it not be probable enough that these Spirits in the other World shall onely be the Soul's Vehicle and Habit and indeed really that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by the Apostle by a vital re-union with which it may supereminently out-act all that ever she was able to do in this earthly Prison and heavy Cottage of the Body since also which I may super-adde those volatile Spirits being freed by a constant and perpetual dissipation from the Body are diffused through this great aetherial Ocean as into their proper Element ready to be united to the Soul at the instant of her Separation Fourth Deduction FOurthly The Physiologist also may gather something from the former Observations touching the nature of Colours that they are indeed nothing but the various modification of Light For most if not all Bodies in their minute particles through which the Sun's Rays have more freedome to penetrate seem to lose their Colours and grow diaphanous as you may observe in the Microscope Secondly Is it not shrewdly probable that since motion is the cause of sight which is nothing else but the impulse that the Luminous Atoms make upon the Retina Is it not I say shrewdly probable that Colours are nothing else but a various modification of this motion since we see that they are both naturally and artificially made by light to which we can imagine nothing to be added or deducted to super-induce those fine Tinctures as in the Rain-bow the Prisme crystal Pendents Glass-Globes filled full of water and in those arenulous Atoms in the former Experiment xxxiii except some change in the motion of the Luminous Atoms which must necessarily follow from the diversities of Objects and Mediums they either hit upon or pass thorow and so consequently do either accelerate or retardate the Solary Atoms in their Dinetical and progressive Motion whence arises both the diversity and variety of all colours whatsoever as that profoundest Master of Mechanicks Des-Cartes hath both subtilly excogitated and ingeniously illustrated by the Prisme To which we shall add some further experimental Eviction First If the Hole through which the Species is transmitted into a dark room be covered with a leaf of Beaten Gold it will not onely look of a pure green colour but all the light trajected through it will put on the same Tincture Secondly If with a Prisme you strike the Rainbow-colours upon a wall and observing where a red is projected you there place an Eye the Spectator shall judge it to be another colour because that the Solary Atoms which shot through the Prisme upon the wall and there painted that colour being again and again refracted by the Diaphanous Humours of the Eye must needs in all reason exchange their motion and so consequently paint the Retina with another colour both which Experiments shew that Colour is nothing else but the modification of Light which by the alteration of its motion is dyed into colours The like Artificial alteration of the Colours may be made by interposing a Burning-Glass 'twixt the Prisme and the Light and 'twixt the Prisme and the Paper But this Cartesian Theory of Colours we shall further make out by several Experiments in the Extraction Commixtion and Transcoloration of Tinctures First therefore If into the Infusion of Violets you put some few drops of the oyl of Tartar per Deliquium it will presently strike it into a green Tincture now if instead of that oyl you put in oyl of Vitriol it strikes it into a purple Colour to which if you super-add some drops of Spirit of Harts-Horn it strikes it green again Secondly If into the Tincture of dryed Roses drawn in Hot-water with oyl of Vitriol after the usual manner you drop a few drops of Spirit of Harts-Horn or of Urine or of oyl of Tartar per Deliquium it will presently strike the red into a green Colour which by a super-addition of the oyl of Vitriol you may re-tincture as before Thirdly If into an Infusion of Copperose you shave a little Gall it presently puts on a Sable inky Colour into which if you put a few drops of the Spirit or oyl of Vitriol it strikes out the Colour immediately and the water becomes white again to which if you super-add a few drops of oyl of Tartar per Deliquium it re-denigrates it again Thus a Glass of the Sweet-Spaw-water also upon the Infusion of Gall turns into a Claret-colour but if you drop but a little of the said oyl or spirit into it it presently eats out the Colour and the water returns to its primitive clearness again Draw a faint Tincture of Brasil wood bruised or rasped in luke-warm water filter it and clarifie it then if you add a little sharp vineger to a good quantity of it it will strike it into the exact colour of good stale English Beer and it will partly have the smell of it also Secondly If into another quantity of the said reddish Infusion you add a few drops of the oyl of Tartar per Deliquium it will turn it to a pure purplish red like excellent Claret Thirdly If into this Artificial Claret you drop a few drops of the oyl of Vitriol it will turn it into a pale Amber colour like Sack as may be which with addition of fair water you may empale as you please By which ingenious commixtion of Spirits and Liquors did Floram Marchand that famous Water-Drinker exhibit those rare tricks and curiosity's at London of vomiting all kind of Liquors at his mouth For first Before he mounts the Stage he alwayes drinks in his private Chamber fasting a gill of the Decoction of Brasil then making his appearance he presents you with a pail full of luke-warm water and twelve or thirteen glasses some washed in vineger others with oyl of Tartar and oyl of Vitriol then he drinks four and twenty glasses of the water and carefully taking up the glasse which was washed with oyl of Tartar he vomits a reddish liquor into it which presently is brightned up and ting'd into perfect and lovely Claret After this first assay he drinks six or seven glasses more the better to provoke his vomiting as also the more to dilute and empale the Brasil Decoction within him and then he takes a glass rinsed in vineger and vomits it full which instantly by its acidity is transcoloured into English Beer and vomiting also at the same time into another glass which he washes in fair water he presents the Spectators with a glass of paler Claret or Burgundian wine then drinking again as before he picks out the glass washed with oyl of Vitriol and vomiting a faint Brasil-water into it it presently appears to be Sack and perchance if he wash'd the one half of the glass with spirit of Sack it would have a faint odour and flavour of that Wine also He then begins his Carouse again and drinking fifteen or sixteen glasses till he has almost extinguished the strength and tincture of his Brasil water
Imprimatur Geo. Stradling S. T. P. Rev. in Christo Patr. D. Gilb. Episc. Loud à Sac. Domestic Ex Aed Sab. Aug. 5. 1663. EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY In Three-Books Containing New Experiments Microscopical Mercurial Magnetical With some Deductions and Probable Hypotheses raised from them in Avouchment and Illustration of the now famous Atomical Hypothesis By HENRY POWER Dr. of Physick Perspicillum Microscopicum scilicet si vidisset Democritus exiluisset fortè modum videndi Atomum quam ille invisibilem omninò affirmavit inventum fuisse putâsset Fr. Verulam lib. 2. Novi Organi sect 39. Hinc igitur facillimè intelligere possumus quam stuliè quam inaniter sese venditat humana sapientia quóve ferantur nostra Ingenia nisi recta ratione experientiáque scientiarum omnium magistra nitantur opinâ—â—â—is salebras accuratè vitent Muffet De Insect cap. 15. pag. 115. LONDON Printed by T. Roycroft for John Martin and James Allestry at the Bell in S. Pauls Church-yard 1664. The Preface to the Ingenious READER DIoptrical Glasses which are now wrought up to that height and curiosity we see are but a Modern Invention Antiquity gives us not the least hint thereof neither do their Records furnish us with any thing that does Antedate our late discoveries of the Telescope or Microscope The want of which incomparable Artifice made them not onely erre in their fond Coelestial Hypothesis and Crystalline wheel-work of the Heavens above us but also in their nearer Observations of the minute Bodies and smallest sort of Creatures about us which have been by them but sleightly and perfunctorily described as being the disregarded pieces and huslement of the Creation when alas those sons of Sense were not able to see how curiously the minutest things of the world are wrought and with what eminent signatures of Divine Providence they were inrich'd and embellish'd without our Dioptrical assistance Neither do I think that the Aged world stands now in need of Spectacles more than it did in its primitive Strength and Lustre for howsoever though the faculties of the soul of our Primitive father Adam might be more quick perspicacious in Apprehension than those of our lapsed selves yet certainly the Constitution of Adam's Organs was not divers from ours nor different from those of his Fallen Self so that he could never discern those distant or minute objects by Natural Vision as we do by the Artificial advantages of the Telescope and Microscope So that certainly the secondary Planets of Saturn and Jupiter and his Ansulary appearances the Maculae Solis and Lunations of the inferiour Planets were as obscure to him as unknown to his Posterity onely what he might ingeniously ghess at by the Analogie of things in Nature and some other advantageous Circumstances And as those remote objects were beyond the reach of his natural Opticks so doubtless the Minute Atoms and Particles of matter were as unknown to him as they are yet unseen by us for certainly both his and our Eyes were framed by providence in Analogie to the rest of our senses and as might best manage this particular Engine we call the Body and best agree with the place of our habitation the earth and elements we were to converse with and not to be critical spectators surveyors and adaequate judges of the immense Vniverse and therefore it hath often seem'd to me beyond an ordinary probability and somthing more than fancy how paradoxical soever the conjecture may seem to think that the least Bodies we are able to see with our naked eyes are but middle proportionals as it were 'twixt the greatest and smallest Bodies in nature which two Extremes lye equally beyond the reach of humane sensation For as on the one side they are but narrow souls and not worthy the name of Philosophers that think any Body can be too great or too too vast in its dimensions so likewise are they as inapprehensive and of the same litter with the former that on the other side think the particles of Matter may be too little and that nature is stinted at an Atom and must have a non ultra of her subdivisions Such I am sure our Modern Engine the Microscope wil ocularly evince and unlearn them their opinions again for herein you may see what a subtil divider of matter Nature is herein we can see what the illustrious wits of the Atomical and Corpuscularian Philosophers durst but imagine even the very Atoms and their reputed Indivisibles and least realities of Matter nay the curious Mechanism and organical Contrivance of those Minute Animals with their distinct parts colour figure and motion whose whole bulk were to them almost invisible so that were Aristotle now alive he might write a new History of Animals for the first Tome of Zoography is still wanting the Naturalists hitherto having onely described unto us the larger and more voluminous sort of Animals as Bulls Bears Tygers c. whilst they have regardlesly pass'd by the Insectile Automata those Living-exiguities with only a bare mention of their names whereas in these prety Engines by an Incomparable Stenography of Providence are lodged all the perfections of the largest Animals they have the same organs of body multiplicity of parts variety of motions diversity of figures severality of functions with those of the largest size and that which augments the miracle is that all these in so narrow a room neither interfere nor impede one another in their operations Who therefore with the Learned Doctor admires not Regiomontanus his Fly beyond his Eagle and wonders not more at the operation of two souls in those minute bodies than but one in the trunk of a Cedar Ruder heads stand amazed at those prodigious and Colossean pieces of Nature as Whales Elephants and Dromedaries but in these narrow Engines there is more curious Mathematicks and the Architecture of these little Fabricks more neatly set forth the wisdom of their Maker Now as Matter may be great or little yet never shrink by subdivision into nothing so is it not probable that Motion also may be indefinitely swift or slow and yet never come to a quiescency and so consequently there can be no rest in Nature more than a Vacuity in Matter The following Observations seem to make out that the Minute particles of most if not all Bodies are constantly in some kind of motion and that motion may be both invisibly and unintelligibly slow as well as swift and probably is as unseparable an attribute to Bodies as well as Extension is And indeed if the very nature of fluidity consist in the Intestine motion of the parts of that Body call'd fluid as Des-Cartes happily supposed and M r. Boyle has more happily demonstrated Why may we not be bold both to think and say that there is no such thing in the World as an absolute quiescence for 1. the greatest part of the World viz. the aetherial Medium wherein all the Stars and Planets do swim is now confess'd by all
to be fluid and so consequently in a Perpetual Motion 2. All the fixed lights of Heaven are generally concluded to be pure Fire and so consequently fluid also and then subconsequentially in motion also not to mention the dinetical Rotations of their whole Bodies which every one is supposed to have as wel as our Sun and as for the Opace and Planetary Bodies of the Vniverse they are all porous and the aetherial Matter is continually streaming through them their internal fire and heat constantly subliming Atoms out of them the Magnetical Atoms continually playing about them Not to mention also their dinetical Motions about their own Axes and circumrevolutions about their central Suns so that Is it not I say more than probable that rest and quiescency is a meer Peripatetical Notion and that the supreme Being who is Activity it self never made any thing inactive or utterly devoid of Motion Hence wil unavoidable follow some other Principles of the ever-to-be-admired Des-Cartes 1. That as Matter is made greater or less by addition or subduction of parts so is Motion made swifter or slower by addition given to the Movent by other contiguous Bodies more swiftly moving or by subduction of it by Bodies slowlier moved 2. As the parts of Matter can be transfer'd from one Body to another and as long as they remain united would remain so for ever so Motion may be translated from one Body to another but when it is not transfer'd it would remain in that Body for ever But these sublime Speculations I shall with more confidence treat of in another place the Speculation of Motion and its Origin being as I conceive one of the obscurest things in Nature And therfore at present we shal keep within the compass of the Microscope and look at nothing further than what we can discover therein The knowledge of Man saith the learn'd Verulam hath hitherto been determin'd by the view or sight so that whatsoever is invisible either in respect of the fineness of the Body it self or the smalness of the parts or of the subtilty of its motion is little enquired and yet these be the things that govern Nature principally How much therefore are we oblig'd to modern Industry that of late hath discover'd this advantageous Artifice of Glasses and furnish'd our necessities with such artificial Eys that now neither the fineness of the Body nor the smalness of the parts nor the subtilty of its motion can secure them from our discovery And indeed if the Dioptricks further prevail and that darling Art could but perform what the Theorists in Conical sections demonstrate we might hope ere long to see the Magnetical Effluviums of the Loadstone the Solary Atoms of light or globuli aetherei of the renowned Des-Cartes the springy particles of Air the constant and tumultuary motion of the Atoms of all fluid Bodies and those infinite insensible Corpuscles which daily produce those prodigious though common effects amongst us And though these hopes be vastly hyperbolical yet who can tel how far Mechanical Industry may prevail for the process of Art is indefinite and who can set a non-ultra to her endevours I am sure if we look backwards at what the Dioptriks hath already perform'd we cannot but conclude such Prognosticks to be within the circle of possibilities and perhaps not out of the reach of futurity to exhibit however this I am sure of That without some such Mechanical assistance our best Philosophers will but prove empty Conjecturalists and their profoundest Speculations herein but gloss'd outside Fallacies like our Stage-scenes or Perspectives that shew things inwards when they are but superficial paintings For to conclude with that doubly Honourable both for his parts and parentage M r. Boyle When a Writer saith he acquaints me onely with his own thoughts or conjectures without inriching his discourse with any real Experiment or Observation if he be mistaken in his Ratiotination I am in some danger of erring with him and at least am like to lose my time without receiving any valuable compensation for so great a loss But if a Writer endevours by delivering new and real Observations or Experiments to credit his Opinions the Case is much otherwayes for let his Opinions be never so false his Experiments being true I am not oblig'd to believe the former and am left at my liberty to benefit my self by the latter And though he have erroneously superstructed upon his Experiments yet the Foundation being solid a more wary Builder may be very much further'd by it in the erection of a more judicious and consistent Fabrick HENRY POWER From New-Hall near Hallifax 1. Aug. 1661. MICROSCOPICAL OBSERVATIONS OBSERVAT. I. Of the Flea IT seems as big as a little Prawn or Shrimp with a small head but in it two fair eyes globular and prominent of the circumference of a spangle in the midst of which you might through the diaphanous Cornea see a round blackish spot which is the pupil or apple of the eye beset round with a greenish glistering circle which is the Iris as vibrissant and glorious as a Cats eye most admirable to behold How critical is Nature in all her works that to so small and contemptible an Animal hath given such an exquisite fabrick of the eye even to the distinction of parts Had our famous Muffet but seen them he would not have spoke so doubtfully as he did Oculos saith he speaking of Flea's habere verisimile est tùm quod suos eligunt recessus tùm quod appetente luce so subducunt He has also a very long neck jemmar'd like the tail of a Lobstar which he could nimbly move any way his head body and limbs also be all of blackish armour-work shining and polished with jemmar's most excellently contrived for the nimble motion of all the parts nature having armed him thus Cap-a-pe like a Curiazier in warr that he might not be hurt by the great leaps he takes to which purpose also he hath so excellent an eye the better to look before he leap to which add this advantageous contrivance of the joynts of his hinder legs which bend backwards towards his belly and the knees or flexure of his fore-legs forwards as in most quadrupeds that he might thereby take a better rise when he leaps His feet are slit into claws or talons that he might the better stick to what he lights upon he hath also two pointers before which grow out of the forehead by which he tryes and feels all objects whether they be edible or no. His neck body and limbs are also all beset with hairs and bristles like so many Turn-pikes as if his armour was palysado'd about by them At his snout is fixed a Proboscis or hollow trunk or probe by which he both punches the skin and sucks the blood through it leaving that central spot in the middle of the Flea-biting where the probe entred One would wonder at the great strength lodged in so small a Receptacle and that
all her operations both of Sense and Motion First for sense it is plain by what is discovered in a Vertigo for the Brain it self is not of such a fluid substance as to turn round and make all objects to do so too wherefore t is a sign that the immediate corporeal instrument of conveying the images of things is the Spirits in the Brain Secondly That they are the chief Engine of Sight is plain not onely because the eye is full of these livid Spirits but also because dimness of sight comes from deficiency of them though the parts of the eye otherwayes be entire enough as in sick and old persons and in those troubled with an Amaurosis or Gutta Serena I had the last year a Patient a young Boy of seventeen years old who fell casually stark blind of his right eye in which you could outwardly discover no fault at all the Disease being an Amaurosis or obstruction of the Optick Nerve for that Nerve being by successful means disobstructed and relaxed so that the Animal Spirits were able to flow done to the Retina again he shortly after perfectly recovered his sight again without any relapse at all to this present day Thirdly If you cast a Ligature upon any Nerve you destroy both the sense and motion of that part whither that Nerve was propagated as by that pleasant Experiment by tying the recurrent Nerves in a living Dogg we have tryed till by relaxing the Ligature the Spirits may have the freedome to channel into the Nerves again Which truth is also handsomely made out by that ordinary example of a mans Leg being asleep as we call it for by compression of the Nerves the propagation of the Spirits into the part is hindred for as sense and motion is restored you may feel something creep into the Leg tingling and stinging like Pismires as Spigelius compares it which is the return of the Animal Spirits into that part again Fourthly That Spontaneous motion is performed by continuation of the Animal Spirits from the common Sensorium to the Muscle which is the gross Engine of Motion is sensibly evinced in dead Palsies where one side is taken away To all which add the former Observation of the Spirits circumundulation when the Snail at any time moved and of their joint quiescency together Having now shown you how these Animal Spirits are generated in our Body or to speak more properly disimprisoned and separated from our nutriment and so from fixation brought through Fusion to Volatilization having also shown you what use Nature makes of them in Sensation and Motion let us screw our Enquiry a little further and see if we can discover how the Spirits move in the Brain and Nerves to perform the same operations First therefore we affirm that a lesser quantity and slower motion of the Spirits is required for Sensation than there is for Motion for in this the Muscle swells that moves the part which is a plain Indication of a greater influx of Spirits directed thither a greater I say for I do not deny but there is required to sensation a moderate quantity and diffusion of the Spirits into all the parts of the Body else we should alwayes be benummed and stupid as when our Leg is asleep by an interception of the Spirits Secondly that their motion is slower in sensation then motion the former Experiment of the Snail does also manifest whose Animal Spirits never begin to undulate till she begin to move whereas she is sensible when they are in Quiescency as you may by pricking her with a Needle easily observe Thirdly in the return of the Spirits into the stupefied Leg we plainly perceive by the prickling what a flow motion the Spirits have All which Phaenomena do seem to favour our former Conjecture that for Motion the Spirits move impetuously down the nervous filaments which are hollow but for Sensation they onely creep by a filtration down their Coats and Membranes Now these Spirits being so subtle and dissipable the Soul spends them every day in using of them and they being much spent she can hardly move the Body any longer The sense whereof we call Lassitude For certainly as Doctor More very ingeniously inferrs if it were an immediate faculty of the Soul to contribute Motion to any matter I do not understand that Faculty never failing nor diminishing no more than the Soul it self can fail or diminish that we should ever be weary Thus are the Phaenomena of Sense and Motion best salved whilst we are awake now what happens when we sleep is a matter of further enquiry Some have defined Sleep to be a migration of all the Spirits out of the Brain into the exteriour parts of the Body whereas by our former Observations it may rather seem to the contrary that is The retraction of the Spirits into the Brain or at least a restagnation of them in the nervous parts does till Nature being recruited by a new supply and regeneration of them in the Brain direct them into the Spinal Marrow and Nerves which being replenished with them again they run their current as before so the whole Animal thereby is made capable of feeling the Impulses of any external object whatever which we call Walking and during this Interval and Non-tearm of sensation for so we may without a Complement call Sleep why may not the Soul be retracted and wholly intent upon and busied about her Vegetative and Plastical Operations So that when she has locked up the doors of this Laboratory the Body she may be busie in augmenting repairing and regenerating all the Organs and Utensils within and painting and plaistring the Walls without This I am sure we observe to be the greatest part of her obscure employment in the Womb where the Embryo for the most part sleeps whilst the Soul is in full exercise of her Plastick and Organo-Poïetical Faculty Now these Animal Spirits being continually transmitted from the Brain through the Spinal Marrow Nerves Tendons Fibers into all the parts of the Body especially whilst we are awaking may some of them at least have a kind of circulation for those which perspire not having lost their motion may either mix with the bloud in habitu partium or relapse into a kind of insipid phlegm as Chymical Spirits do that are not purely rectified and to be returned back by the Lymphiducts again Lastly I have but one paradoxical and extravagant Quaere to make and that is this That since we have proved these Animal Spirits to be the ultimate result of all the concoctions of the Body the very top and perfection of all Nature's operations the purest and most aetherial particles of all Bodies in the World whatsoever and so consequently of nearest alliance to Spiritualities and the sole and immediate instrument of all the Soul's operations here even in statu conjuncto the Body and the Organs thereof being but secondary and subservient Instruments to the Spirits These things being thus premised may
was in its motion with a large pin into the cavity thereof and at every systole or contraction we plainly saw a drop of bloud squeez'd and ejected out of that hole In this Animal you may easily distinguish between the motion of the heart and auricle for there intercedes the time of a pulse twixt the motion of the auricle and the heart and the heart in every diastole is of a fair purple and ruddy colour and in every systole pale and wan as is observable in Frogs and other Fishes also where you may see the heart to shift colours by turns as it receives or ejects the bloud in the performance of the circulation Now the reason of this Cartilaginous Capsula of the heart in this Creature might be its defect of bones and those costal ribs which serve others to secure the heart from all external violence for she wanting these had not Nature wisely secured and capsulated the heart in this gristle it had been subject to all external injuries which might have hindred the motion and endangered the life of the Animal This horny Capsula also served instead of a Diaphragm to part the lower Venter from the Thorax The Lamprey likewise hath no bones for the spine or back-bone it hath a Cartilaginous flexible Tube or Channel without any Vertebrae or Spondyls in it hollowed or tubulous from one end to the other in which lay the Spinal Marrow which was of a serous thin and milky substance In some Lampreys I have found the Liver as Doctor Brown writes of a pure grass-green colour which remain'd and kept that tincture whilst the Animal lived but when I had cut it out of the Body and layd it by it presently turned into a faint Olive-colour Besides I have in the beginning of April cut up many Lampreys whose Livers were of no such colour at all but a dull yellow like that of Eels and other Fishes So that in this Animal and Snakes also you may distinctly see the Bloud 's Circulation OBSERVAT. XXXIII Corns of Sand Sugar and Salt IT is worth an Hour-glass of Time to behold the Crystal Sands that measure it for they all seem like Fragments of Crystal or Alum perfectly Tralucent of irregular polyhedrical figures not any one globular every Corn about the bigness of a Nuttmeg or a Walnutt which from their unequal superficies refracting and reflecting the Suns rays seem here and there of Rainbow colours Being layd of a row or train they seemed like a Cawsy of Crystal Stones or pure Alum Lumps So that now we need not so much wonder with the Vulgar Philosophers how so clear and glorious a body as glass should be made of so durty opace and contemptible Materials as Ashes and Sand since now we are taught by this Observation that Sand and Salt which is in the Ashes the two prime Materials thereof are of themselves so clear and transparent before they unite into that diaphanous Composition OBSERVAT. XXXIV A small Atom of Quick-silver AN Atom of Quick-silver no bigger then the smallest pins-head seemed like a globular Looking-glass where as in a Mirrour you might see all the circumambient Bodies the very Stancheons and Panes in the Glass-windows did most clearly and distinctly appear in it and whereas in most other Mettals you may perceive holes pores and cavities yet in ☿ none at all are discoverable the smallest Atom whereof and such an one as was to the bare Eye tantùm non invisibile was presented as big as a Rounseval-Pea and projecting a shade Nay two other Atoms of ☿ which were casually layd on the same plate and were undiscernable to the bare eye were fairly presented by our Microscope OBSERVAT. XXXV Mercurial Powders IN those Chymical preparations of Mercury which they call Turbith-Mineral Mercurius Vitae dulcis sublimate precipitate and Mercury Cosmetical you may most plainly and distinctly see the globular Atoms of current and quick ☿ besprinkled all amongst those Powders like so many little Stars in the Firmament which shews that those Chymical Preparations are not near so purely exalted and prepared as they are presumed to be nor the Mercury any way transmuted but meerly by an Atomical Division rendred insensible That subtle and pure yellow Powder of Mercury called Mercurius vitae looked like the Yolk of an Egge boyled hard and crumbled to a gross Powder in it and in that Meal-like Powder of Mercurius Cosmeticus were globules of ☿ plainly discernable OBSERVAT. XXXVI Of the seven Terrestrial Planets as the Chymists call them Viz. ☉ Gold ☽ Silver ♂ Steele ♀ Copper ☿ Quick-silver ♃ Tin ♄ Lead LOok at a polish'd piece of any of these Metals and you shall see them all full of fissures cavities and asperities and irregularities but least of all in Lead which is the closest and most compact solid Body probably in the world OBSERVAT. XXXVII Ribbans of all sorts of Colours Silk Satten Silver and mixed IN the Silk Ribbans you might plainly see the Contexture how the Warp and the Weft cross one another at right Angles and how neatly they are platted just as in this Picture In Satten Ribbans one Warp crossed over three or four Wefts most lively and pleasant in Cloth of Silver the Weft being flat wired Silver that crosses the Warp it makes a fine Chequered Representation OBSERVAT. XXXVIII The small Dust Powder or Seeds of the lesser Moon-wort THat small pure yellow Meal or Dust which you may shake off from ripe Moon-wort appears like a heap of little white round Bugles or Seed Pearl and something transparent when the Sun shined like to some other small Seeds with a fiber about every one of them like the semi-circular ribbe in a Pompion So that this Experiment hath decided the old quarrel in Herbalism Which is the least of Seeds for though Mustard-seed do carry the Vogue amongst the People yet its exiguity is to be respectively understood of such Seeds as extend to large productions for we see that the Seeds of sweet Marjerom and wild Poppy are far lesse and the Seeds of Tobacco so small that a thousand of them make not above one single Grain in weight yet must all give place to the super-exiguity of this farinaceous Seed of Wort which is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The exiguity and smalness whereof may very well be one of the Magnolia of Nature somewhat illustrating the great Work of the Creation and vast Production from Nothing OBSERVAT. XXXIX The Seeds of Wall-Rue or white Maydenhair TAke one of the Leafs of Wall-Rue which hath the blackish scurff sticking to the back side of it and lay it upon the object-plate and you shall see all the Seeds look just like a sett of black Buttons upon green Taffata and every Button or Seed compassed with a circle or ribbe somewhat resembling a Catterpillar It hath been the Opinion of old Herbarists that the Capillary Plants had no Seeds which errour did rise meeâ—ly from a popular inadvertency for though these Plants carry
will melt immediately like Wax if you hold them but near the flame of a common Candle without any blast at all by which Artifice I make small Syphons for the Tryal of many notable Experiments of which I have treated at large in our Mercurial Experiments This further I shall adde of Flint that in it you shall see small Sparks of Diamonds angular and growing out of the Stone as out of a Mineral bed OBSERVAT. L. Of Hair WE slit a black Horse's Hair with a Rasor and perceived it to be hollow with a white streak like pith in the middle of it it seemed as big as a Rush and like a Rush slit length-wayes into two They are none of them Cylindrical but angular and corner'd which you may even perceive by your fingers by twirling a Horse-hair in them Now though Borrelius and some of our Anatomists as Bartholin Riolan c. say the like of the Hairs of a mans head that they also are hollow within and angular and corner'd without yet I could never perceive neither the one nor the other in any of the Microscopes I have seen though I have tried it in four excellent ones the worst whereof I am confident was better then that of Borrels In all which I could perceive nothing of an Hair but that it was like a thin horn something diaphanous especially in the full Sun which diaphanity might perchance hinder the appearance both of its cavity and angularity also for I my self have little glass pipes of so little a Cylinder and so small a bore that their hollowness to the bare eye is utterly imperceptible And since the bristles and quils in other Animals are sensibly hollow which are analogous to the hairs in a man I doubt not but every one of our hairs is hollow also which though our Glasses by reason of their transparency cannot present yet it is palpably evinced by an odde Experiment in Poland where there is a disease they call the Plica which makes the very hairs of their heads drop bloud at the ends and if cut any where to drop bloud there also which infallibly proves the tubulous cavity of them Besides we see the hairs do grain and fork themselves when grown too long which is a sign also of their hollowness What shall we judge them too small to be perforated by Nature since we see she has perforated Vessels within the Body as small as hairs as the Venae Lacteae and Lymphae-ducts nay since we see that Art can blow a glass hollow and yet as small as hair and your Wire-drawers know that if they take a short piece of Wire as thick as a quill and drill it through that then though they draw it out to the smalness of a hair yet wil it still remain hollow quite through in despite of their Wurdle which is as great a Miracle in that Engine as that the like Wire once gilt shall remain perfectly gilt all over though it be drawn five hundred yards longer than it was at first which is an experimental truth and the dayly practice of our Wire-drawers in London So that the conclusion of this Observation may be this that every hair of our head is as a little quill or horn hollow and transparent Which seems to be further avouched also by the burning of hair for there you may perceive the same odour and smell as of burnt horn and the Chymists as I remember draw out of hair a volatile Spirit exactly like that of Harts-horn both which experiments do prove an homogeneity and similarity of their substance OBSERVAT. LI. Of Aromatical Electrical and Magnetical Effluxions SOme with a Magisterial Confidence do rant so high as to tell us that there are Glasses which will represent not onely the Aromatical and Electrical Effluxions of Bodies but even the subtile effluviums of the Load-stone it self whose Exspirations saith Doctor Highmore some by the help of Glasses have seen in the form of a Mist to flow from the Load-stone This Experiment indeed would be an incomparable Eviction of the Corporeity of Magnetical Effluviums and sensibly decide the Controversie 'twixt the Peripatetick and Atomical Philosophers But I am sure he had better Eyes or else better Glasses or both then ever I saw that performed so subtle an Experiment For the best Glasses that ever I saw would not represent to me the evaporations of Camphire which spends it self by continually effluviating its own Component Particles nay I could never see the grosser steams that continually perspire out of our own Bodies which you see will foil and besmear a polished Glass at any time and which are the fuliginous Eructations of that internal fire that constantly burns within us Indeed if our Diopticks could attain to that curiosity as to grind us such Glasses as would present the Effluviums of the Magnet we might hazard at last the discovery of Spiritualities themselves however it would be of incomparable use to our Modern Corpuscularian Philosophers who have banished Qualities out of the list of the Predicaments And truly as the Learned Doctor Brown hath it The Doctrine of Effluxions their penetrating Natures their invisible paths and unsuspected effects are very considerable for besides the Magnetical One of the Earth several Effusions there may be from divers other Bodies which invisibly act their parts at any time and perhaps through any Medium A part of Philosophy but yet in discovery and will I fear prove the last Leaf to be turned over in the Book of Nature Some Considerations Corollaries and Deductions Anatomical Physical and Optical drawn from the former Experiments and Observations FIrst Therefore it is Ocularly manifest from the former Observations that as perfect Animals have an incessant motion of their Heart and Circulation of their Bloud first discovered by the illustrious Doctor Harvey so in these puny automata and exsanguineous pieces of Nature there is the same pulsing Organ and Circulation of their Nutritive Humour also as is demonstrated by OBSERV fourth sixth seventeenth c. Nay by OBSERV sixth it is plain that a Louse is a Sanguineous Animal and hath both an Heart and Auricles the one manifestly preceding the pulse of the other and hath a purple Liquor or Bloud which circulates in her as the Noblest sort of Animals have which though it be onely conspicuous in its greatest bulk at the heart yet certainly it is carried up and down in Circulatory Vessels which Veins and Arteries are so exceeding little that both they and their Liquor are insensible For certainly if we can at a Lamp-Furnace draw out such small Capillary Pipes of Glass that the reddest Liquor in the World shall not be seen in them which I have often tried and done how much more curiously can Nature weave the Vessels of the Body nay and bore them too with such a Drill as the Art of man cannot excogitate Besides we see even in our own Eyes that the Sanguineous Vessels that run along the white of the eye
nay and probably into the diaphanous humours also are not discernable but when they are preter-naturally distended in an Ophthalmia and so grow turgent and conspicuous To which we may adde that in most quick Fish though you cut a piece of their flesh off yet will no bloud be discernable though they be sanguineous Animals but the bloud is so divided by the minuteness of their Capillary Vessels or percribration through the habit of the Parts that either it has lost its redness or our eyes are not able to discover its tincture Secondly It is observable also from the former Experiments that in these minute Animals their nutritive Liquor never arises to the perfection of bloud but continually as it were remains Chyle within them for want of a higher heat to dye it into that Spirituous Liquor Nay you shall observe in perfect Sanguineous Animals a Circulation of an albugineous chylie-matter before the bloud have a being if you take Nature at the rise and critically observe her in her rudimental and obscure beginnings For view but an Egge after the second day's Incubation and you shall see the cicatricula in the Yolk dilated to the breadth of a groat or six-pence into transparent concentrical circles in the Centre whereof is a white Spot with small white threads which in futurity proves the Heart with its Veins and arteries but at present both its motion and circulation is undiscernable to the bare eye by reason of the feebleness thereof and also because both the Liquor and its Vessels were concolour to the white of the Eggs they swum in but the Heart does circulate this serous diaphanous Liquor before by a higher heat it be turned into bloud And one thing here I am tempted to annex which is a pretty and beneficial Observation of the Microscope and that is That as soon as ever you can see this red pulsing Particle appear which Doctor Harvey conceited not to be the Heart but one of its Auricles you shall most distinctly see it to be the whole Heart with both Auricles and both Ventricles the one manifestly preceding the pulse of the other which two motions the bare eye judges to be Synchronical and without any interloping perisystole at all So admirable is every Organ of this Machine of ours framed that every part within us is intirely made when the whole Organ seems too little to have any parts at all Thirdly It is peculiarly remarkable from Observation xxxi That not onely the bloud in perfect Animals and the chyle in imperfect ones but also the Animal Spirits have a Circulation which singular observation hath often provoked and entised our endeavours into a further enquiry after the Nature of these Spirits as to their Origin or Generation their activity and motion with some other eminent properties belonging to them we shall draw our thoughts together and so present them to your View I will not say that our discourse hereon shall pass for an un-controllable authentick Truth it is all my ambition if it attain but to the favourable reception of a rational Hypothesis at last A Digression of the Animal Spirits FIrst then we have not those narrow conceptions of these subtle Spirits to think that they are onely included within the Bodies of Animals or generated much less created there but we doe believe that they are universally diffused throughout all Bodies in the World and that Nature at first created this aetherial substance or subtle particles and diffused them throughout the Universe to give fermentation and concretion to Minerals vegetation and maturation to Plants life sense and motion to Animals And indeed to be the main though invisible Agent in all Natures three Kingdoms Mineral Vegetal and Animal And lest they should because of their exceeding volatility and activity be of little or no use Nature hath immersed them in grosser matter and imprisoned them in several Bodies with which she has intermixed them the better to curb the boundless activity of so thin and spirituous a substance and therefore the Spirits of all compound Bodies especially ought to be considered under a triple notion Viz. Under the state of 1. Fixation 2. Fusion 3. Volatilization First of Fixation when they are so complicated with the grosser Particles of Matter and lockt therein so fast that they can hardly be separated and dis-imprisoned as in Minerals but most especially in Gold Secondly The state of Fusion I call that when the Spirits by any kind of help have so wrought themselves towards a Liberty that they are in the middle way to Volatility as in half-concocted Minerals fermenting Vapours or Liquors and half-ripned Fruits c. Thirdly The Spirits are in their third state of Volatility when after a colluctancy with the grosser Particles they have so subjugated and overcome them that they are just upon wings and ready to fly away as in Wine when it is in the height of its fermentation and in some part of our arterial bloud alwayes Now we observe that those Bodies that relax and open the grosser composition of other Bodies do presently create a fermentation for being like so many Keys they set the imprisoned Spirits at Liberty which presently fall on working and by attenuating the grosser parts separating the Heterogeneous volatilizing some precipitating of others digesting of others expelling of others do at last mould it and work it to such a Body as the parts of it are fit to make up In all which interval of time there is a palpable and sensible heat produced Thus this Spirit being embowelled in the Earth and meeting there with convenient matter and adjuvant causes doth proceed to produce Minerals creating an actual heat wheresoever it operates as in Allum or Copperase Mines which being broken exposed and moistned will gather an actual heat and produce much more of those Minerals then else the Mine would yield as Agricola and Thurniseer do affirm and is proved by common experience The like is generally observed in Mines as Agricola Erastus and â—ibanius c. do affirm and avouch out of the dayly experience of Mineral men who affirm that in most places they find their Mines so hot as they can hardly touch them although it is likely that where they work for perfect Minerals the heat which was in fermentation whilst they were yet in breeding is now much abated the Mineral being grown to their perfection as the skilful and excellent Doctor Jordan very well infers The like heat we observe constantly to be in our Cole-Pits Nay we sometimes observe in our Brass-lumps as our Colliers call them which is a kind of Marcasite a very great heat for being exposed to the moist Air or sprinkled with water they will smoak and grow exceeding hot and if they be layd up on a heap and watered they will turn into a glowing red hot fire as I have seen them my self And it was a Casualty once terrible to our Neighbour-Town of Ealand for there one Wilson a Patient
he then vomits into a Vineger-glass again and that presents white Wine At the next disgorgement when his stomack is full of nothing but clear water indeed which he has fill'd so by the exceeding quantity of water which at every interval he drinks he then deludes the Spectators by vomiting Rose water Angelica water and Cinamon water into those glasses which have been formerly washed with those Spirits And thus was that famous Cheat perform'd and indeed acted with such a port and flowing grace by that Italian Bravado that he did not onely strike an Admiration into vulgar heads and common Spectators but even into the judicious and more knowing part of men who could not readily find out the ingenuity of his knavery The Chymical Elaboratories likewise do teach us this Truth in Fumes and Smoaks as well as Liquors which indeed are but rarified and expaused Liquors for Niter it self though nothing a kin to redness doth in distillation yield bloud-red Fumes called by the Chymists Salamanders-bloud which fall again into a Liquor which hath nothing of red in it So Soot though black yet when it is pressed and forced up into an exhalation by a strong fire will fill the Receiver with Milk white Fumes thus Sall-Armoniack and black Antimony being equally mixed and gradually sublimed in an Urinal will exhibit a Scene of Colours and will make a transition out of one into another with a delectable variety By all which pleasant Observations it palpably appears that the nature of Colours consists in the free admission transition refraction or reflection of light from the Objects discoloured For first you see several Colours introduced into Liquors by those Ingredients that neither had nor could communicate any such tincture Secondly 't is as plain that the minute Particles and Atoms of those Bodies that were imbibed by the Liquors and filled up their smallest Cavities or Interstices accordingly as they were altered in their site position and motion so were the Luminous Beams variously transmitted refracted or reflected and so consequently thence resulted those several Scenes of Colours Thus when the Atoms wherewith the Liquor is fully impregnated do relax and open themselves that the light may fairly penetrate then is the Liquor limpid and clear but if they draw up a little closer one to another so that the light be refracted then is the Liquor yellow if closer yet to a greater refraction of the Light then is the Liquor red but if in this randezvouz they draw up into a very close Body indeed so that by reason of their contiguity both in rank and file no light can be trajected through them then opacity and darkness arises If the Rays cannot break the front of them then is a milky-Whiteness presented there The Fifth COROLLARY Anatomical Considerations about the Eye OUr next Reflections shall be made upon the Eye to admire as well as contemplate Nature's variety in the constructure and conformation of so excellent an Organ The two Luminaries of our Microcosm which see all other things cannot see themselves nor discover the excellencies of their own Fabrick Nature that excellent Mistress of the Opticks seems to have run through all the Conick Sections in shaping and figuring its Parts and Dioptrical Artists have almost ground both their Brain and Tools in pieces to find out the Arches and Convexities of its prime parts and are yet at a loss to find their true Figurations whereby to advance the Fabrick of their Telescopes and Microscopes which practical part of Opticks is but yet in the rise but if it run on as successfully as it has begun our Posterity may come by Glasses to out-see the Sun and Discover Bodies in the remote Universe that lie in Vortexes beyond the reach of the great Luminary At present let us be content with what our Microscope demonstrates and the former Observations I am sure will give all ingenious persons great occasion both to admire Nature's Anomaly in the Fabrick as well as in the number of Eyes which she has given to several Animals We see the Tunica Cornea in most Insects is full of perforations as if it were a Tunica Vvea pinked full of Holes and whereas perfect Animals have but one Aperture these Insects have a thousand Pupils and so see a Hemisphere at once and indeed 't is worth our consideration to think that since their Eye is perfectly fixed and can move no wayes it was requisite to lattice that Window and supply the defect of its Motion with the multiplicity of its Apertures that so they might see at once what we can but do at several times our Eyes having the liberty and advantage to move every way like Balls in Sockets which theirs have not Secondly We observe no diaphanous parts in those lattic'd Eyes since it is probable that the Horney Coat of the Eye serves also for a Pericranium for their Brain For that the Brain of most Insects lies in their Eyes seems to me more than a probability First because in Flies Butter-flies Bees c. you can find no other place in their Heads wherein any matter analogous to the Brain can be lodged Secondly in the Eyes of those Insects you shall alwayes find great store of a pulpous substance like to be Brain in those Creatures Thirdly the Eyes in all Insects are very large and seem disproportional to so small Bodies if intended for no other use than Vision Fourthly why may not this lattic'd film of their Eye be their Tunica Retina which as it is concave in us is convex in them and as it is made of the Brain in us so it is in them and therefore lies contiguous to it and may indeed be over-cast by a transparent Cornea through which the Net-work of this interiour film may thus eminently appear For certainly such Animals as have distinction of Senses as Seeing Feeling c. must needs have an Animal-Sensation an Animal I say for I hold also a natural Sensation which is performed without a Brain and such an one is discoverable even in Animals and in our own Selves for besides the Animal-Sensation whose original is in the Brain the Stomach Guts and the Parenchymata of the Body yea and the Bloud too has a natural Sensation of what is good and what is bad for them as Doctour Harvey has excellently proved Lib. de Gener. and so some of the lowest rank of Animals as the Zoophyta and plant-Animals may perchance be utterly devoid of Animal and have onely a Natural Sensation but this belongeth to some Anatomical Observations I have by me where I may perchance prove that all Vegetables as well as the Sensitive and humble Plants have this latter kind of Sensation as well as Animals But let us return to the Eye again of which curious Organ I am tempted to say much more but that I have reserved that discourse as more proper for my Telescopical Observations Onely for the present to encourage the Lovers of free Philosophy and to let
them see that even the greatest Oculists and Dioptrical Writers that the World ever saw Kepler Des-Cartes Schemar and Hugenius have not yet discovered all Nature's Curiosities even in that Organ I will here deliver one or two Optical Experiments The first hints whereof I must ingeniously confess I received from some Fragments and Papers of our famous and never to be forgotten Country-man Master Gascoign of Midleton near Leeds who was unfortunately slain in the Royal Service for His late Majesty a Person he was of those strong Parts and Hopes that not onely we but the whole World of Learning suffered in the loss of him Take a fresh Eye and in a frosty Evening place it with the Pupil upwards where it may be frozen through then in the Morning you may cut it as you please If you cut it with a plain Parallel to the Optick Axis which Section Des-Cartes thought impossible then shall you see all the Parts as he has pictured them pag. 92. and each part will be very different in colour and remain in their natural Site which may be pricked forth in an oyled Paper By this trick also you shall find that there is a double Crystalline humour one circum-included within the other if you do but thaw the Crystalline you shall see the outward will pill off from the inward The right Figures of both which Crystallines are monstrous difficult if not impossible to find out hence it follows that every Ray of incidence is seven times refracted in the Eye before it reach the Retina whatsoever Scheinar says to the contrary The second Experiment is one of the ingenious Excogitations of M. Gascoign's and it is to delineate the prime parts of the Eye after this manner Having a Glass and Table fitted to observe the Eye's spots place an Eye with the Horny Tunicle either upwards or downwards between the inmost Glass and Table so near the Glass as the Eye will almost fill up the compass of the Eye's Image then the representation of the Eye will be very large proportionable to the Eye's Image upon the Table and thus you may prick out the three Figures of the Cornea and the outward and inward Crystallines Many other neat wayes with my Dioptrical Glasses can I take the Figures of the prime Parts of the Eye which shall be discovered in their fit places And now having done with the Fabrick the Observations lead us to the Consideration of the Number and Plurality of Eyes that Nature hath afforded some Creatures I must confess though I have been very curious and critical in observing yet I could never find any Animal that was monocular nor any that had a multiplicity of Eyes except Spiders which indeed are so fair and palpable that they are clearly to be seen by any man that wants not his own And though Argus has been held as prodigious a fiction as Polypheme and a plurality of Eyes in any Creature as great a piece of monstrosity as onely a single one yet our glasses have refuted this Errour as Observat. viii and ix will tell you so that the Works of Nature are various and the several wayes and manifold Organization of the Body inscrutable so that we had need of all the advantages that Art can give us to discover the more mysterious Works of that divine Architectress but especially when she draws her self into so narrow a Shop and works in the retiring Room of so minute an Animal Lastly Many more hints might be taken from the former Observations to make good the Atomical Hypothesis which I am confident will receive from the Microscope some further advantage and illustration not onely as to its first universal matter Atoms but also as to the necessary Attributes or essential Properties of them as Motion Figure Magnitude Order and Disposition of them in several Concretes of the World especially if our Microscopes arise to any higher perfection and if we can but by any artificial helps get but a glimpse of the smallest Truth it is not to tell what a Fabrick of Philosophy may be raised from it for to conclude with that Patriark of Experimental Philosophy the Learned Lord Bacon The Eye of the Understanding saith he is like the Eye of the Sense for as you may see great Objects through small Cranies or Levels so you may see great Axioms of Nature through small and contemptible Instances and Experiments These are the few Experiments that my Time and Glass hath as yet afforded me an opportunity to make which I hasten out into the World to stay the longing thereof But you may expect shortly from Doctor Wren and Master Hooke two Ingenious Members of the Royal Society at Gresham the Cuts and Pictures drawn at large and to the very life of these and other Microscopical Representations The End of the Microscopical Observations EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY In three Books Containing New Experiments Microscopical Mercurial Magnetical With some Deductions and probable Hypotheses raised from them in Avouchment and Illustration of the now famous ATOMICAL HYPOTHESIS By HENRY POWER D r. of Physick LONDON Printed in the Year 1663. Liber Secundus Mercuriall Experiments Begun Anno Domini 1653. By HENRY POWER M ae D r. Itaque sperandum omnino est esse adhuc in Naturae sinu multa excellentis usus Recondita quae nullam cum jam Inventis Cognationem habent aut parallelismum sed omnino sita sunt extra vias phantasiae quae tamen adhuc Inventa non sunt quae proculdubio per multos saeculorum circuitus ambages ipsa quandoque prodibunt Fr. Verulam lib. 1. Novi Organi sect 109. The Second Book These Physico-Mechanical Experiments are of four sorts Hydrargyral Hydraulical Pneumatical and Mixt. Such things as are requisite for the triall of these Experiments are 1. A Quart at least of ☿ Quicksilver 2. Several Glass-Trunks or Cylindrical Glass-Tubes some open at both ends and some exactly closed or as they phrase it Hermetically sealed at the one end All of several Lengths and Bores 3. A Glass-Tunnel or two with wooden dishes and spoons for filling of the Glass-Tubes with Mercury 4. You must have no Metalline Vtensils about you for fear they be spoiled with the Mercury 5. Spread a Blanket or Carpet on the ground when you try these Experiments that so none of the Mercury may be lost but may be taken up again with wooden spoons 6. You may have by you also Glass-Syphons Weather-Glasses of several right and crooked shapes c. the more to advantage the Experiments MERCURIAL EXPERIMENTS CHAP. I. Experiment 1. TAke a Glass-Tube of above 29 inches in length as AB closed at the end B and open at A fill it full of Quicksilver and so close the end A exactly with the thumb as with a stoppel then reverse it and putting it and your finger together into the wooden vessel D fill'd about two inches deep with Quicksilver erect it perpendicularly therein then drawing away your finger from the
partly arise from the variations of the Climates the Air being more thin and hot then ours partly from the difference and altitude of the Atmosphere here and there as shall hereafter be made more intelligible and partly from the diversity of our measures and theirs or from the club and combination of all these causes joyned together To which I may well super-add the negligence or inconsideration of those that try this Experiment for you may alter the height of the Mercurial Cylinder as you do rudely or cautiously tunnel in the Quicksilver into the Tube for I have some time with exact caution made it to rise to 30. inches in altitude from the Surface of the restagnant Quicksilver in the Vessel I set down 29. inches as its determinate height to which it will for the most mount though you use but a careless kind of carefulness in the management of the Experiment CHAP. II. That in the superiour part of the Tube there is no absolute Vacuity BEfore we proceed to any further Experiments we will first canvass the Cause of this Primitive one of Torricellius which has given occasion of trying all the rest and then we wilâ— deliver our Hypothesis which I hope will salve all the strange appearances not onely in this but in those stranger that follow Valerianus Magnus and some others are so fond to believe this deserted Cylinder to be an absolute Vacuity which is not only non-philosophical but very ridiculous 1. For the Space deserted hath both Longitude Latitude and Profundity therefore a Body for the very nature of a Body consists onely in extension which is the essential and unseparable property of all Bodies whatsoever 2. Again we have the sensible eviction of our own eyes to confute this Suppositional Vacuity for we see the whole Space to be Luminous as by Obser. Now Light must either be a Substance or else how should it subsist if a bare Quality in a Vacuity where there is nothing to support it 3. Again the Magnetical Efluxions of the Earth are diffused through that seeming Vacuity as per Experiment 4. There is some Air also interspersed in that seeming Vacuity which cannot be expelled upon any inclination of the Tube whatsoever as by Obser. is manifest 5. The most full Evidence against this pretended Vacuity is from the returgenscency of the empty Bladder suspended in this Vacuity for how should it be so full blown from nothing as is by Exp. most incomparably evinced CHAP. III. That it is not the Efluviums of Mercury that fill up that seeming Vacuity BEfore we come positively to declare what it is that supplies this seeming Vacuity let us draw some negative Conclusions and see if we can prove that it is not supplied with any Spirits Mercurial or Exhalations and this we shall most fully do by an ingenious Experiment borrowed from the Mechanical Wit of Doctor Pascal which shall passe for the second in the Bedroll of our Experiments Doctor Pascal's Experiment 2. THat the deserted part of the Tube is not filled up with any Hydrargyral emanations may be thus evinced because he hath found the same Experiment to succeed in water onely without any Quicksilver at all for he took a Tube or Lead-Pipe of 46. foot in length made close at the one end in casting of it and having filled it full of water and reversed it into a paile of water underneath about a foot deep he found the water to fall within 32. foot of that in the Vessel so that the deserted part of the Pipe was 13. foot so tall a Cylinder of that Liquor being it seems but aequi-ponderous to a Mercurial Cylinder of 28. inches Kircher and Birthius it seems also have tried the like in a Lead-Pipe of a 100. foot long and an inch diameter into which at the top was let in a short neck'd weather-glass or bolt-head and fastned so to that no Air could pierce the coement that luted the Glass and Lead-Pipe together which Lead-Pipe at the bottome was also fitted with a Turn-cock which when it was once filled with water would keep it in till they had reversed it into a Hogshead of water underneath and then by a turn of the Cock letting out the water it deserted the Bolt head and superiour part of the Tube wherein appeared this seeming Vacuity Experiment 3. BUt for a further Confirmation of this Truth let me subjoyn another Experiment which shall here pass for our third of the same Author 's Take a Glass-Syringe or Squirt of what length you please exactly fitted with a Squirt-staff stop the mouth of your Syringe close with your finger and so drown it over head and ears with hand and all in a large Vessel of water then draw back the Squirt staff and the Syringe will appear a Vacuity which will pain your finger by an Introsuction of it in at the Orifice but if then you erect the Syringe perpendicular and draw it all out of the water excepting that end closed by your finger and then open the Orifice you shall see the water suddainly arise and fill the deserted Cavity of the Syringe Both which Experiments do sufficiently prove that this seeming Vacuity may be exhibited without the help of any Quicksilver at all and therefore this imaginary Space in the Torricellian-Experiment aforesaid cannot rationally be supposed to be repleated with any Mercurial Effluviums CHAP. IV. Experiment 4. That it is not Light onely which supplies this seeming Vacuity TAke the Barrel of a long Gun about 4. foot long and Bunging up the Touch-Hole fill it easily with Mercury and reversing of it into the Vessel'd Quicksilver as before you may measure it to observe the determinate height aforesaid which you may easily perceive First By the flushing out of the Quicksilver upon removal of your finger into the Vessel where the restagnant Quicksilver receives it Secondly By the re-ascent of the Quicksilver upon tilting or plucking the Gun quite out of the restagnant Mercury as also by the forceable introsuction of your finger if you close the muzzle of the Barrel within the Vessel'd Mercury and so draw it out and reverse it as also by the plucks and shogs it will give in that action Thirdly and most perceptibly By the repletion of it with water if you draw the Tube gently out of the Quicksilver in the Vessel into a super-incumbent region of water which you first poured into the same Vessel for then if you stop the Orifice with your finger whilst it stands immers'd in the region of water and so draw it out and reverse it you shall perceive it full of water The like no doubt will succeed in Tubes of other Mettals Again if Light onely onely I say because we do not deny light to be there fill up that empty Cylinder it would be certainly far more Luminous as containing nothing but the pure Solary Atoms than the external medium and region of the Air about it which is confusedly intermixed both with
airy magnetical and coelestial particles besides the halituous effluviums of all Bodies whatsoever But this contrary to Observat CHAP. V. That the evacuated Cylinder in the Tube is not filled with Atmosphaerical Air only BY Atmosphaerical Air I understand such as we constantly breathe and live in and is a mixt Body of Luminous and Magnetical Effluviums powdred with the influential Atoms of Heaven from above and the halituous Effluxions and Aporrhoea's of this terraqueous Globe below And that no such Air fills the Superiour Cavity of the Tube take this Experiment to evince you Experiment 5. HAving filled closed and reversed the Tube AB as before into the vessel'd Quicksilver D fill up the said Vessel with water about 2. inches deep then lifting the Tube gently but perpendicularly out of the vessel'd Quicksilver into the region of water you shall see the Quicksilver and Water rise to the top of the Glass and after a short but confused intermixion the one with the other the Quicksilver will totally descend into the Vessel and the water arise and fill the whole Tube excepting a little cap of Air in the top of the Tube formerly hinted at in Obser. 14. Now if that Air in the Tube was Homogeneous to this in the Atmosphaere the water would never rise to thrust it out of its proper place or if it did it could not squeese through the Body of the Tube but we plainly see the rising water does fill up the place as likewise the Quicksilver does in the first Experiment where you tilt and incline it till it come to that particle of Air which indeed is of the same nature with ours and which we told you formerly lurked 'twixt the Concave Surface of the Tube and the Cylinder of Quicksilver and that neither the rising water nor ascending Quicksilver can or does exterminate This Truth also is manifestly evinced from the twelfth Observable annexed to the first Hydrargyral Experiment which palpably shows that it is not common Air which supplies that seeming Vacuity CHAP. VI. HAving drawn the former negative Conclusions and demonstrated That it is not Light onely not Mercurial Spirits not Atmosphaerical Ayr which is diffused through that seeming Vacuity it will be expected we should deliver something positively and demonstrate what it is Pecquet who I think follows Roberuallius therein ingeniously conceives that the whole mass of Ayr hath a Spontaneous Eleter or natural aptitude in it self to dilate and expand it self upon the removal of all circumambient obstacles which he calls the Elastical motion of that Element so that the particle of Ayr may be understood to be as many little Springs which if at liberty and not bound and squeesed up will powerfully strongly and spontaneously dilate and stretch out themselves not onely to fill up a large room but to remove great bodies So that he compares this vast Element of Air circumfused about this terraqueous Globe to a great heap of Wooll-fleeces or Sponges piled one upon another the superiour particles of the Ayr pressing the inferiour and hindring their continual tendency to a self-dilatation so that all the particles of this Atmosphaere especially the inferiour sort strive at all times to expand and dilate themselves and when the circumresistency of other contiguous Bodies to them is removed then they flye out into their desired expansion or at least will dilate so far as neighbouring Obstacles will permit Just like the Spring of a Watch which if the String be broke presently flyes out into its fullest expansion which Elastick motion in the Ayr then ceases when it comes to an aequilibration with those circumjacent Bodies that resisted it That this is not onely an Ingenious Hypothesis but that there is much of reality and truth in it I think our following Experiment will to safety of satisfaction demonstrate Onely we differ from Pecquet in the strict notion he hath of Rarefaction and Condensation which he supposeth to be performed without either intromission or exclusion of any other extraneous Body whatsoever Now how Ayr or any other Body should diminish or augment its Quantity which is the most close and essential Attribute to Bodies without change of its own Substance or at least without a reception or exclusion of some other extrinsecal Body either into or out of the Porosities thereof sounds not onely harsh to our ears but is besides an unintelligible difficulty Now though we cannot by Sensible and Mechanical Demonstration shew how any new Substance or Subtler matter than Ayr is which enters into the Tube to replenish that seeming vacuity and to fill up the aerial interstices which must needs be considerable in so great a self-dilation yet we must considering the nature of rarefaction aforesaid be forced to believe it and perhaps some happy Experimenter hereafter may come to give us a better then this Speculative and Metaphysical Evidence of it That the hollow Cylinder in the Tube is not onely fill'd up with the dilated particles of Ayr but also with a thin Aetherial Substance intermingled with them 1. Let us suppose therefore at random if you please that there is a thin subtle aetherial substance diffused throughout the Universe nay which indeed by farr the greatest thereof in which all these Luminous and Opace Bodies I mean the Starrs and Planets with their Luminous and Vaporous Sphaeres continually effluviating from them do swim at free and full Liberty 2. Let us consider that this aether is of that Subtil and Penetrative Nature that like the Magnetical Effluviums it shoots it self through all Bodies whatsoever whos 's small pores and interstices are supplyed and fill'd up with this aetherial Substance as a Sponge with water 3. Let us add to the former Considerations that the Ayr hath not onely a strong Elatery of its own by which it presses continually upon the Earth and all Bodies circuminclosed by it but it also ponderates and is heavy in its own Atmosphaere But because I am resolved you shall take nothing upon the trust and reputation of the best Authour take this Experiment to prove the Ayr 's gravitation in proprio Loco as the vulgar Philosophy cals it Experiment 6. TAke a Wind-gun which new Artifice is now common and weigh it exactly when empty then by plying the Pump-staff charge it soundly and weigh it again and you shall find it much heavier then before yea a large Bladder full blown will weigh more then its self emptied and manifest this inequality upon a ticklish pair of Scales Now though this Experiment seems onely to evince the gravitation of Ayr condens'd yet it consequentially follows that Ayr also in the Liberty of its own Sphaere is proportionally ponderous though it is a difficult point Mechanically to evince it unless we were actually above the Atmosphaere or in a Vacuity to weigh it there in a thinner medium then here we are able to do yet if I mistake not I have an Experiment in Banco which will give some Mechanical Evidence of this