An Account of Some Books, Lately Published

sidered it in relation to the Sun, in respect whereof, its motion is regular, he considers the same in relation to the Earth, where we observe it; and shews by the means of his Tables, what is to be added or subtracted, to know, at what time the said Spot is to come into the middle of Jupiter's Diske, according as he is Oriental or Occidental. He hath also considered it in relation to an unmovable point, which he has supposed to be the first point of Aries, because we thither refer here upon Earth the beginning of all the Celestial motions, and there is the Primum mobile, that one would imagine, if we were in Jupiter, as we do here imagine Ours of 24 hours. The Discovery is one of the best, that have been yet made in the Heavens; and those, that hold the Motion of the earth, find in it a full Analogy. For, Jupiter turning about the Sun, does nevertheless turn about his Axis; and although he be much bigger than the Earth, he does nevertheless turn much more swiftly than it, since he makes more than two Turns, and a third part, for its one, and carries with him 4 Moons, as the Earth does one. This Observation ought to excite all Curious persons to endeavour the perfecting of Optick &c., to the end that it may be discovered, whether the other Planets, as Mars, Venus and Mercury, about whom no Moon hath as yet been discovered, do yet turn about their Axes, and in how much time they do so; especially Mars, in whom some Spot is discover'd, and Venus, wherein M Burattini hath signified from Poland, he has observ'd Inequalities, as in the Moon. It will be worth while, to watch for the seeing of Jupiter again this Spring, that this happy Observation may be confirmed in divers places, and endeavours used to make new ones. An Account of some Books, lately published. I. Hydrostatical Paradoxes, made out by New Experiments (for the most part Physical, and Easte) by the Honourable Robert Boyle. This Treatise, promised in Numb.8, of these Papers, is now come forth: And was occasioned by the perusal of the Learned Monsieur Paschals Tract, Of the Æquilibrium of Liquors, and of the Weight of the Air: Of which two Subjects, the latter having been more clearly made out in England by Experiments, which could not be made by Monsieur Paschal and others, that wanted the advantage of such Engines and Instruments, as have here been frequently made use Our Noble Author insists most upon giving us his thoughts of the former, videl. the *Æquilibrium* of Liquors: Which Discourse consisting partly of Conclusions, and partly of Experiments, the former seem to Him, to be almost all of them consonant to the Principles and Laws of the Hydrostaticks; but as for the latter, the Experimental proofs, offered by M. Paschall for his Opinions, are by our Author esteemed such, that he confesses, he hath no mind to make use of them: for which he alledges more reasons than ones which, doubtless, will appear very satisfactory to Intelligent Readers. Wherefore, instead of those Paschalian Experiments, there is in this Treatise deliver'd a far more Expeditious way, to make out, not only most of the Conclusions, agreed on by these two Authors, but others also, that M. Paschall mentions not; and that with so much more ease and clearness, that persons, but ordinarily versed in the common principles of Hydrostaticks, may readily apprehend, what is deliver'd, if they will but bring with them a due Attention, and Minds disposed to prefer Reason and Experience to Vulgar opinions and Authors. It not being our Authors present Task, to deliver a Body of Hydrostaticks, but only some Paradoxes, which he conceives to be proveable by his New way of making them out, he delivers them in as many distinct Propositions; after each of which, he endeavours, in a Proof, or an Explication, to show both that it is true, and why it ought to be so. The Paradoxes themselves (after a premised Postulatum) are these: 1. That in Water, and other Fluids, the Lower parts are press'd by the Upper. 2. That a lighter Fluid may gravitate or weigh upon a heavier. 3. That, if a Body, contiguous to the Water, be altogether, or in part, lower than the highest level of the said Water, the lower part of the Body will be press'd upward by the Water, that touches it beneath. 4. That in the Ascension of Water in Pumps, &c. there needs nothing to raise the Water, but a Competent weight of an External Fluid. 5. That the pressure of an External Fluid is able to keep an Heterogeneous Liquor suspended at the same height in several Pipes, though these Pipes be of very different Diameters. 6. If a Body be placed under Water, with its uppermost Surface parallel to the Horizon; how much Water soever there may be on this or that side above the Body, the direct pressure sustained by the Body (for we now consider not the Lateral nor the Recoyling pressure, to which the Body may be exposed, if quite environed with Water) is no more than that of a Column of water, having the Horizontal Superficies of the Body for its Basis, and the Perpendicular depth of the Water for its height. And so likewise, If the Water, that leans upon the Body, be contained in Pipes open at both ends; the pressure of the Water is to be estimated by the weight of a pillar of Water, whose Basis is equal to the lower Orifice of the Pipe (which we suppose to be parallel to the Horizon) and its height equal to a perpendicular, reaching thence to the top of the Water; though the Pipe be much inclined towards the Horizon, or though it be irregularly shap'd, and much broader in some parts, than the said Orifice. 7. That a Body, immersed in a Fluid, sustains a Lateral pressure from the Fluid; and that increased, as the depth of the immersed Body, beneath the Surface of the Fluid, increaseth. 8. That Water may be made as well to depress a Body lighter than itself, as to buoy it up. 9. That, whatever is said of Positive Levity, a parcel of Oyl lighter than Water, may be kept in Water without ascending in it. 10. That the cause of the Ascension of Water in Syphons, and of its flowing through them, may be explicated without having recourse to Nature's abhorrency of a Vacuum. 11. That a Solid Body, as ponderous as any yet known, though near the Top of the water it will sink by its own weight; yet if it be placed at a greater depth, than that of twenty times its own thickness; it will not sink, if its descent be not assisted by the weight of the incumbent Water. These are the Paradoxes, evinced by our Author with much evidence and exactness; and very likely to invite Ingenious men to cultivate and to make further disquisitions in so excellent a part of Philosophy, as are the Hydrostaticks; an Art deserving great Elogiums, not only, upon the account of its Theorems and Problems, which are most of them pure and handsome productions of Reason, very delightful and divers of them surprising, and besides, much conducing to the clear explication and thorough-understanding ing of many both familiar and abstruse Phenomena of Nature; but also, upon the score of its Practical use, since the Propositions, it teaches, may be of great importance to Navigation, and to those that inquire into the Magnitudes and Gravities of Bodies, as also to them, that deal in Salt-works: Besides, that the Hydrostaticks may be made divers waies serviceable to Chymists, as the Author intimates, and intends to make manifest, upon several occasions, in his yet unpublisht part of the Usefulness of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. These Propositions are shut up by two important Appendixes, whereof the one contains an Answer to seven Objections by a late learned Writer, to evince, that the upper parts of water press not upon the lower; the other, solves that difficult problem, why Urinators or Divers, and others, who descend to the bottom of the Sea, are not oppressed with the weight of the incumbent water? where, among other solutions, that is examined, which occurs in a printed Letter of Monsieur des Cartes, but is found unsatisfactory. II. Nicolai Stenonis de Musculis & Glandulis Observationum specimen i cum duabus Epistolis Anatomicis. In the specimen itself, the Author, having described in general, both the Structure and the Function of the Muscles, applies that description to the Heart, to demonstrate that that is also a true Muscle: Observing first, that in the substance of the Heart there appears nothing but Arteries, Veins, Nerves, Fibres, Membrans; and that that, & nothing else is found in a Muscle; affirming withall, that which is commonly taught of the Muscles, and particularly of the Heart's Parenchyma, as distinct from Fibres, is due, not to the Sense, but the Wit of Anatomists: so that he will not have the Heart made up of a substance peculiar to itself, nor considered as the principle of Innate heat, or of Sanguification, or of vital spirits. He observes next, that the Heart performs the like operation with the Muscles, to wit, to contract the Flesh; which action how it can have a different cause from that of the Contraction made in the Muscles', where there is so great a parity and agreement in the Vessels, he sees not. And as for the Phenomena, that occur, of the Motion of the Heart, he undertakes to explicate them all, from the Ductus or Position of the Fibres; but refers for the performance of this undertaking to another Treatise, he intends to publish. As to his Observations about Glands, he affirms, that he has been the First that has discover'd that Vessel, which by him is call'd Salivare, Salivare Exterius, passing from the Parotides (or the two chief Arteries that are on the right and left side near the Throat) into the Mouth, and conveying the Spittle: Where he also gives an account of several other Vessels and Glanduls, some about the Lips; others under the Tongue; others in the Palate &c. To which he adds the Vessels of the Eye-lids, which have their root in the Glanduls that are about the Eyes, and serve for the Shedding of Tears. He mentions also several things about the Lymphatic vessels, and is of opinion, that the knowledge thereof may be much illustrated by that kind of Glanduls that are called Conglobate, and by their true insertion into the veins; the mistake of the latter whereof he conceives to have very much misled the Noble Ludovicus de Bills, notwithstanding his excellent method of dissection. And here he observes first, that all the Lymphatic vessels have such a commerce with the Glanduls, that none of them is found in the body, which either has not its origine from, or is inserted into a Glandule: And then, that Glanduls are a kind of Strainers, so form'd, that whilst the Blood passes out of the Arteries into the Veins through the small Capillary vessels, the Serous parts thereof, being freed from the Sanguinous, are by virtue of the heat expell'd through its pores into the Capilaries of the Lymphatics; the direction of the Nerves concurring. Of the two annex'd Epistles, the First gives an account of the dissection of two Raja's, or Skates, and relates that the Author found in the bellies of these Fishes a Haddock of 1½ span long, and a Sole, a Plaice, and nine middle-sized Sea-crabs; whereof not only the three former had their flesh, in the fishes stomack, turn'd into a fluid, and the Gristles or Bones into a soft substance, but the Crabs had their shells comminuted into very small particles, tinging here and there the Chyle near the Pylorus; which he judges to be done not so much by the heat of the Fishes stomack, as by the help of some digesting juice. Coming to the Uterus of these Fishes, he takes occasion to examine, with what ground several famous Naturalists and Anatomists have affirm'd, that Eggs are the uterus exposed or ejected out of the body of the Animal. Taking a view of their Heart, he there finds but one ventricle, and discourses of the difficulty arising from thence. As for the Lungs, he saw no clearer footsteps of them in these, than he had done in other Fishes: but within the mouth he trac'd several gaping fissures, and found the recesses of the Gills so form'd, that the water taken in at the mouth, being let out by these pores, cannot by them re-enter, by reason of a skin, outwardly passing over every hole, and covering it. Where he intimates, that though Fishes have not true Lungs, yet they want not a Succedaneum thereto; to wit, the Gills; and if water may be to Fishes, what Air is to terrestrial Animals, for Respiration: asserting, that whereas nothing is so necessary for the conservation of Animal life, as a reciprocal Access and Recess of the Ambient to the sanguineous vessels, tis all one, whether that be done by receiving the Ambient within the body, or by its gentle passing by the Prominent vessels of the Gills. The other Epistle contains some Ingenious Observations, touching the way, by which the Chicken, yet in the shell, is nourish't, videl. not by the conveyance of the Yolk into the Liver by the Umbilical vessels, r. or into the Stomack by the Mouth, but by a peculiar ductus, by him described, into the Intestines, where, according to his alleged experience, it is turn'd into Chyle: which he affirms, he hath discover'd, by taking an Egge from under a brooding Hen, when the Chicken was ready to break forth, and when he was looking for the passage of the Yolk, out of its integument into the Liver, by finding it pass thence into the Intestines, as he found the white to do by the mouth into the belly. Whence he inclines to infer, that, since every fetus takes in at the mouth the liquor it swims in, and since the Chicken receives the white of the Egge into the mouth, and the yolk by the new discover'd ductus into the Intestines, it cannot be certainly made out, that a part of the Chyle is conveyed into the Liver, before it passes into the Heart: Exhorting in the mean time the Patrons of the Liver, that they would produce Experiments to evince their Ratiocinations. III. Regneri de Graeff, de Succi Pancreatici Natura & usu, Exercitatio Anatomico-medica. In this Tract, the Industrious Author, after he has enumerated the various opinions of Anatomists concerning the use of that kernelly substance, call'd Pancreas (in English, the Sweetbread) endeavours to prove experimentally that this Glandule was not form'd by Nature, to separate any Excrementitious humor, and to convey it into the Intestines, but to prepare an useful juice out of the Blood and Animal spirits, of a somewhat Acid taste, and to carry the same into the Gut, call'd Duodenum, to be there mixt with the Aliment, that has been in some degree already fermented in the Stomack, for a further fermentation, to be produced by the conflux of the said acid Pancreatic juice and some Bilious matter, abounding with volatile Salt, causing an Effervescence; which done, that juice is together with the purer part of the nourishment carried into the Milkie veins, thence into the common receptacle of the Chyle and Lymphatick liquor, and so through the ductus Thoracicus into the right Ventricle of the Heart. This Assertion, first advanced (faith the Author) partly by Gothfredus Meibius, partly by Franciscus de le Boe Sylvius, he undertakes to prove by experiments; which, indeed, he has with much industry, tried upon several Animals, to the end that he might collect some of this juice of the Pancreas for a taste: which having at last obtained, and found it somewhat acid, he thereupon proceeds to deliver his opinion both of the constitution and quantity of this Succus in healthy Animals, and the vices thereof, in the unhealthy: deriving most diseases partly from its too great Acidity, or from its saltiness, or harshness; partly from its paucity or redundancy: but especially, endeavouring to reduce from thence, as all intermittent Fevers (of all the Phenomena whereof he ventures to assign the causes from this Hypothesis) so also the Gout, Syncope's, Stranguries, Oppilations, Diarrheas, Dysenteries, Hysterical and Colick passions, &c. All which he concludes with mentioning the waies and remedies to cure the manifold peccancy of this juice by Evacuations and Alterations. This seeming to be a new as well as a considerable discovery, it is hop'd, that others will by this intimation be invited to prosecute the same by further experiments, either to confirm what this Author has started, if true, or to rectifie it, if he be mistaken. NOTE. In Fig. 1. of Num. 9. of these Tracts, the Graver hath placed the bended end of the Springing Wire C F, above the Wire-staple B, between it and the Ring E, of the Weight D; whereas that end should have been so expressed, as to pass under the Wire-staple, betwixt its two Wires, into the said Ring. London, Printed for John Martyn, and James Allestry, Printers to the Royal Society. 1666.