An Account of a Book, Very Lately Published

gest, 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 easy 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, until 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 Party Party of them, keeping himself thereby disengaged from adopting an Hypothesis, in which perhaps he is not so thoroughly 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 Celestes, or such a Materia Subtilis, as the Cartesians imply to explicate most of the Phanomena 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, rendered 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 inclin'd to believe, that the Reader will grant, he hath done that part of Physicks, he is treating of, some service, by strengthening 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 Affe- otions 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 Scholastic opinion of Substantial Forms; where the Author, first, States the Controversies; 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 verify 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 an Egg; 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, tasteless, 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 firmness, opacity, odors, tasts, colours, Medicinal virtues; yielding also a true Oyle, that refuses to mingle with Water, &c. 3. The Third, from Inoculation; wherein, a small Bud is able so 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 Hams, 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 white 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: V Whereby the opacous, malleable and hardly fusible Body of Silver, was, by the addition of a little spirit of salt, reduced into Chrystal, differing from those of other Metals; diaphanous also, and brittle, and far more easily fusible, than Silver; wholly unlike either a Salt or a Metal, 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 fowre, &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, fowre, 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 Armoniack; but yet when these Fumes settled again into salt, their odour would again prove inoffensive, if not pleasant, &c. 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 only a mild taste, and 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 powell 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 luciferous, 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 af- terwards, 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 Phenomena: 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 stop't 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 itself will certainly give a satisfaction far beyond what here can be said of it;