Size, Motion_ or _Rest_, and _Texture_ of the small parts, they consist off; from which {193} Affections of Matter, the _Qualites_, that difference particular Bodies, result: whence it may be rationally concluded, that one kind of Bodies may be transmuted into another; _that_ being in effect no more, than that one Parcel of the Universal Matter, wherein all Bodies agree, may have a _Texture_ produced in it, like the _Texture_ of some other Parcel of Matter, common to them both.

To this _Hypothesis_, is subjoin'd an Examination of the _Scholastick_ opinion of _Substantial Forms_; where the Author, _first_, States the Controversie; _next_, gives the Principal reasons, that move him to oppose that Opinion; _then_, answers the Main arguments employed to evince it; _further_, assigns both the _First_ Cause of Forms (_God_;) and the Grand _Second_ Cause thereof (_Local Motion_:) and _lastly_, proves the _Mechanical_ Production of _Forms_; grounding his proof, _partly_ upon the Manner, by which such a _Convention of Accidents_, as deserve to pass for a _Form_, may be _produced_; as that the Curious Shapes of _Salts_ (believed to be the admirablest Effects and strongest Proofs of _Substantial Forms_) may be the Results of _Texture_; _Art_ being able to produce Vitriol, as well as _Nature_: _partly_, upon the possibility of _Reproducing_ Bodies by skill, that have been deprived of their reputed _Substantial Forms_: Where he alledges the _Redintegration of Saltpetre_, successfully performed by himself; though his Attempts, made upon the dissipation and re-union of _Amber_, _Allum_, _Sea-Salt_, and _Vitriol_, proved (by reason of _accidental_ hindrances rather, than of any impossibility in the Nature of the Thing) less successful.

In the _Second_ and _Historical_ Part, the Author, appealing to the Testimony of Nature, to verifie his Doctrine, sets down, _both_ some _Observations_, of what Nature does without being over-ruled by the power and skill of man; and some _Experiments_, wherein Nature is guided, and as it were, mastered by Art.

The _Observations_ are four.

1. The _First_ is taken from what happens in the _Hatching of_ {194} _an Egge_; out of the _White_ whereof, which is a substance Similar, insipid, soft, diaphanous, colourless, and readily dissoluble in cold water, there is by the _New_ and _Various_ contrivement of its small parts, caused by the Incubation of the Hen, an Animal produced, some of whose parts are opacous, some red, some yellow, some white, some fluid, some consistent, some solid and frangible, others tough and flexible, some well, some ill-tasted, some with springs, some without springs, &c.

2. The _Second_ is fetcht from _Water_, which being fluid, tastless, inodorous, diaphanous, colourless, volatile, &c. may by a _Differing Texture_ of its parts, be brought to constitute Bodies, having qualities very distant from these, as _Vegetables_, that have firmeness, opacity, odors, tasts, colours, Medicinal vertues; yielding also a true _Oyle_, that refuses to mingle with _Water_, &c.

3. The _Third_, from _Inoculation_; wherein, a small _Bud_ is able to transmute all the sap, that arrives at it, as to make it constitute a Fruit quite otherwise qualified, then that, which is the _genuine_ production of the Tree, so that the same sap, that in one part of the Branch constitutes (for Instance) a _Cluster of Haws_, in another part of the same Branch, may make a _Pear_. Where the Author mentions divers other very considerable Effects of Inoculations, and inserts several Histories, all countenancing his doctrine.

4. The _Fourth_, from _Putrified Cheese_; wherein, the _rotten_ part, by the alteration of its Texture, will differ from the _Sound_, in colour, odor, taste, consistence, vermination, &c.

The Experiments are ten.

1. _A Solution of Vitriol and Camphire_; in which by a change of Texture, appear'd the Production of a deep colour from a {195} white Body, and a clear Liquor without any external heat: The destruction of this Colour, by adding only some fair water: The change of an Odorous Body, _as Camphire_, into an Inodorous, by mixing it with a Body, that has scarce any sensible odour of its own: The sudden restauration of the _Camphire_ to its native scent and other qualities, by common water, &c.

2. _Sublimate, distill'd from Copper and Silver_, which both did wholly loose their Metalline forms, and were melted into brittle lumps, with colours quite differing from their own; both apt to imbibe the moisture of the Air, &c.

3. _A solution of silver into Luna Cornea_: Whereby the opacous, malleable and hardly fusible Body of _Silver_, was, by the addition of a little spirit of salt, reduced into Chrystals, differing from those of other Mettals; diaphanous also, and brittle, and far more easily fusible, than Silver; wholly unlike either a Salt or a Mettal, but very like to a piece of _Horn_, and withall insipid, though the Solution of Silver, be very bitter, and the spirit of salt, highly sowre, &c.

4. _An Anomalous Salt_; (which the Author had not, it seems the liberty to teach the Preparation off) whose Ingredients were purely Saline, and yet the Compound, made up only of salt, sowre, and strongly tasted Bodies, was rather _really_ sweet, than of any other taste , and when a little urged with heat, its odour became stronger, and more insupportable than that of _Aqua fortis_, _distilled Urine_ and even _spirit of salt Ammoniack_; but yet when these Fumes settled again into salt, their odour would again prove inoffensive, if not pleasant &c.

5. _A Sea-salt, whence Aqua fortis had been distilled_: Where the Liquor, that came over, proved an _Aqua Regis_: the substance in the bottom, had not onely a mild taste, and {196} affected the Pallat much more like salt-peter, than Common salt; but was also very fusible, and inflammable, though produced of two un-inflammable bodies: and the same substance, consisting of _Acid_ salts, by a certain way of the Author, produced a _Fixt_ salt.

6. _Oyle of Vitriol poured upon a Solution of Bay-salt:_ whence was abstracted a liquor, that by the smell and Taste appeared to be a spirit of salt. In which operation, the mixture, by working a great change of Texture, did so alter the nature of the compounding Bodies, that the sea-salt, though a considerably fixt Body, was distill'd over in a moderate Fire of sand, whilst the Oyl of Vitriol, though no such gross salt, was by the same operation so fixt, as to stay behind: Besides that the same, by a competent heat yeilded a substance, though not insipid, yet not at all of the taste of Sea-salt, or of any other pungent one, much less having the highly corrosive acidity of oyl of Vitriol, &c.

7. _A dissolvent, made by pouring a strong spirit of Nitre on the rectified Oyl of the Butter of Antimony, and then distilling off all the liquor, that would come over, &c._ This _Menstruum_ (called by the Author _Peracutum_) being put to highly refined Gold, destroyed its Texture, and produced, after the method prescribed in the book, a _true Silver_, as its whiteness in colour, dissolublenes in _Aqua fortis_, and odious Bitterness, did manifest: which change of a Mettal, commonly esteemed to be absolutely indestructible by Art, though it be far from being _Lucriferous_, is yet exceedingly _Instructive_; as is also the way, the Author here adds, of _Volatilizing_ Gold, by the power of the same _Dissolvent_.

8. _Aqua fortis, concoagulated with differing Bodies_, produced very differing Concretes: And the same Numeral Saline Corpuscles, that being associated with those of one Mettal, had already produced a Body eminent in one Taste, did {197} afterwards, being freed from that Body, compose a Liquor of a very differing taste; and after _that_ too, being combin'd with the parties of another Mettal, did with them constitute a Body of a very eminent Taste, as opposite as any one can be to both the other Tasts; and yet these Saline Corpuscles, being instead of this second Mettal, associated with such a one as that, they are driven from, did therewith exhibite again the first of the three mention'd Tasts.

9. _Water transmuted into Earth_, though the Author saith of this Transmutation, that it was not so perfect, as he wish'd, and as he hopes to make it.

10. _A mixture of Oyle of Vitriol and Spirit of Wine._ These two Liquors, being of odd Textures in reference to each other, their conjunction and distillation made them exhibite these _Phænomena_: _vid._ That, whereas Spirit of Wine has no great, nor good scent, and moderately dephlegm'd Oyl of Vitriol is wont to be inodorous; the Spirit, that first came over from their mixture, had a scent not only very differing from Spirit of Wine, but from all things else, that the Author ever smelt; the Odor being very fragrant & pleasant, and so subtle, that in spight of the care taken in luting the Glasses exactly together, it would perfume the neighbouring parts of the _Laboratory_, and afterwards smell strongly at some distance from the Viol, wherein it was put, though stopt with a close Cork covered with two or three several Bladders. But, after this volatile and odoriferous Spirit was come over, and had been follow'd by an Acid Spirit, it was at last succeeded by a strongly stinking Liquor, &c.

But _Manum de Tabula_: the Book it self will certainly give a satisfaction far beyond what here can be said of it. {198}

* * * * *

_Some New observations about the Planet _Mars_, communicated since the Printing of the former sheets._

There was very lately produced a Paper, containing some observations, made by Mr. _Hook_, about the Planet _Mars_; in the _Face_ whereof he affirmed to have discovered, in the late months of _February_ and _March_, that there are several _Maculæ_ or _Spotted parts_, changing their place, and not returning to the same Position, till the next ensuing night near about the same time. Whence it may be collected, that _Mars_ (as well as _Jupiter_, and the _Earth_, &c.) does move about his own _Axis_, of which a fuller account will be given hereafter, God permitting. This short and hasty intimation of it, is intended onely to invite others, that have opportunity, timely to make Observations, (either to confirm, or rectify) before _Mars_ gets out of sight.

* * * * *

Printed with Licence for _John Martyn_, and _James Allestry_, Printers to the Royal Society. 1666.

{199}

* * * * *

_Num._ 12.

PHILOSOPHICAL _TRANSACTIONS._

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_Munday_, _May_ 7. 1666.

* * * * *

The Contents.

_A way of Preserving Birds taken out of the Egge, and other small _Fetus's_; communicated by _Mr. Boyle_. An Extract of a Letter, lately sent to _Sr. Robert Moray_ out of _Virginia_, concerning an unusuall way of Propagating Mulberry-trees there, for the better improvement of the _Silk-Work_; together with some other particulars, tending to the good of that _Royall_ Plantation. A Method, by which a Glass of a small Plano-Convex Sphere may be made to refract the Rayes of Light to a _Focus_ of a far greater distance, than is usuall. Observations about _Shining Worms_ in Oysters. Observations of the Effects of _Touch_ and _Friction_. Some particulars, communicated from forrain Parts, concerning the Permanent _Spott_ in _Jupiter_; and a contest between two Artists about _Optick-Glasses_, &c. An Account of a Book written by _Dr. Thomas Sydenham_, entituled, _Methodus Curandi Febres, propriis Observationibus superstructa_._

* * * * *

_A way of preserving Birds taken out of the Egge, and other small _Fætus's_; communicated by _Mr. Boyle_._

This was imparted in a Letter, as follows;

[Sidenote: * _In the Usefulness of Experimental Philosophy._]