forth I think if Ingenious Men knew how much Trouble and Exercise of my patience it has cost me they would peradventure vouchsafe me some of their thanks if not for what I have done yet for what I have suffer'd for their sakes and would scarce have undergone upon any Inferior account whatsoever it being though a less Noble yet no less Troublesome an Imployment to Dig in Mines of Copper then in those of Gold and Men being oftentimes obliged to Suffer as much Wet and Cold and Dive as deep to fetch up Sponges as to fetch up Pearls Errata PAge 5. line 17. read that in not nice for that even in nice p. 46. l. 8. r. effected p. 48. l. 16. dele and together with p. 82. l. 28. r. 28. chapter p. 178. l. 7. dele which p. 266. l. 22. r. it did rise four inches p. 292. l. 6. r. that stood on the ice p. 302. l. 9. r. three for thee p. 380. l. 10. r. cemented by intercepted and then frozen water instead of congealed by cold water p. 488. l. 11. r. 52. degr 52. min. In the Appendix of Dr. Merret pag. 35. lin 36. read upon these mixtures not in The Contents of the Experimental History of Cold. Title I. EXperiments touching Bodies capable of Freezing others pag. 108. Title II. Experiments and Observations touching Bodies disposed to be Frozen p. 133. Title III. Experiments touching Bodies Indisposed to be Frozen p. 140. Title IV. Experiments and Observations touching the degrees of Cold in several Bodies p. 149. Title V. Experiments touching the Tendency of Cold upwards or downwards p. 173. Title VI. Experiments and Observations 〈◊〉 the Preservation and Destruction of Eggs Aples and other Bodies by Cold. p. 184. Title VII Experiments touching the Expansion of Water and Aqueous Liquors by Freezing p. 222. Title VIII Experiments touching the Contraction of Liquors by Cold. p. 237. Title IX Experiments in Consort touching the Bubbles from which the Levity of Ice is supposed to proceed p. 245. Title X. Experiments about the measure of the Expansion and the Contraction of Liquors by Cold. p. 279. Title XI Experiments touching the Expansive force of Freezing Water p. 296. Title XII Experiments touching a new way of estimating the Expansive force of Congelation and of highly compressing Air without Engines p. 382. Title XIII Experiments and Observations touching the Sphere of Activity of Cold. p. 328. Title XIV Experiments touching differing Medium's through which Cold may be diffused p. 345. Title XV. Experiments and Observations touching Ice p. 364. Title XVI Experiments and Observations touching the duration of Ice and Snow and the destroying of them by the Air and several Liquors p. 396. Title XVII Considerations and Experiments touching the Primum Frigidum p. 412. Title XVIII Experiments and Observations touching the Coldness and Temperature of the Air. p. 464. Title XIX Of the strange Effects of Cold. p. 520. Title XX. Experiments touching the weight of Bodies Frozen and unfrozen p. 550. Title XXI Promiscuous Experimeuts and Observations concerning Cold. p. 575. AN ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READERS OF The following Experiments by the Author of the foregoing History AT the same time that the Royal Society required of me an Account of what I had observed or tried concerning Cold they recommended the making of Trials about that subject to the Learned Dr. C. Merret who having dispatched what he intended much earlier then I could bring in my far more Voluminous Papers he long ago presented His to that Illustrious Company and since That has thought fit to let them indear my Treatise by their being Annexed to it and composing a part of It and that such a part as much might be said of it if after I have inform'd the Reader of its having obtained the Thanks of a Society that is too much accustomed to receive and produce Excellent things to be suspected of valuing Trifles I could think it needful and proper to give those Papers any other Elogium And it falling out fortunately enough That the Doctor and I being at some miles distance did not communicate our Designs to one another as I knew Nothing of what he had been doing till I heard it publickly read at Gresham Colledge when far the greatest part of my Experiments were as is known to more Persons then one already recorded So I afterwards scrupulously abstained from borrowing the Trials mentioned in his Papers to inrich mine which forbearance was the more easie to me because after the first time I heard those Papers read I never Desired a Copy nor Had a Sight of them By this means it happened That besides those many Titles which being handled at large in the History are left untouched in the following Tract even on those Occasions where the Learned Doctor and I happen to treat of the same subjects our Trials are but Very few of them coincident upon which score the Reader will meet with more Variety betwixt us then probably he would have expected to find on such an Occasion Having drawn up this Advertisement about the Doctors Papers as supposing them the very same he presented to the Royal Society upon a sight of the following Sheets as they were some hours since brought me from the Press the Additions I there find make it appear necessary to say something further to the Reader I must inform him then that about the middle of this Winter and about the end of December 1664. I presented to the Royal Society several Books containing each of them Eighteen or Nineteen of the Twenty One Titles whereof my History consists that the Virtuosi might have the Opportunity of the Cold which then began to be so strong as to keep the Press from dispatching the rest of the Book to examine my Experiments and add to them and one of these being delivered to the Doctor as the likeliest Person to make use of it together with an Order tò the Stationer to let him have the remaining Sheets of the Book as fast as they should from time to time be Printed he had the Curiosity as to Enlarge some of the things he had already tried and brought in himself as is intimated in the Forty Sixth Page so to make Trial of some particulars that I had proposed and performed which either their Importance as the way of freezing from the Bottom upwards by me suggested and the weight of Bodies frozen and unfrozen or his Opportunity invited him to make choice of and has been pleased to afford them place among his own Experiments by whichmeans though the coincidence of what we deliver will appear to happen more frequently then the Advertisement will make one expect yet to such Readers as do not prefer Variety before Certainty these coincident Passages will not in likelihood be unacceptable For in those Cases where the Events of our Trials are the same 't is like the Truth will be the more confirmed and in Cases where the successes are very differing the
NEW EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS TOUCHING COLD OR AN EXPERIMENTAL HISTORY OF COLD Begun To which are added An Examen of Antiperistasis And An Examen of Mr. Hobs's Doctrine about COLD By the Honorable Robert Boyle Fellow of the ROYAL SOCIETY Whereunto is annexed An Account of Freezing brought in to the Royal Society by the learned Dr. C. Merret a Fellow of it Non fingendum aut excogitandum sed inveniendum quid natura faciat aut ferat Bacon LONDON Printed for John Crook at the Sign of the Ship in St. Pauls Church-yard MDCLXV THE PUBLISHER TO THE INGENIOUS READER I Am fully perswaded you will much rejoyce to see that Exquisite searcher of Nature the Illustrious Robert Boyle come abroad again as knowing he never does so but when richly furnisht with very Instructive and Useful matter He presents you here with a Treatise of New Observations and Experiments in order to an Experimental History of Cold. This is the Body of the Book but it comes accompanied with some Preliminaries and an Appendix whereof the former contains New Thermometrical Experiments and Thoughts the latter an Exercitation about the Doctrine of Antiperistasis followed with a short Examen of Mr. Hobs ' s Doctrine touching Cold. From all which it will more and more become manifest with what spirit and care this Excellent Person advanceth real Philosophy with what exactness he pursueth his Engagement therein and how great caution he useth that nothing may slide into the Philosophical store that may prove prejudicial to the Axioms and Theories hereafter perhaps to be deduc'd from thence Having thus shortly given you my sense of the substance of this Considerable Treatise I am now to advertise you of one or two circumstances necessary to be taken notice of in its perusal One is that the Noble Author being at Oxford when the Book was printed at London he hopes the Reader will not impute to him the Errors of the Press which yet he is perswaded will not be many and out of which must be excepted a Blank or two occasion'd by this That the Authors Papers being near two years since given to be transcribed to one whose skill in writing was much greater than as it afterwards appear'd his knowledge of what was or was not good sense or true English this person suddenly going for Africk before the Transcript had been examin'd and not taking care to leave all the first Copy the Author found besides several Blanks that he filled up out of his Memory or by repeating the Experiments they belonged to one or two where he was not able to repair the Copists omissions And besides unexpectedly met with very many Passages so miserably handled that by putting him to the trouble of writing almost a New Book when part of this was already in the Press it much retarded the Publication of that which now comes forth The other is That whereas in the Preface some passages are so penned as to suppose the Book to be published early in the Winter the Reader is to be advertis'd That the 〈◊〉 part of the Preface was sent a good while since to the Press though the latter however then written out was hindred from accompanying it by some hopes of the Authors to gain by delay an opportunity he missed of to perfect an Experiment he was desirous to insert and that when the Frost began which was late in the season the Coldness did within a while arrive at that degree that by its operation upon the moisten'd paper it long put a stop to the Proceedings of the Press But the Author that he might neither be quite defeated of his aim nor disappoint the Curious of their Expectation did in the first or second week of the Frost which was about the end of the year 1664. present the Royal Society with divers Copies of the History of Cold though the Book were not then quite printed off And these Books being so near finish'd that of 21. Sections whereof the History of Cold consists the Press had then reach'd to about the 19. and I had the 20. in my hands to supply it when the weather should permit the Author hop'd that by seasonably communicating so much of his intended Treatise to so many of the Virtuosi that were the likeliest to make use of it he had pretty well provided against the Prejudice that might otherwise accrue from the slowness of the Press and therefore allow'd himself to subjoyn to the History the discourse of Antiperistasis and the Examen of Mr. Hobs's Doctrine as belonging to the same subject And finding the frosty weather to continue later than was expected which had he foreseen before his History was printed off it would have given him opportunity of Enlargements he hopes the Publication may not be yet too late for diligent Readers to make some use of the season for examining his Experiments or trying some of the New ones those may suggest And therefore for the quicker dispatch of the Book he purposely omits and reserves for another occasion besides the papers that he hath not yet given me some that I have already in my hands And 't is I presume for the same reason that he forbears to publish what he long since writ about the Origine of Forms and Qualities in a small Tract which he had thoughts of sending forth in the company of the ensuing History as a Discourse fit to be an Introduction as well to That as to his Historical writings about Colours and some other Qualities This is all the Advertisement I had to give you And seeing it would be altogether impertinent for me to take any pains or to use any Art to procure a Gust for a Book composed by Mr. Boyle I have no more to say but that the Author being so Generous as to oblige Forrain Nations as well as his Own has already taken care of having it put into Latine Farewel H. O. London March 10. 1664 5 THE AUTHORS PREFACE INTRODUCTORY COld is so barren a subject and affords so few Experiments that are either very delightful for their surprizing prettiness or very considerable for their immediate use that instead of admiring that any of my friends should wonder at my having been induc'd to write of such a Theme I freely confess that I have been sometimes tempted to wonder at it my self and therefore I think my self oblig'd to give my Readers an account of these three things Why I thought fit to write of Cold at all For what Reasons I have treated of it after the manner to be met with in the ensuing Book And Why I venture my unfinished Collections about it abroad so soon I. To satisfie the first of these Queries I have several things to say And first That the subject I have chosen is very noble and important for since Heat has so general an Interest in the Productions of Natures Phaenomena that Motion excepted of which it is a kind there is scarce any thing in Nature whose
Efficacy is so great and so diffus'd it seems not likely that its Antagonist Cold should be a despicable Quality And certainly Cold and Heat especially when imploy'd by turns are the two grand Instruments by which Nature performs so many of her Operations here below that our great Verulam did not speak inconsiderately when he called Heat the Right hand of Nature and Cold her Left And though in our temperate Climate the Effects of Cold seem not to be very remarkable yet besides that in more Northern Regions they are oftententimes stupendious the Nature of that Quality must needs be very well worth our considering if it were but for the Power it has to 〈◊〉 and check the 〈◊〉 of Heat upon which account alone if there were no other it may be look'd upon as so considerable a Quality that even lesser Discoveries about it may both be acceptable and prove useful In the next place I shall represent that notwithstanding Cold 's being so important a subject it has hitherto been 〈◊〉 most totally neglected For I remember not that any of the Classick Authors I am acquainted with hath said any thing of it that is considerable They do indeed generally treat of it as one of the four first Qualities But that which they are wont to say amounts to little more then that 't is a Quality that does congregate both things of like and things of unlike nature The Unsatisfactoriness of which vulgar Definition I had some years ago an occasion to manifest in another Treatise And having given us this inconsiderate Description of Cold they commonly take leave of the subject as if it deserved no further handling then could be afforded it in a few Lines wherein indeed they say too much about it but not enough And even among other Writers of Bodies of 〈◊〉 Philosophy or of the Doctrine of Meteors it self the Reader will find how little of true and pertinent has been contributed to the ensuing History of Cold. And though among the Vulgar and the Writers that adopt their Traditions without examining them I find same few particulars delivered touching Cold yet some of them are so untrue and others so uncertain that they have furnished me with little else then the necessity of Questioning or of disproving them so that when I considered all these things I could not but take notice that very little has been hitherto said of Cold by those Schoolmen and other Writers that I have yet met with who have professedly though but perfunctorily and as it were incidentally treated of it But yet instead of thinking it a Discouragement that so many Learned Men to whom that Quality could not but be obvious and to whom it was as familiar as to me had in so many Ages said little or nothing of it to the purpose I found this very thing an invitation to my attempt that I might in some measure repair the Omissions of Mankinds Curiosity towards a subject so considerable and so diffus'd by trying what I could do toward founding the History of a Quality which has been hitherto so neglected as if all men judg'd it either unworthy of being cultivated or uncapable to be improved Another inducement to me was that having six or seven years ago written some Tracts though I have not since had opportunity to publish them in order to the History of Heat and Flame it seem'd the more proper for me to treat of the contrary quality Cold since according to the known rule confronted Opposites give themselves a mutual Illustration And another inducement of almost the same Nature was afforded me by remembring that whereas Cold in its higher degrees is wont to be communicated to us by the Air whencesoever the Air has it and I have on several occasions been oblig'd to treat of divers Properties of the Air as of its weight and spring in my Physico-Mechanical Treatise of the several strengths of that spring in proportion to the degrees of the airs Condensation the Experiments of which reduc'd into Tables were first publish'd and for ought I yet know made by us in the defence of that Book against Franciscus Linus and of divers other Qualities of the air in several passages of our other writings which 't were now superfluous to take notice of all this made it appear convenient enough that among other Attributes of the Air which we either have had or expect to have occasion to treat of so eminent and diffus d a one as its Coldness should not be left untouch'd by the same Pen. But though neither any nor all these inducements had been sufficient to ingage me to draw together and recruit my Observations concerning Cold there was another that could not miss of prevailing The Command of the Royal Society impos'd on me in such a way that I thought it would less misbecome me to obey it unskilfully then not at all Especially since from so Illustrious a Company where I have the Happiness not to be hated I may in my endeavours to obey and serve them hope to find my failings both pardoned and made Occasions of discovering the Truths I aim'd at II. After this Account of the Motives that induc'd me to resolve to draw together the Notes I had on several occasions set down about the Phaenomena of Cold it may be now expected that I render some reason why I have thus digested them and why I have not written the following Treatise in a more accurate way First then I readily acknowledge that the Method is not exact Nay that it is less so then the Scheme of heads of Inquiry that I drew up to give my self a general Prospect of the subject I was to handle But when I had considered how comprehensive a Theme I had pitch'd upon and how much more comprehensive future discoveries and hints might make it I thought it altogether unadvisable for me that had no more time nor no more opportunity then I had when I began to compile the following History to engage my self to a method according to which I was not perhaps able to treat of any one of the principal parts of the designed History And yet on the other side being unwilling to huddle my Experiments confusedly together I thought it an expedient that might in great part decline both those Inconveniences to draw up a company of comprehensive Titles under which might commodiously be rang'd most of the Particulars I had observ'd reserving those few that were not so easily referable to any of those to be thrown at last into a Section by themselves And this I the rather did because I would not by a Confinement to a strict method discourage others from continuing the History by adding new Titles to those 21. I have treated of as well as by inserting other Experiments or Observations in any of them That the Sections or Titles are very unequal will not I presume be much blam'd by them that consider that my Design being to set down Matters
Reader will be excited to make further Trials himself and will be thereby enabled to judge which Trials have been the most carefully made and the most warily delivered And though I think it but a Necessary Profession for me to say on this occasion That I am pretty Confident of my having performed my Duty as to the Historical part yet this need not hinder but that most of the differing successes we are speaking of may prove but Instances of the Truth of what I long since admonished the Reader in my Preface That there are among the Experiments of Cold divers that are liable to Contingencies So that as I would not have the Papers of this Learned Man comprehended in what I said of the Jejuness of the Writers I had met with who treat of Cold in a Preface written when I was not sure the following Papers would be made publick so I hope the Reception of these Papers of this Ingenious Person will be such as may invite him to hasten the Publication of those fruits of his Learning and Industry on another subject which divers of the Virtuosi do not more Expect then Desire to have communicated to them AN ADVERTISEMENT THat the Reader may not wonder to find the following Dialogue cited in the History of Cold whereunto nevertheless it is subjoyn'd he is to be inform'd that a Section About Antiperistasis was really both written and transcrib'd before any part of that History was sent to the Press But finding that the Accession of new Particulars had so much swell'd it that 't was unfit to pass as I first design'd it should for one of the Titles of the History of Cold I judg'd it convenient to sever it from the rest upon the score of its bulk and yet annex it to them upon the Account of those many Historical Passages in it that belong to the same subject that is handled in those Sections The Reader will quickly find that the Tract consists of two parts whereof the first which to allow the more Freedom of Inquiry and Discourse written in the way of Dialogue contains an Examen of Antiperistasis without pretending to question it absolutely and indefinitely but rather As it is wont to be Taught and Prov'd And this Dialogue for reasons that it too little concerns the Reader to know and would take up too much time to tell him both begins as a Continuation of some former Discourse and somewhere mentions the Author as a Third or Absent Person And to make it the likelier to other Dialogues the Quotations are not made with the Authors's punctualness in the rest of this Book but yet with his usual Faithfulness nor hath his Introducing men Discoursing as it were by chance kept him from putting into the Margent the very words of some Passages which he thought the most important and likely to be distrusted But though this first Part be entire and finish'd in its kind and so might very well if not best have been put forth Single to invalidate the common Doctrine of Antiperistasis in the sense wherein 't is there oppos'd yet because in Philosophical Matters 't is not so much Victory or Applause that is to be sought as Truth I forbore not to subjoyn to a Discourse that may perchance satisfie most of my Readers some scruples about which I wish'd for further satisfaction and Certainty my self of the chiefest of which the Sceptical Consideration will give the Reader an Account New THERMOMETRICAL EXPERIMENTS And THOUGHTS The I. Discourse Proposing the I. Paradox Viz. That not only our Senses but common Weather-glasses may mis-inform us about Cold. IT may to most men appear a work of needless Curiosity or superfluous diligence to examine sollicitously by what Criterion or way of estimate the Coldness of Bodies and the degrees of it are to be judg'd Since Coldness being a Tactile Quality it seems impertinent to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any other judges of It then the Organs of that sense whose proper object it is And accordingly those great Philosophers Democritus Epicurus Aristotle and till of late all others both Ancient and Modern seem to have contented themselves in the matter with the Reports of their Sensories But this notwithstanding since we can scarce imploy too much care and diligence in the Examining of those 〈◊〉 which we are to Examine many other things by perhaps it will be neither unseasonable nor useless to 〈◊〉 something touching this Subject For though it be true that Cold in its primary and most Obvious Notion be a thing relative to our Organs of Feeling yet since it has also notable Operations on divers other Bodies besides ours And since some of them seem more sensible of its changes and others are less uncertainly affected by them it would be Expedient to take in the Effects of Cold upon other Bodies in the Estimates we make of the degrees of it And to make this appear the more reasonable I shall not scruple to propose the following Paradox namely That our Sensories either alone or assisted by Common Weather-glasses are not too confidently to be relied on in the judging of the degrees of Cold. To make this Paradox Plausible which is almost as much as I here pretend to I shall represent in the first place that the account upon which we are wont to Judge a Body to be Cold seems to be that we feel its particles less vehemently agitated then those of our Fingers or other parts of the Organ of Touching And consequently if the temper of that Organ be chang'd the Object will appear more or less Cold to us though it self continue of one and the same Temper This may be exemplified by what has been observ'd by those that frequent Baths where the milder degrees of heat that are us'd to prepare those that come in for the higher seem very great to them that coming out of the cold Air dispose themselves to go into the Hot Baths but are thought cold and chilling to the same persons when they return thither out of much warmer places which need not be wondred at since those that come out of the cold Air find that of the moderately warm Room more agitated then the cold Ambient would suffer the External Parts of their Bodies to be whereas the same warm Air having yet a less agitation then that in which the hotter parts of the Bath had put the sensitive parts of the Bathers Bodies must seem cold and chilling to Them But 't is not only in such cases as this wherein Men can scarce avoid taking notice of a manifest change in themselves that these mistaken Reports of our senses may have place For oft-times we are impos'd upon by more secret changes in the disposition of our Sensories when there needs something of attention and of Reasoning if not of Philosophy to make us aware of them For being apt to take it for granted that our Temper is the same when there is no very manifest cause why it should be chang'd we
as principally affected by the proper Virtue of the Cold but by the pressure of the Ambient Air as we shall ere long more fully declare And if this be made out then the computation we are considering will be found to be very fallacious for we have elsewhere shown That the strengths requir'd to compress Air are in reciprocal proportion or there abouts to the spaces comprehending the same portion of Air so that if a Cylinder for instance of four Inches of Air be just able to resist a strength or pressure equivalent to 10. pound weight when it comes to be compress'd into two Inches in this case I say an equal force superadded to the former which makes that a double force or equivalent to 20 pound weight will drive up that already comprest Air into half the space that is into one Inch or thereabouts whence it follows that in estimating the condensation of the Air in a Weather-glass we must not only consider how much space it is made to desert but also what proportion that deserted space bears to the whole space it formerly possest and to what degree of density it was reduc'd before the application of the then force and we must remember that the resistence of the included Air is not to be look'd upon as that of a weight which may remain always the same but that of a spring forcibly bent and which is increas'd more and more as it is crowded into less and less Room But these Nicer speculations it would here be somewhat improper to pursue IV. Wherefore I shall proceed to what may seem a Paradox that even the particular Nature of the Liquors imploy'd in Weather-glasses is not altogether to be neglected till we have a better and more determinate Theory of the causes of Cold then I fear we have For though usually it matters not much what Liquor you imploy yet 't is not impossible that in some cases men may slip into mistakes about them for it will not follow that if of two Liquors the one be much the more obnoxious to the higher degree of Cold that of Glaciation the other must be less easily susceptible of the lower degrees of Cold since those that make seal'd Weather-glasses some with water and some with spirit of wine have confessed to me that they find these last nam'd much more apt to receive notable impressions from faint degrees of Cold then those that are furnished but with water and which yet is easily turn'd into Ice by the cold of our Climate which will by no means produce the like effect upon pure spirit of Wine Besides we cannot always safely conclude as Philosophers and Chymists generally do that the more subtile and spirituous Liquors must be the least capable of being congealed that is made to lose its fluidity as oyl and some other substances are wont to be reduc'd to do by the Action of Cold for the Chymical Oyl of Aniseeds distill'd by a Limbeck is so hot and strong a Liquor that a few drops of it conveniently dissolv'd will make a whole Cup of Beer taste as strong and perhaps heat the Body as much as so much Wine and yet this hot and subtile Liquor I have found upon Trial purposely made to be more easily congealable in the sense freshly explain'd by cold then even common water and to continue so several days after a Thaw had resolv'd the common Ice into fluid water again And I know some distill'd Liquors whose component particles are so piercing and so vehemently agitated that the tongue cannot suffer them and they are not perhaps inferior to most Chymical Oyls nor to Aquafortis it self and yet these may be congeal'd by far less degrees of Cold then such as would yet prove ineffectual to freez either the generality of Chymical Oyls or the generality of saline spirits And indeed till we attain to some more determinate Theory of Cold and come to know more touching its causes then we yet do I see not why it should be absurd to suspect that though there be some kind of Bodies which seem fitted to produce Cold indiscriminately in the Bodies they invade or touch yet if the refrigeration of a Body be but the lessening of the wonted or former agitation of its parts from what cause soever that remisness proceeds it seems not impossible but that besides those Bodies or Corpuscles that may be look'd upon as the Catholick Efficients of Cold there may be particular Agents which in reference to this or that particular Body may be call'd frigorifick though they would not so much refrigerate another Body which perhaps would be more easily affected then the former by 〈◊〉 efficients of Cold. For we may observe that Quicksilver may be congeal'd by the Steams of Lead which have not been taken notice of to have any such Effect upon any other fluid Body and yet Quicksilver is not to be depriv'd of its fluidity by such a degree of Cold as would freez not only water but wine And by what we have formerly related upon the credit of that great Traveller the Jesuit Martinius it seems that water it self may in some Regions be so dispos'd by the constitution of the Soyl that 't is susceptible of strange impressions of Cold in proportion to the Effect which that degree of Cold produces there in humane Bodies Besides Opium also of which three or four grains have too oft destroyed the heat of the whole mass of Blood in a mans Body though that be a very hot subtile and spirituous Liquor does not sensibly refrigerate water as far as I could observe with a good seal'd Weather-glass which I put sometimes in a glass of ordinary water and sometimes into a glass of water of the same Temper and as we guess'd of the same Quantity wherein Opium enough to kill very many men was put in thin slices and suffered to dissolve which seems to argue that as differing Liquors have each their peculiar Texture so there may be certain Bodies whose minute particles by their peculiar seize shape and motion may be qualified to hinder or at least lessen the agitation of the particles of the appropriated Liquor into whose pores they insinuate themselves And thereby according to the lately mention'd supposition they may refrigerate that particular Liquor without having the like Effect on other Liquors whose Textures are differing And I might countenance this by adding that as fiery and agitated a spirit as that of wine when well 〈◊〉 is justly thought to be yet I know more liquors then one that being mingled with it will in a trice deprive it of its 〈◊〉 and the like change I have sometimes made in some other liquors also But I must not insist on such matters having mention'd them but only to awaken mens curiosity and circumspection and not to build much upon them which will be easily credited if it be remembred that a little above I my self sufficiently intimated that this Conjecture supposes something about the
down in the slender Stem of a small Weather-glass then the spirit of Wine it self as we have elsewhere shown that when Air is not forc'd a Bubble of it will not in several cases so readily pass through a very narrow passage as would that grosser fluid Water But all these difficulties not to call them extravagances which I have been mentioning about seal'd Weather-glasses I represent not to show that it is at least as yet worth while to suspect ours so far as to imploy all the Diligence and Inventions that were 〈◊〉 to prevent or silence the suspicions of a Sceptick or that might be thought upon in case the matter did require or deserve such extraordinary Nicety but only to give men a rise to consider whether it would be amiss to take in when Occasion presents it self as many collateral Experiments and Observations as conveniently we can to be made use of as well as our Sensories and Weather-glasses in the Dijudications of Cold. And perhaps an Attentive Enquiry purposely made would discover to us several other Bodies Natural or Factitious which we might make some use of in estimating the degrees of Cold. For though to give an instance 〈◊〉 be thought the Liquor that is most susceptible of such an Intensity of Cold as will destroy or suspend its Fluidity yet not here to repeat what we formerly deliver'd of the easie congealableness of Oyl of Aniseeds we have as we elsewhere note to another purpose distill'd a substance from Benzoin which becomes of a fluid a consistent Body and may be reduc'd to the state of fluidity again by very much lesser alterations of the Ambient Air as to Heat and Cold then would have produc'd Ice or Thaw'd it I could also here take notice of what I have sometimes observ'd in Amber-greese dissolv'd in high rectifi'd spirit of Wine or in other Sulphurous or Resinous concretions dissolv'd in the same Liquor for now and then though it seem'd a mere Liquor in warm Weather it would in Cold weather let go part of what it swallow'd up and afterwards redissolve it upon the return of warm weather some of these concretions as I have seen in Excellent Amber-greese shooting into fine figur'd masses others being more rudely congeal'd And I might also add what I have observ'd in Chymical Liquors not unskilfully prepar'd out of Urine Harts-horn c. which would sometimes seem to be totally clear Spirits and at other times would suffer a greater or lesser proportion of Salt to Chrystallize at the Bottom according to the Mutations of the Weather in point of Cold and Heat Such kind of instances I say I could mention but I shall rather chuse to prosecute my Examples in that obviousest of Liquors Water and add that even That may afford us other Testimonies of the increased or lessen'd cold of the Air then that which it gives us in Common Weather-glasses For in some parts of France the Watermen observe that the Rivers will bear Boats heavier loaden in Winter then in Summer and I have upon inquiry been credibly inform'd that Seamen have observ'd their ships to draw less water upon the Coasts of frozen Regions where yet the Sea is wont to be less brackish then they do on our British Seas which argues that water is thicker and heavier in Winter then in Summer Nay I shall add that not only in differing Seasons of the Year but even at several times of the same day I have often observed the Coldness of the Air to be regularly enough so much greater at one time of the day then at another that a Glass bubble Hermetically seal'd and pois'd so as to be exactly of the same weight with its equal Bulk of Water as that Liquor was constituted at one time of the Day would about Noon when the warmth that the Summers Sun produc'd in the Air had somewhat rarifi'd the water and thereby made it bulk for bulk somewhat lighter then before the Bubble would sink to the Bottom of the water which for the better marking the Experiment I kept in a Glass-Tube but when at night the coolness of the Air had recondens'd the water and thereby made it heavier it began by little and little to buoy up the Bubble which usually by morning regain'd the Top of the Water and at other times of the day it not unfrequently happen'd that the Bubble continued swimming up and down betwixt the Top and the Bottom without reaching either of them sometimes staying so long in the same part of the Tube that it much surpriz'd divers of the Virtuosi themselves who thought the poising of a weight so nicely not only a very great difficulty as indeed it is but an insuperable one But of this Experiment I elsewhere say more and because about other Weather-glasses I have said so much already I think it may not be improper to Sum up my thoughts concerning the Criteria of Cold by representing the following particulars 1. That by reason of the various and unheeded predispositions of our Bodies the single and immediate informations of our senses are not always to be trusted 2. That though Common Weather-glasses are useful Instruments and the informations they give us are in most cases preferrable to those of our sense of touching in regard of their not being so subject to unheeded mutations yet ev'n these Instruments being subject to be wrought upon by the differing weights of the Atmosphaere as well as by Heat and Cold may upon that and perhaps some other accounts easily mis-inform us in several cases unless in such Cases we observe by other Instruments the present weight of the Atmosphaere 3. That the seal'd Weather-glasses we have been mentioning are so far preferrable to the Common ones as especially they not being obnoxious to the various pressure of the external Air that there seems no need in most cases to decline their reports or postpose Them to those of any other Instruments But yet in some nice Cases it may be prudent where it may conveniently be done to make use also of other ways of examining the Coldness of Bodies that the concurrence or variance to be met with in such ways of Examination may either confirm the Testimony of the Weather-glass or excite or assist us to a further and severer inquiry 4. That I would not have Men too easily deterr'd from devising and trying various Experiments if otherwise not unlikely or irrational about the estimating of Cold by their appearing disagreeable to the vulgar Notions about that Quality For I doubt our Theory of Cold is not only very imperfect but in great part ill grounded And I should never have ventur'd at trying to make seal'd Weather-glasses if I could have been withheld either by the grand Peripatetick Opinion that to shun a void water must remain suspended in Glasses where if it fall the Air cannot succeed it or the general opinion ev'n of Philosophers as well new as old That Air must be far easier then any visible Liquor
examine this having taken a piece of Ice we did not find upon trials that I partly made my self and partly caus'd in my presence to be made by others that if a mans Eyes were close shut he could certainly discern the Approach of a moderately siz'd piece of Ice though held never so near his fingers ends Nay which is more considerable having had the curiosity to make the Trial with one of those very sensible Thermoscopes I have formerly mention'd wherein a pendulous drop of liquor plays up and down in a slender pipe I found that by holding it very near to little Masses of snow somewhat compacted too the movable drop did not betray any manifest operation of so cold a neighbouring Body but if the glass were made to touch the snow the effect would then be notable by the hasty descent of the pendulous drop or its motion towards the obtuse part of the Instrument in case that were not perpendicularly but laterally appli'd to the snowy Lumps But this languidness of operation may perhaps proceed in great part from the smallness of the Pieces of Ice that were imploy'd For hearing of a Merchant that had made divers Observations about Cold in Greenland I desir'd by the mediation of a very learned Friend to be inform'd whether or no in the night they could perceive those vast heaps or rather mountains of ice that are wont to float up and down in that Sea by any new and manifest accession of Cold and was inform'd by way of Answer to that Question that being at Sea they could know the approach of Ice as well by the increase of Cold as by the glaring light which the Air seem'd to receive from the neighbouring Ice 3. But that which makes me suspect that there may in this account be some mistake is that I have not yet met with any like observation in any of the voyages into gelid Climates that I have had occasion to peruse though in some of them the Navigators frequently mention their having met with vast rands as some call them and Islands of mountainous ice in the night And 't is as I remember the complaint of one or two if not more of them that the Ship lay close by such vast pieces of ice without their being aware of it by reason of the fogs By which it seems that there was no sensible Cold diffused to any considerable distance whereby they might be advertised of the unwelcome neighbourhood even of so much ice But possibly the approach of far smaller masses of ice would have been sensible to them in such a Climate as ours where the organs would not have been indisposed to feel by a long accustomance of any thing near so intense a degree of Cold as that which then reigned in those Northern Seas 4. Whilest we were considering the Difference betwixt the operations of even the Coldest Bodies at the very nearest Distance and upon immediate Contact we thought it an Experiment not altogether unworthy to be tri'd whether though ice and snow alone that is unassisted by salts would not in some of our formerly mention'd Experiments freez water through the thickness even of a thin glass they may not yet do it when the water is immediately contiguous to them And I remember that we took a conveniently shap'd Glass and having frozen the contained water for some hours from the bottom upwards till the ice was grown to be of a considerable thickness we mark'd what part of the glass was possess'd by the unfrozen water and then removing the vessel to a little Distance from the snow and salt it stood in before we let it 〈◊〉 there to try whether the ice would freez any part of the contiguous and incumbent water but some intervening accidents hindred us from being able to derive any great satisfaction one way or other from our trial 5. Wherefore we shall add by way of Compensation that the diligent Olearius relates that at Ispahan the Capital City of Persia though it be seated in a very hot Climate and though it seldom freez there above a finger thick and the ice melt presently at Sun-rising yet the Inhabitants have Conservatories which they furnish with solid pieces of ice of a good thickness only by pouring at night great store of water at convenient intervals of time upon a shelving floor of Free-stone or Marble whereon as the water runs over it the most dispos'd of its parts are in their passage arrested and frozen by the contiguous ice which by this means says my learned Author may be brought in two or three successive nights to a very considerable thickness 6. We several times gave order to have this Experiment tried in England but partly through the negligence of those we imploy'd and partly upon the score of intervening circumstances our expectation was but ill answered And in this case I mention intervening circumstances because having caus'd a servant to pump in the night upon a not very thin plate of ice that was laid shelving upon a Board and another flat piece of Ice being about the same time laid under a place where water derived from a neighbouring spring is wont continually to drop he brought me word that not only in this last nam'd place the ice melted away but that under the pump instead of increasing in thickness by the waters running over it it was thereby rather dissolv'd At which somewhat wondring I went in the morning my self to the pump and causing a good flake of ice to be in a convenient posture plac'd under it I observed the water as it came out of the pump and was falling on the ice to smoak as if the depth of the Well had made the water though very Cold to the touch somewhat warm in comparison of the ice and thereby fitter to resolve then to increase it which inconvenience may be prevented by suffering the water of deep Springs and Wells to stand to cool in the Air before it be put to the Ice and this though the neighbouring Air were as I found by manifest proofs so cold that I was not tempted to impute the unsuccesfulness of the Experiment rather to its want of a sufficient coldness then the water's So that till I have an opportunity of making a further Trial I cannot 〈◊〉 more to the Persian way of augmenting ice But to proceed our having met with but an unsatisfactory Account of this Experiment which we were the more troubled at because this seem'd a promising way of trying that which otherwise is not so easily reduc'd to Experiment for the Temperature of the Air must be seriously consider'd in assigning the Cause of divers trials that may be made for the resolving of the same Question For to omit other Examples here in England we find that water poured on snow is wont to hasten the Dissolution of it and not to be congeal'd by it whereas having inquir'd of an Ingenious Person that liv'd a good while among the Russians
and spoil the other liquor was indeed sweet like rain water but so very little as well as so slowly generated that it amounted not any thing near to that which the snow imploy'd and spoil'd to make it would have afforded So that it may be question'd whether some cooling liquors which can as well as this mixture condense the vapid Air into water and whose Texture is not destroy'd in this operation as that of the snow is might not be more hopefully imploy'd to obtain water from the Air to which I shall only add this one thing That the mixture of snow and salt did turn the vapours that fasten themselves to the outside of the glass first into Ice before they dropt down in the form of water in almost all our Trials of this nature as well in thick Funnels as in other and thinner glasses 5. That in Hermetically seal'd glasses an included mixture of snow and salt will freez the vapours of the Air on the outside of the glass divers of the Experiments of the present Treatise do manifestly evince which argue that even so extremely close a Medium as Glasses is not able to hinder the Transmission of Cold. And this is not superfluously added because in vessels not Hermetically seal'd it may be pretended that 't is the internal Air that communicates its Coldness by some unheeded but immediate intercourse with the external After this we thought it worth an Experiment to try whether or how Cold would be diffused through a Medium that some would think a Vacuum and which to others would seem much less disposed to assist the Diffusion of Cold then common Air it self to compass this the Expedient we bethought our selves of was to suspend a slender glass full of water in one of the small Receivers belonging to our Pneumatical Engine and when the Air was very carefully pump'd out to bury the exhausted Receiver in a copious and ready prepar'd mixture of Ice and Salt to see whether notwithstanding the withdrawing of the Medium the water suspended in a kind of Vacuum as to Air or gross substances would yet be frozen by the Cold. That Event of our trials which alone I find among my Notes is registred in these terms 6. A small pipe seal'd at one end was at the other fill'd almost with water and was put into a Receiver consisting of a somewhat long and slender Tube of Glass seal'd at one end and inverted upon the Engine plate then the Air was carefully exhausted for the pump was ply'd a while after no Air appear'd to come forth in any bubble out of the Receiver through the external water nor did the water in the small pipe within disclose any number of bubbles worth taking notice of then by the help of an almost Cylindrical plate of Iron beaten Ice and Salt were heap'd against the outside of the Receiver about the height to which the water in the small pipe reach'd And at length though as we all thought much more slowly then such a Congelation would else have been perform'd the water was for the most part frozen in odd kind of flakes from the top to the bottom and the ice seem'd not to have any considerable number of Bubbles 7. There is one Experiment I have made about the Transmission of Cold through indispos'd Mediums which may not be unworthy to be here inserted For I had once a mind to try whether a cold Body could operate through a Medium that was as to touch actually hot and had its heat continually renew'd by a sountain as it were of heat that perpetually diffus'd through it new supplies of warm Liquor so that the cold Body could not here as in other cases first allay the heat of the Medium and then lessen it more and more till it had quite extinguish'd it To compass this I had soon after an opportunity of making some trials presented me For being at the Mineral Springs at Tunbridge to drink those wholsome waters for my healths sake I soon accustomed my self to drink them in considerable Quantities very early in the morning when they were exceeding Cold and sometimes drinking them in bed as well as sometimes at the Springs-head I had the Curiosity to observe whether in case I took them down very fast they would not through the warm Muscles and outward Parts of the Abdomen diffuse a sensible Coldness and upon more Trials then one I found that by laying my warm hands on the outside of my Belly I there felt at least as it seemed to me a manifest and considerable Degree of Coldness And when I related this to some ingenious Persons that were better acquainted with those Springs then I they told me that there was among those many that then resorted to those famous Springs a Knight whose Name I remember not whose Disease being judg'd formidable the Physicians enjoyned him to drink in a morning two or three times the Quantity that afforded me the Observation I was relating and that when this Knight had fill'd his Belly with so much water he us'd mightily to complain of the Coldness it diffus'd through his Abdomen insomuch that he was fain to ply those parts long with hot Napkins clapp'd to them one after another which yet as he complain'd were soon refrigerated by the excessive Cold that the water diffus'd to the outside of his Belly which yet nevertheless was not that I could learn at all prejudic'd no more then mine by so sensible and piercing a Cold. 8. It may be doubted whether in case water be not fluid upon the account of a congenite motion in the Corpuscles it consists of its fluidness may not proceed from the agitation of the ambient Air either immediately contiguous to the surface or communicating its agitation to the water by propagation of its Impulse through the vessel that interposes betwixt them To contribute to the clearing of this and some other things we devis'd the following Experiment We provided a glass-bubble of about the bigness of a Walnut and the form almost of a Pear whose stem was purposely made crooked for the conveniency of suspension This being fill'd with water which is troublesome enough to be done unless one have the knack we hung it at one end of a thread whose other end we past through a Cork by a perforation purposely made into which we afterwards fastned the thread by thrusting in a small peg to rivet it in Then filling a glass not very broad but yet furnished with a mouth wide enough to receive the bubble with oyl of Turpentine such as we bought it at the shops we stopp'd the orifice with the newly mention'd Cork so that the seal'd Bubble hanging at it was covered and every way surrounded by the oyl of Turpentine which being a liquor that at least in such Colds as we here have will not freez we plac'd the glass in beaten Ice and Salt and as it were buri'd it therein and at the end of about three
have suffic'd to turn water into ice and also after they had been if I may so speak thaw'd in a warm Air. But the paper in which we registred the events of these trials having been mislay'd I dare not charge my memory with the particulars Only if I mistake not one or two of the stones seem'd to have increased in weight after having been buried in our frigorifick mixture which I was apt to impute to some particles of the ice resolv'd into water by the salt that was mingled with it and being perhaps made more piercing by the saline particles associated with them imbib'd into the pores of the stone For I remember that having procur'd an Experiment that I then wanted conveniency to try my self to be made by an ingenions person upon a stone hard enough to bear a good polish I was by him inform'd that the stone by having been kept a while in water did though it were afterwards wip't dry discover a manifest increase of weight and in confirmation of my conjecture I shall add that from a sort of stones that are of a texture close enough to be usually polisht I did as I expected obtain by distillation and that without a naked fire a considerable quantity of an almost insipid liquor which I suspected to be in good part but water soaked into the stone for reasons that 't is not worth while here to discourse of the cause of my mentioning these particulars being that I hope they may make those that shall hereafter try such Experiments cautious how they draw inferences from them and may invite them to expose the bodies they would make trial of rather to the cold of the free Air in very sharp weather for want of which we our selves could not do what we advise then to artificial glaciations at least unless they be so ordered that nothing that 's moist come to touch the bodies to be wrought upon 14. But such Trials as these newly mention'd and others of the like kind we must leave to be prosecuted by those that are furnish'd with accurate Scales and leisure for want of the latter of which and sometimes too of the former we were fain to give over the pursuit of them which troubled us the less because those made with the seal'd Vials were diligently made and as for divers others we made them as we were saying more to be able to gratifie others then to satisfie our selves because though in case there should unquestionably appear some sensible increase or decrement of weight upon that which the Atomists would call the Accession or Expiration of frigorifick Corpuscles it would afford a plausible Argument in favour of the Epicurean Doctrine about the generation of ice yet if no such change of weight should be found upon the freezing or the thawing of water or any other Body I doubt whether it may on the contrary be safely concluded that the Atomists Theory of Cold is false For possibly they may pretend that the Atoms of Cold may not have either gravity or levity any more then the steams of Electrical Bodies or the Effluvia of the Loadstone Nay though we should admit the frigorifick Corpuscles not to be altogether devoid of gravity it may yet be said that when they invade the Body they freez they expel thence some other preexistent Atomes that may also have some little weight and that the frigorifick Corpuscles that flie or are driven away may be succeeded by some such when bodies come to be thaw'd But of this no more at present Appendix to the XX. Title THe Experiments recorded in the foregoing Section may perchance in this regard prove more useful then I was aware of that they may keep men from being misled by the contrary accounts that I find to have been given of the weight of ice and water by no obscure writers For to spare one of the famousest of the Ancients Helmont in the Treatise he calls Gas Aquae where he gives an account of the congelation of water which I confess to be unintelligible enough to me and where he is pleased to ascribe to I know not what extenuation of part of the sulphur he supposes to be in water that levity of ice which the bubbles it contains afford us an intelligible and ready account of delivers very positively this Experiment Imple says he lagenam vitream magnam frustis Glaciei collum verò claudatur sigillo Hermetis id est per vitri ibidem liquationem ponatur haectum lagena in bilance adjecto pondere in oppositum videbis quod propemodum octava sui parte aqua post resolutam glaciem erit ponderosiior seipsa glacie Quod cum millesies ex eadem aqua fieri possit c. Thus far Helmont who in case he take lagena vitrea in the ordinary acception of the word would have made us some amends for this erroneous account if he had taught us the way how he could seal such a broad vessel as a glass flagon Hermetically But what has been deliver'd in the foregoing Section will sufficiently shew what is to be thought of this Experiment of Helmonts And for further confirmation we have several times weigh'd ice frozen and reduc'd to water without finding any cause to doubt but that Helmont was mistaken And particularly upon the last Trial I made of this kind having fill'd a wide mouth'd glass with solid fragments of ice together with it amounting to a pound of which the glass alone weigh'd somewhat above five ounces I whelm'd over the mouth of it another flat bottom glass that if any vapours should ascend they might be condens'd into drops as in the like case I had formerly observ'd them to do And this ice being thaw'd in a warm room as no drops were seen to stick to the inside of the inverted glass so the other glass being again put into the same Scales appear'd almost exactly of the same weight as formerly whereas the ice alone that had been resolv'd amounting to much above eight ounces according to Helmonts proportion the weights should have been augmented by a whole ounce at least And I make little doubt but that if the Experiment had been tri'd in greater quantities of ice the event would have been very little if at all different But I purposely chose in the 〈◊〉 Experiments about cold to make my I rials in no greater quantities of matter then I have done because 't is very difficult to get scales strong enough to weigh without being injur'd much greater weights and yet be accurate enough to discover truly such small differences as are fit to be taken notice of in such Experiments But to return to Helmont notwithstanding all that we have said against what he delivers about the weight of ice yet because I take this inquisitive Chymist to have been in spite of all his extravagancies a Benefactor to experimental learning I am willing to suggest on his behalf that possibly much of the additional weight he
not find that his great earthen pots which are made up with as little water as is possible are deservedly famous for their durable Texture had not that Texture alter'd and impair'd by very piercing frosts he assur'd me that if he did not take care to keep the frost as they speak from getting into them those great and solid vessels wherein he us'd to keep his glass in fusion would in the fire scale or crack and perhaps fly and become unserviceable no less then some weeks sooner then if they had never been impair'd by the frost And when I inquired whether also glass it self would not be much prejudiced thereby he affirmed to me that oftentimes in very hard frosts many glasses that had continued intire for many weeks for that circumstance I was sollicitous to ask about would as it were of their own own accord crack with loud noises But whatever prove to be the issue of such Trials it will not be amiss to confirm the Phaenomenon it self by the testimony of an illiterate but very experienc'd French Aurhor who on a certain occasion tells us as I also take notice in another Treatise That he knows the stones of the mountains of Ardenne famous enough in France are harder then Marble and yet the inhabitants of that Countrey do not draw them out of the Quarry in winter because they are subject to the frost And it has been divers times seen that upon thaws the rocks without being cut have fallen down and kill'd many But it may yet seem far more unlikely that frosts should get into mettals themselves and yet having ask'd the newly mention'd Polonian whether he had observ'd any thing of that kind he answer'd that he had often by drawing out his sword and pulling out his pistols when he had been long in the field and came into a hot room found them quickly almost whitened over by a kind of small hoar frost But whether this were as he conceiv'd any thing that was drawn out of the Steel and setled on the surface of it I want circumstances enough to make me willing to determine But if we will credit Olaus Magnus it must be confess'd that considerably thick pieces of Iron and Steel it self will in the Northern Regions be render'd so brittle by the extreme frost that they are fain to temper their instruments after a peculiar manner his words which being remarkable I forbear to alter are these Videntur praeterea ferrei ligones certa ratione fabricati quia his spissa atque indurata glacies caeteris instrumentis ferreis non cedens facilius infringitur dum aliae secures chalybe permixtae in vehementi frigore ad solum glaciei vel virentis arboris ictum instar vitri rumpuntur ubi ligones praedicti sive ferreae hastae fortissimi manent Which testimony notwithstanding what some have written to this Authors disparagement does not seem to me at all incredible For I remember that even here in England I have had the curiosity to cause trials to be made in very frosty weather whereby if an expert Smith I then us'd to imploy did not gratis deceive me in the Irons I imploy'd that 〈◊〉 may by such degrees of cold as even our Climate is capable of be rendered exceeding brittle as he several times affirm'd to me that there are some kinds of iron which he could hammer and turn as they phrase it cold in open weather which yet in very hard frosts would become so brittle as by the same way of working easily to break if not to flye asunder And this he affirm'd both of Iron and Steel of which latter mettal another very skilful workman whom I also consulted certifi'd the like but though this disagreed not with trials purposely made on Iron rods had inform'd me yet presuming that in such a nice piece of work as a spring some further satisfaction about this matter might be obtain'd I inquired of a very dexterous Artificer that was skill'd in making springs for others whether or no he found a necessity of giving springs another temper in very frosty weather then at other seasons and he answered me that in such 〈◊〉 if he gave his springs the same temper that he did in mild and open weather they would be very apt to break And therefore in very sharp seasons he us'd to take them down lower as they speak that is give them a softer temper then at other times which as it makes it probable that the cold may have a considerable operation upon bodies upon which most men would not suspect it to have one so that discovery may afford a hint that may possibly reach further then we are yet aware of touching the interest that cold may have in many of the Phaenomena of nature I should here subjoyn that in prosecution of what is deliver'd in the XX. Section about the weight of solid bodies that I there wish'd might be expos'd to a congealing Air I did cause some Trials of that kind to be made in a very frosty night especially with Bricks but something that happened to the only Scales I then had fit for such an Experiment made me doubt whether some little increase of weight that seem'd to be gain'd by congelation were to be reli'd upon though there did not appear any hoar frost or other thing outwardly adhering to which the effect could be ascrib'd It is a Tradition which the Schools and others have receiv'd with great veneration from their Master Aristotle that hot water will sooner freez then cold but I do not much wonder that the learned 〈◊〉 as I find him quoted by Bartholinus should contradict this Tradition though he be himself a commentator upon that Book of Aristotle wherein 't is deliver'd For I could never satisfie my self that there is at least with our water and in our Climate any truth in the Assertion though I have made trial of it more ways then one but it may very well suffice to mention a few of the plainest and easiest Trials with whose success I am well satisfi'd as to the main as the Reader also will I doubt not be though not having for want of health been able to have so immediate an inspection of these as of the rest of my Experiments I was sometimes fain to trust the watchfulness of my servants whom I was careful to send out often to bring me word how long after the first freezing of the cold water it was before the other began to be congeal'd We took then three pottingers as near of a size as we could and the one we fill'd almost to the top with cold water the other with water that had been boil'd before and was moderately cool'd again and the third with hot water these three vessels were expos'd together in the same place to the freezing Air. In the Entry of one of the Trials I find that being all three put out at half an hour after eight of the clock That the
I must freely 〈◊〉 that though in living creatures and especially in the bodies of the perfecter sorts of Animals I do in divers cases allow arguments drawn from final causes yet where only inanimate bodies are concern'd I do not easily suffer my self to be prevail'd upon by such Arguments Nor is there any danger that Cold and Heat whose causes are so radicated in Nature should be lost out of the World in case each parcel of matter that happens to be surrounded with bodies wherein a contrary quality is predominant were not endowed with an incomprehensible faculty of self invigoration And Nature either does not need the help of this imaginary power or oftentimes has recourse unto it to very little purpose since we see that these Qualities subsist in the world and yet de facto the bottles of Water Wine and other Liquors that are carried up and down in the Summer are regularly warmed by the Ambient Air. And in Muscovy and other cold Northern Countries Men and other Animals have oftentimes their Vital Heat destroyed by the cold that surrounds them being thereby actually frozen to death And I somewhat wonder that the followers of Aristotle should not take notice of that famous Experiment which he himself delivers where he teaches that hot water will sooner congeal then cold For if the matter of fact were true it would sufficiently manifest that the heat harboured in the water is destroyed not invigorated by the coldness of the Air that surrounds it so that Themistius must I fear on this occasion take sanctuary in my observation and to keep Aristotle from destroying his own opinion with his own Experiment had best say as I do that it is not true And though it is not to be denied that white surrounded with black or black with white becomes thereby the more conspicuous yet 't is acknowledged that there is no real increase or intension of either quality but only a comparative one in reference to our senses obtain'd by this Collation Nor does a Pumice-stone grow more dry then it was in the fire or earth by being transferred into the Air or Water and consequently environed with either of those two fluids which Themistius and his Schools teach us to be moist Elements neither will you expect to find a piece of dim glass become really more transparent though one should set it in a frame of Ebony though that wood be so opacous as to be black And whereas 't is commonly alledged as a proof of the power Nature has given Bodies of flying their contraries that drops of water falling upon a Table will gather themselves into little globes to avoid the contrary quality in the Table and keep themselves from being swallowed up by the dry wood the cause pretended has no interest in the effect but little drops of water where the gravity is not great enough to surmount the action of the ambient fluid if they meet with small dust upon a Table they do as they roul along gather it up and their surfaces being covered with it do not immediately touch the board which else they would stick to And to show you that the Globular figure which the drops of water and other Liquors sometimes acquire proceeds not from their flying of driness but either from their being every way press'd at least almost equally for in some cases also they are not exactly round by some ambient fluid of a disagreeing Nature or from some other cause differing from that the Schools would give I shall desire you to take notice that the drops of water that swim in Oyl so as to be surrounded with it will likewise be Globular and yet Oyl is a true and moistening liquor as well as water And the drops of Quicksilver though upon a Table they are more disposed then water to gather themselves into a round figure yet that they do it not as humid Bodies is evident because Quicksilver broken into drops will have most of them Globular not only in Oyl but in Water And to show you that 't is from the incongruity it has to certain bodies that its drops will not stick upon a Table nor upon some other bodies but gather themselves into little sphaeres as if they designed to touch the woodden Plain but in a Point To manifest this I say we need but take notice that though the same drops will retain the same figure on Stone or Iron yet they will readily adhere to Gold and lose their Globulousness upon it though Gold be a far drier body then Wood which as far as distillation can manifest must have in it store of humid parts of several kinds I mean both watery and unctuous But this may relish of a digression my task being only to examine the Antiperistasis of cold and heat concerning which I think I had very just cause to pronounce the vulgar conceit very unconsonant to the nature of inanimate beings For the Peripateticks talk of Cold and Heat surrounded by the opposite quality as if both of them had an understanding and foresight that in case it did not gather up its spirits and stoutly play its part against the opposite that distresses it it must infallibly perish and as if being conscious to its self of having a power of self invigoration at the presence of its Adversary it were able to encourage it self like the Heroe in the Poet that said Nunc animis opus est Aenea nunc pectore firmo which indeed is to transform Physical agents into Moral ones 12. Eleuth The validity of the Peripatetick Argument drawn from Reason considered abstractedly from Experience I shall leave Themistius to dispute out with you at more leisure And since you well know that the only Arguments I alledge to countenance Antiperistasis were built upon Experience as judging them either the best or the only good ones I long to hear what you will say to the Examples that have been produced of that which you deny 13. Carneades That Eleutherius which I have to answer to the examples that are urged either by the Schools or by you in favour of Antiperistasis consists of two parts For first I might show that as reason declares openly against the common Opinion so there are Experiments which favour mine and which may be opposed to those you have alledged for the contrary doctrine And secondly I might represent that of those examples some are false others doubtful and those that are neither of these two are insufficient or capable of being otherwise explicated without the help of your Hypothesis But for brevities sake I shall not manage these two replies apart but mention as occasion shall serve the Experiments that favour my opinion among my other answers to what you have been pleased to urge on the behalf of Aristotle 14. To begin then with that grand Experiment which I remember a late Champion for Antiperistasis makes his leading Argument to establish it and which is so generally urged on that occasion