of the like nature As for what is commonly said that Oyls dissolve Sulphur and Saline Menstruums Metals because as they speak Simile simili gaudet I answer That where there is any such similitude it may be very probably ascribed not so much with the Chymists that favour Aristotle to the essential forms of the bodies that are to work on each other nor with the meer Chymists to their Salt or Sulphur or Mercury as such but to the congruity between the pores and figures of the Menstruum and the body dissolved by it and to some other Mechanical Affections of them EXPER. XIV FOr Silver for example not onely will be dissolved by Nitre which they reckon a Salt but be amalgam'd with and consequently dissolved by Quicksilver and also by the operation of Brimstone be easily incorporated with that Mineral which Chymists are wont to account of so oleaginous a nature and insoluble in Aqua Fortis EXPER. XV. ANd as for those Dissolutions that are made with Oylie and inflammable Menstruums of common Sulphur and other inflammable bodies the Dissolution does not make for them so clearly as they imagine For if such Menstruums operate as is alledged upon the account of their being as well as the bodies they work upon of a sulphureous nature whence is it that highly rectified Spirit of Wine which according to them must be of a most Sulphureous nature since being set on fire 't will flame all away without leaving one drop behind it will not unless perhaps after a tedious while dissolve even Flowers of Brimstone which essential as well as express'd Oyls will easily take up as Spirit of Wine it self also will do almost in a trice if as we shall see anon by the help of an Alcali the Texture of the Brimstone be alter'd though the onely thing that is added to the Sulphur being an incombustible substance is nothing near of so sulphureous a nature as the Flowers and need have no Consanguinity upon the score of its Origine with Spirit of Wine as 't is alledged that Salt of Tartar has since I have tried That fixt Nitre employ'd instead of it will do the same EXPER. XVI THe mention of Nitre brings into my mind that the Salt-peter being wont to be lookt upon by Chymists as a very inflammable body ought according to them to be of a very sulphureous nature yet we find not that 't is in Chymical Oyls but in water readily dissolved And whereas Chymists tell us that the Solutions of Alcaly's such as Salt of Tartar or of Pot-ashes in common Oyls proceed from the great cognation between them I demand whence it happens that Salt of Tartar will by boiling be dissolved in the exprest Oyl of Almonds or of Olives and be reduc'd with it to a soapy body and that yet with the essential Oyl of Juniper or Aniseeds c. where what they call the Sulphur is made pure and penetrant being freed from the earthy aqueous and feculent parts which Distillation discovers to be in the exprest Oyls you may boil Salt of Tartar twenty times as long without making any Soap of them or perhaps any sensible Solution of the Alkaly And Chymists know how difficult it is and how unsuccessfully 't is wont to be attempted to dissolve pure Salt of Tartar in pure Spirit of Wine by digesting the not peculiarly prepar'd Salt in the cognate Menstruum I will not urge that though the most conspicuous mark of Sulphur be inflammability and is in an eminent degree to be found in Oyl as well as Sulphur yet an Alkaly and water which are neither singly nor united inflammable will dissolve common Sulphur EXPER. XVII BUt to make it probable against the Chymists for I propose it but as an argument ad hominem that the Solution of Sulphur in exprest Oyls depends upon somewhat else besides the abundance of the second Principle in both the bodies I will adde to what I said before an affirmation of divers Chymical Writers themselves who reckon Aqua Regis which is plainly a Saline Menstruum and dissolves Copper Iron Coral c. like Acid Liquors among the Solvents of Sulphur and by that power among other things distinguish it from Aqua Fortis And on the other side if there be a Congruity betwixt an exprest Oyl and another body though it be such as by its easie Dissolubleness in Acid Salts Chymists should pronounce to be of a saline nature an exprest Oyl will readily enough work upon it as I have tried by digesting even crude Copper in Filings with Oyl of sweet Almonds which took up so much of the metal as to be deeply coloured thereby as if it had been a Corrosive Liquor Nay I shall adde that even with Milk as mild a Liquor as 't is I have found by Trial that without the help of fire a kind of Dissolution may though not in few hours be made of crude Copper as appear'd by the greenish blew colour the Filings acquired when they had been well drenched in the Liquor and left for a certain time in the Vessel where the air had very free access to them EXPER. XVIII BEsides the Argument ad hominem newly drawn from Aqua Regia it may be proper enough to urge another of the same kind upon the generality of the Helmontians and Paracelsians who admit what the Heads of their Sects deliver concerning the Operations of the Alkahest For whereas 't is affirm'd that this irresistible Menstruum will dissolve all tangible bodies here below so as they may be reduc'd into insipid water as on the one side 't will be very hard to conceive how a specificated Menstruum that is determin'd to be either Acid or Lixiviate or Urinous c. should be able to dissolve so great a variety of Bodies of differing and perhaps contrary natures in some whereof Acids in other Lixiviate Salts and in others Urinous are predominant so on the other side if the Alkahest be not a specificated Menstruum 't will very much disfavour the Opinion of the Chymists that will have some Bodies dissoluble onely by Acids as such others by fixt Alkalys and others again by Volatile Salts since a Menstruum that is neither Acid Lixiviate nor Urinous is able to dissolve bodies in some of which one and in others another of those Principles is predominant So that if a Liquor be conveniently qualified it is not necessary that it should be either Acid to dissolve Pearl or Coral or Alkalizate to dissolve Sulphur But upon what Mechanical account an analyzing Menstruum may operate is not necessary to be here determin'd And I elsewhere offer some thoughts of mine about it EXPER. XIX IF we duly reflect upon the known process that Chymists are wont to employ in making Mercurius dulcis we shall find it very favourable to our Hypothesis For though we have already shewn in the V. Experiment and 't is generally confest that common Sublimate made of Mercury is a highly corrosive body yet
as will not be onely very sensible to his hand that holds the Glass whilst the Dissolution is making but will very manifestly discover it self by its Operation upon a Thermoscope Nay I have more than once by wetting the outside of the Glass where the dissolution was making and nimbly stirring the Mixture turn'd that externally adhering water into real Ice that was scrap'd off with a knife in less than a minute of an hour And this thus generated Cold continued considerably intense whilst the action of dissolution lasted but afterwards by degrees abated and within a very few hours ceas'd The particular Phaenomena I have noted in the Experiment and the practical uses that may be made of it I reserve for another place the knowledge of them being not necessary in this where what I have already related may suffice for my present Argument And to shew that not onely a far more intense degree of Cold may emerge in this Mixture than was to be found in either of the Ingredients before they were mingled but a considerable Coldness may be begun to be produc'd between Bodies that were neither of them actually Cold before they were put together I will subjoin a Transcript of what I find to this purpose among my Adversaria EXPER. II. I Remember that once I had a mind to try Whether the Coldness produced upon the Solution of beaten Sal Armoniac in water might not be more probably referr'd to some change of Texture or Motion resulting from the action of the Liquor upon the Salt than to any Infrigidation of the water made by the suddain dispersion of so many Saline grains of powder which by reason of their Solidity may be suspected to be actually more cold than the Water they are put into I therefore provided a Glass full of that Liquor and having brought it to such a Temper that its warmth made the Spirit of Wine in the seal'd Weather-glass manifestly though not nimbly ascend I took out the Thermoscope and laid it in powder'd Sal Armoniac warm'd beforehand so that the tincted Liquor was made to ascend much nimblier by the Salt than just before by the Water and having presently remov'd the Instrument into that Liquor again and poured the somewhat warm Sal Armoniac into the same I found as I imagin'd that within a space of time which I guess'd to be about half a minute or less the Spirit of Wine began hastily to subside and within a few minutes fell above a whole division and a quarter below the mark at which it stood in the water before that Liquor or the Salt were warm'd Nor did the Spirit in a great while reascend to the height which it had when the water was cold The same Experiment being at another time reiterated was tried with the like success which second may therefore serve for a Confirmation of the first EXPER. III. HAving a mind likewise to shew some Ingenious men how much the production of Heat and Cold depends upon Texture and other Mechanical Affections I thought fit to make again a Sal Armoniac by a way I formerly publish'd that I might be sure to know what Ingredients I employ'd and shew their effects as well before conjunction as after it I took then Spirit of Salt and Spirit of fermented or rather putrified Urine and having put a seal'd Weather-glass into an open Vessel where one of them was pour'd in I put the other by degrees to it and observ'd that as upon their mingling they made a great noise with many bubbles so in this conflict they lost their former coldness and impell'd up the Spirit of Wine in the seal'd Thermoscope Then slowly evaporating the superfluous moisture I obtained a fine sort of Sal Armoniac for the most part figur'd not unlike the other when being dissolv'd and filtrated it is warily coagulated This new Salt being gently dry'd I put into a wide Glass of water wherein I had before plac'd a seal'd Weather-glass that the included Spirit might acquire the temper of the ambient Liquor and having stirr'd this Salt in the water though I took it then off the mantle-tree of a Chimney that had had fire in it divers hours before it did as I expected make the tincted Spirit hastily subside and fall considerably low EXPER. IV. SInce if two bodies upon their mixture acquire a greater degree of Cold than either of them had before there is a production of this additional degree of that Quality it will be proper to add on this occasion the ensuing Experiment We took a competent quantity of acid spirit distill'd from Roch-allom that though rectifi'd was but weak which in the spirit of that salt is not strange Of this we put into a wide mouth'd Glass that was not great more than was sufficient to cover the globulous part of a good seal'd Thermoscope and then suffering the instrument to stay a pretty while in the liquor that the Spirit of wine might be cool'd as much as the ambient was we put in little by little some volatile salt sublimed from Sal Armoniac and a fixt Alcali and notwithstanding the very numerous but not great bubbles and the noise and froath that were produced as is usual upon the reaction of Acids and Alcalys the tincted spirit in the Weather-glass after having continued a good while at a stand began a little to descend and continued though but very slowly to do so till the spirit of Allom was glutted with the volatile salt and this descent of the tincted liquor in the Instrument being measur'd appear'd to be about an inch for it manifestly exceeded seven eighths By comparing this Experiment with the first part of the foregoing we may gather that when Volatile and Urinous Salts or Spirits for the saline particles appear sometimes in a dry and sometimes in a liquid form tumultuate upon their being mixt with Acids neither the Heat nor the Cold that ensues is produc'd by a Conflict with the Acids precisely as it is Acid since we have seen that an urinous spirit produc'd an actual Heat with spirit of Salt and the distill'd Salt of Sal Armoniac which is also Urinous with the acid spirit of Roch-Allom produces not a true effervescence but a manifest Coldness As the same Salt also did in a Trial of another sort which was this EXPER. V. WE took one part of Oyl of Vitriol and shaking it into twelve parts of water we made a mixture that at first was sensibly warm then suffering this to cool we put a sufficient quantity of it into a wide mouth'd glass and then we put a good Thermoscope Hermetically seal'd above whose Ball the compounded liquor reached a pretty way After some time had been allowed that the liquor in the Thermometer might acquire the temper of the ambient we put in by degrees as much volatile Salt of Sal Armoniac as would serve to satiate the acid spirits of the mixture for though these two made a notable conflict with tumult
small a quantity of Poyson some small Concretions or Coagulations made of the minute particles of the bloud into little clots less agile and more unwieldy than they were when they moved separately which may be illustrated by the little Curdlings that may be made of the parts of Milk by a very small proportion of Runnet or some acid liquor and the little coagulations made of the Spirit of Wine by that of Urine Nor will I now enquire whether besides the retardment of the motion of the bloud some poysons and other analogous Agents may not give the motion of it a new modification as if some Corpuscles that usually are more whirl'd or brandish'd be put into a more direct Motion that may give it a peculiar kind of grating or other action upon the nervous and fibrous parts of the body These I say and other suspicions that have sometimes come into my thoughts I must not stay to examine but shall now rather offer to Consideration Whether since some parts of the humane body are very differing from others in their structure and internal Constitution and since also some Agents may abound in Corpuscles of differing shapes bulks and motions the same Medicine may not in reference to the same humane body be potentially cold or potentially hot according as 't is applied or perhaps may upon one or both of the accounts newly mentioned be cold in reference to one part of the body and hot in reference to the other And these effects need not be always ascrib'd to the meer and immediate action of the Corpuscles of the Medicine but sometimes to the new Quality they acquire in their Passage by associating themselves with the bloud or other fluids of the body or to the expulsion of some calorific or frigorific Corpuscles or to the Disposition they give the part on which they operate to be more or less permeated and agitated than before by some subtile aethereal matter or other Efficients of Heat or Cold. Some of these Conjectures about the Relative Nature of Potentially cold bodies may be either confirmed or illustrated by such Instances as these that Spirit of Wine being inwardly taken is potentially very hot and yet being outwardly applied to some Burns and some hot Tumours does notably abate the Heat of the inflamed parts though the same Spirit applied even outwardly to a tender eye will cause a great and dolorous agitation in it And Camphire which in the Dose of less than a half or perhaps a quarter of a Scruple has been observed to diffuse a Heat through the body is with success externally applied by Physicians and Chirurgeons in refrigerating Medicines But I leave the further Inquiry into the Operations of Medicines to Physicians who may possibly by what has been said be assisted to compose the differences between some famous Writers about the temperament of some Medicines as Mercury Camphire c. which some will have to be cold and others maintain to be hot and shall onely offer by way of confirming in general that Potential Coldness is onely a Relative Quality a few Particulars the first whereof is afforded by comparing together the VI. and the VII Experiment before going which have occasion'd this Digression about Potential Coldness since by them it seems probable that the same thing may have it in reference to one body and not to another according to the disposition of the body it operates upon or that operates upon it And the Fumes of Lead have been observed sometimes for I have not found the Effect to succeed always to arrest the fluidity of Mercury which change is supposed to be the effect of a Potential Coldness belonging to the Chymists Saturn in reference to fluid Mercury though it have not that operation on any other liquor that we know of And lastly for I would not be too prolix though Nitre and Sal Armoniac be both apart and joyntly Cold in reference to Water and though however Nitre be throughly melted in a Crucible it will not take fire of it self yet if whilst it is in Fusion you shall by degrees cast on it some powder'd Sal Armoniac it will take fire and flash vehemently almost as if Sulphur had been injected But our Excursion has I fear lasted too long and therefore I shall presently re-enter into the way and proceed to set down some Trials about Cold. EXPER. VIII IN the first Experiment we observed that upon the pouring of water upon Sal Armoniac there ensued an intense degree of Cold and we have elsewhere recited that the like effect was produc'd by putting instead of common water Oyl of Vitriol to Sal Armoniac but now to shew further what influence Motion and Texture may have upon such Trials it may not be amiss to adde the following Experiment To twelve ounces of Sal Armoniac we put by degrees an equal weight of water and whilst the Liquor was dissolving the Salt and by that action producing a great Coldness we warily pour'd in twelve ounces also of good Oyl of Vitriol of which new mixture the event was that a notable degree of Heat was quickly produced in the Glass wherein the Ingredients were confounded as unlikely as it seemed that whereas each of the two Liquors is wont with Sal Armoniac to produce an intense Cold both of them acting on it together should produce the contrary Quality But the reason I had to expect the success I met with was this that 't was probable the Heat arising from the mixture of the two Liquors would overpower the Coldness produceable by the operation of either or both of them upon the Salt FINIS EXPER. IX IN most of the Experiments that we have hitherto proposed Cold is wont to be regularly produc'd in a Mechanical way but I shall now adde that in some sort of Trials I found that the Event was varied by unobserv'd Circumstances so that sometimes manifest Coldness would be produced by mixing two Bodies together which at another time would upon their Congress disclose a manifest Heat and sometimes again though more rarely would have but a very faint and remiss degree of either Of this sort of Experiments whose Events I could not confidently undertake for I found to be the dissolution of Salt of Tartar in Spirit of Vinegar and of some other Salts that were not acid in the same Menstruum and even Spirit of Verdigrease made per se though a more potent Menstruum than common Spirit of Vinegar would not constantly produce near such a heat at the beginning of its operation as the greatness of the seeming Effervescence then excited would make one expect as may appear by the following Observation transcrib'd verbatim out of one of my Adversaria Into eight ounces of Spirit of Verdigrease into which we had put a while before a standard-Thermoscope to acquire the like temper with the Liquor we put in a wide-mouthed Glass two ounces of Salt of Tartar as fast as we durst for fear of making the
to the fire and the other be benummed with frost And indeed the custom of speaking has introduced an ambiguity into the word Cold which often occasions mistakes not easily without much attention and sometimes circumlocution also to be avoided since usually by Cold is meant that which immediately affects the sensory of him that pronounces a body Cold whereas sometimes 't is taken in a more general notion for such a Negation or Imminution of motion as though it operates not perceivably on our senses does yet upon other bodies and sometimes also it is taken which is perhaps the more Philosophical sense for a perception made in and by the mind of the alteration produced in the Corporeal Organs by the operation of that whatever it be on whose account a body is found to be cold But the Discussion of these Points is here purposely omitted as for other Reasons so principally because they may be found expresly handled in a fitter place SECT II. Of the Mechanicall Origine or Production of HEAT AFter having dispatched the Instances I had to offer of the Production of Cold it remains that I also propose some Experiments of Heat which Quality will appear the more likely to be Mechanically producible if we consider the nature of it which seems to consist mainly if not onely in that Mechanical affection of matter we call Local motion mechanically modified which modification as far as I have observed is made up of three Conditions The first of these is that the agitation of the parts be vehement by which degree or rapidness the motion proper to bodies that are hot distinguishes them from bodies that are barely fluid For these as such require not near so brisk an agitation as is wont to be necessary to make bodies deserve the name of hot Thus we see that the particles of water in its natural or usual state move so calmly that we do not feel it at all warm though it could not be a liquor unless they were in a restless motion but when water comes to be actually hot the motion does manifestly and proportionably appear more vehement since it does not onely briskly strike our organs of feeling but ordinarily produces store of very small bubbles and will melt butter or coagulated oyl cast upon it and will afford vapours that by the agitation they suffer will be made to ascend into the air And if the degree of Heat be such as to make the water boil then the agitation becomes much more manifest by the confus'd motions and waves and noise and bubbles that are excited and by other obvious effects and Phaenomena of the vehement and tumultuous motion which is able to throw up visibly into the air great store of Corpuscles in the form of vapours or smoak Thus in a heated Iron the vehement agitation of the parts may be easily inferr'd from the motion and hissing noise it imparts to drops of water or spittle that fall upon it For it makes them hiss and boil and quickly forces their particles to quit the form of a liquor and flye into the air in the form of steams And lastly Fire which is the hottest body we know consists of parts so vehemently agitated that they perpetually and swiftly flye abroad in swarms and dissipate or shatter all the combustible bodies they meet with in their way fire making so fierce a dissolution and great a dispersion of its own fuel that we may see whole piles of solid wood weighing perhaps many hundred pounds so dissipated in very few hours into flame and smoak that oftentimes there will not be one pound of Ashes remaining And this is the first Condition required to Heat The second is this that the determinations be very various some particles moving towards the right some to the left hand some directly upwards some downwards and some obliquely c. This variety of determinations appears to be in hot bodies both by some of the Instances newly mention'd and especially that of flame which is a body and by the diffusion that metals acquire when they are melted and by the operations of Heat that are exercis'd by hot bodies upon others in what posture or scituation soever the body to be heated be applied to them As a thoroughly ignited Coal will appear every way red and will melt wax and kindle brimstone whether the body be apply'd to the upper or to the lower or to any other part of the burning Coal And congruously to this Notion though air and water be mov'd never so vehemently as in high Winds and Cataracts yet we are not to expect that they should be manifestly hot because the vehemency belongs to the progressive motion of the whole body notwithstanding which the parts it consists of may not be near so much quickned in their motions made according to other determinations as to become sensibly hot And this Consideration may keep it from seeming strange that in some cases where the whole body though rapidly moved tends but one way 't is not by that swift motion perceived to be made Hot. Nay though the agitation be very various as well as vehement there is yet a third Condition required to make it Calorific namely that the agitated particles or at least the greatest number of them be so minute as to be singly insensible For though a heap of sand or dust it self were vehemently and confusedly agitated by a whirlwind the bulk of the grains or Corpuscles would keep their agitation from being properly Heat though by their numerous strokes upon a man's face and the brisk commotion of the spirits and other small particles that may thence ensue they may perchance occasion the production of that Quality If some attention be employ'd in considering the formerly propos'd Notion of the nature of Heat it may not be difficult to discern that the Mechanical production of it may be divers ways effected For excepting in some few Anomalous cases wherein the regular course of things happens to be over-rul'd by whatever ways the Insensible parts of a body are put into a very confus'd and vehement agitation by the same ways Heat may be introduc'd into that body agreeably to which Doctrine as there are several Agents and Operations by which this Calorific Motion if I may so call it may be excited so there may be several ways of Mechanically producing Heat and many Experiments may be reduc'd to almost each of them chance it self having in the Laboratories of Chymists afforded divers Phaenomena referrable to one or other of those Heads Many of the more familiar Instances applicable to our present purpose have been long since collected by our justly famous Verulam in his short but excellent Paper de forma calidi wherein though I do not acquiesce in every thing I meet with there he seems to have been at least among the Moderns the Person that has first handled the Doctrine of Heat like an Experimentall Philosopher I shall therefore decline accumulating a multitude of
Instances of the Production of Heat and I shall also forbear to insist on such known things as the Incalescence observable upon the pouring either of Oyl of Vitriol upon Salt of Tartar in the making of Tartarum Vitriolatum or of Aqua fortis upon Silver or Quicksilver in the dissolution of these Metals but shall rather chuse to mention some few Instances not so notorious as the former but not unfit by their variety to exemplifie several of the differing ways of exciting Heat And yet I shall not decline the mention of the most obvious and familiar Instance of all namely the Heat observed in Quick-lime upon the affusion of cold water because among learned men and especially Peripateticks I find causes to be assign'd that are either justly questionable or manifestly erroneous For as to what is inculcated by the Schools about the Incalescence of a mixture of Quick-lime and water by vertue of a supposed antiperistasis or Invigoration of the internal Heat of the Lime by its being invironed by cold water I have elsewhere shewn that this is but an Imaginary Cause by delivering upon Experiment which any man may easily make that if instead of cold water the liquor be poured on very hot the ebullition of the Lime will not be the less but rather the greater And Oyl of Turpentine which is a lighter and is lookt upon as a subtiler liquor than water though it be poured quite cold on Quick-lime will not that I have observed grow so much as sensibly hot with it And now I have mentioned the Incalescence of Lime which though an abvious Phaenomenon has exercised the wits of divers Philosophers and Chymists I will adde two or three Observations in order to an Inquiry that may be some other time made into the genuine Causes of it which are not so easie to be found as many learned men may at first sight imagine The acute Helmont indeed and his followers have ingeniously enough attempted to derive the Heat under consideration from the conflict of some Alcalizate and Acid salts that are to be found in Quick-lime and are dissolved and so set at liberty to fight with one another by the water that slakes the Lime But though we have some manifest marks of an Alcalizate Salt in Lime yet that it contains also an Acid Salt has not that I remember been proved and if the emerging of Heat be a sufficient reason to prove a latent acid Salt in Lime I know not why I may not inferr that the like Salt lies conceal'd in other bodies which the Chymists take to be of the purest or meerest sort of Alcalys For I have purposely tried EXPER. I that by putting a pretty quantity of dry Salt of Tartar in the palm of my hand and wetting it well in cold water there has been a very sensible Heat produced in the mixture and when I have made the trial with a more considerable quantity of salt and water in a Viol the heat proved troublesomely intense and continued to be at least sensible a good while after This Experiment seems to favour the opinion that the Heat produced in Lime whilst 't is quenching proceeds from the Empyreuma as the Chymists call it or impression left by the violent fire that was employ'd to reduce the stone to Lime But if by Empyreuma be meant a bare impression made by the fire 't will be more requisite than easie to declare intelligibly in what that impression consists and how it operates to produce such considerable effects And if the effect be ascribed to swarms of Atomes of fire that remain adherent to the substance of the Lime and are set at liberty to flye away by the liquor which seems to be argued by the slaking of Lime without water if it be for some time left in the air whereby the Atomes of fire get opportunity to flye away by little and little If this I say be alledged I will not deny but there may be a sense which I cannot explicate in few words wherein the Cooperation of a substantial Effluvium for so I call it of the fire may be admitted in giving an account of our Phaenomenon But the Cause formerly assigned as 't is crudely proposed leaves in my mind some Scruples For 't is not so easie to apprehend that such light and minute bodies as those of fire are supposed should be so long detained as by this Hypothesis they must be allowed to be in Quick-lime kept in well-stopt vessels from getting out of so laxe and porous a body as Lime especially since we see not a great Incalescence or Ebullition ensue upon the pouring of water upon Minium or Crocus Martis per se though they have been calcined by violent and lasting fires whose Effluviums or Emanations appear to adhere to them by the increase of weight that Lead if not also Mars does manifestly receive from the Operation of the Fire To which I shall adde that whereas one would think that the igneous Atoms should either flye away or be extinguished by the supervening of water I know and elsewhere give account EXPER. II of an Experiment in which two Liquors whereof one was furnished me by Nature did by being several times separated and reconjoyned without additament at each congress produce a sensible Heat And an Instance of this kind EXPER. III though not so odd I purposely sought and found in Salt of Tartar from which after it had been once heated by the affusion of water we abstracted or evaporated the Liquor without violence of fire till the Salt was again dry and then putting on water a second time the same Salt grew hot again in the Vial and if I misremember not it produced this Incalescence the third time if not the fourth and might probably have done it oftner if I had had occasion to prosecute the Experiment Which seems at least to argue that the great violence of fire is not necessary to impress what passes for an Empyreum upon all calcined bodies that will heat with water And on this occasion I shall venture to adde that I have sometimes doubted whether the Incalescence may not much depend upon the particular Disposition of the calcined body which being deprived of its former moisture and made more porous by the fire doth by the help of those igneous Effluviums for the most part of a saline nature that are dispersed through it and adhere to it acquire such a Texture that the water impell'd by its own weight and the pressure of the Atmosphere is able to get into a multitude of its pores at once and suddenly dissolve the Igneous and Alcalizate Salt it every where meets with there and briskly disjoyn the earthy and solid particles that were blended with them which being exceeding numerous though each of them perhaps be very minute and moves but a very little way yet their multitude makes the confused agitation of the whole aggregate of them and of the particles of the water and
salt vehement enough to produce a sensible Heat especially if we admit that there is such a change made in the Pores as occasions a great increase of this agitation by the ingress and action of some subtile ethereal matter from which alone Monsieur des Cartes ingeniously attempts to derive the Incalescence of Lime and water as well as that of metals dissolved in corrosive Liquors though as to the Phaenomena we have been considering there seems at least to concur a peculiar disposition of body wherein Heat is to be produced to do one or both of these two things namely to retain good store of the igneous Effluvia and to be by their adhesion or some other operation of the fire reduced to such a Texture of its component Particles as to be fit to have them easily penetrated and briskly as well as copiously dissipated by invading water And this Conjecture for I propose it as no other seems favour'd by divers Phaenomena some whereof I shall now annex For here it may be observed that both the dissolved Salt of Tartar lately mentioned and the artificial Liquor that grows hot with the natural reacquires that Disposition to Incalescence upon a bare Constipation or closer Texture of the parts from the superfluous moisture they were drowned in before The Heat that brought them to this Texture having been so gentle that 't is no way likely that the igneous Exhalations could themselves produce such a Heat or at least that they should adhere in such numbers as must be requisite to such an effect unless the Texture of the Salt of Tartar or other body did peculiarly dispose it to detain them since I have found by Trial that Sal Armoniac dissolv'd in water EXPER. IV though boiled up with a brisker fire to a dry salt would upon its being again dissolved in water not produce any Heat but a very considerable degree of Cold. I shall adde that though one would expect a great Cognation between the particles of Fire adhering to Quick-Lime and those of high rectified Spirit of Wine which is of so igneous a nature as to be totally inflammable yet I have not found that the affusion of Alkaol of Wine upon Quick-Lime would produce any sensible Incalescence or any visible dissolution or dissipation of the Lime as common water would have done though it seemed to be greedily enough soaked in by the lumps of Lime And I further tried that if on this Lime so drenched I poured cold water there insued no manifest Heat nor did I so much as find the lump swelled and thereby broken till some hours after which seems to argue that the Texture of the Lime was such as to admit the particles of the Spirit of Wine into some of its pores which were either larger or more congruous without admitting it into the most numerous ones whereinto the Liquor must be received to be able suddenly to dissipate the Corpuscles of Lime into their minuter particles into which Corpuscles it seems that the change that the aqueous particles received by associating with the spirituous ones made them far less fit to penetrate and move briskly there than if they had enter'd alone I made also an Experiment that seems to favour our Conjecture by shewing how much the Disposition of Lime to Incalescence may depend upon an idoneous Texture and the Experiment as I find it registred in one of my Memorials is this EXPER. V. UPon Quick-lime we put in a Retort as much moderately strong Spirit of Wine as would drench it and swim a pretty way above it and then distilling with a gentle fire we drew off some Spirit of Wine much stronger than that which had been put on and then the Phlegm following it the fire was increas'd which brought over a good deal of phlegmatic strengthless Liquor by which one would have thought that the Quick-lime had been slaked but when the remaining matter had been taken out of the Retort and suffer'd to cool it appear'd to have a fiery disposition that it had not before For if any lump of it as big as a Nutmeg or an Almond was cast into the water it would hiss as if a coal of fire had been plunged into the Liquor which was soon thereby sensibly heated Nay having kept divers lumps of this prepared Calx well cover'd from the air for divers weeks to try whether it would retain this property I found as I expected that the Calx operated after the same manner if not more powerfully For sometimes especially when 't was reduced to small pieces it would upon its coming into the water make such a brisk noise as might almost pass for a kind of Explosion These Phaenomena seem to argue that the Disposition that Lime has to grow hot with water depends much on some peculiar Texture since the aqueous parts that one would think capable of quenching all or most of the Atomes of Fire that are supposed to adhere to Quick-lime did not near so much weaken the disposition of it to Incalescence as the accession of the spirituous Corpuscles and their Contexture with those of the Lime increased that igneous Disposition And that there might intervene such an association seems to me the more probable not onely because much of the distill'd Liquor was as phlegmatick as if it had been robb'd of its more active parts but because I have sometimes had Spirit of Wine come over with Quick-lime not in unobserved steams but white fumes To which I shall adde that besides that the Taste and perhaps Odour of the Spirit of Wine is often manifestly changed by a well-made Distillation from Quick-lime I have sometimes found that Liquor to give the Lime a kind of Alcalizat penetrancy not to say fieriness of Taste that was very brisk and remarkable But I will not undertake that every Experimenter nor I my self shall always make trials of this kind with the same success that I had in those above recited in regard that I have found Quick-limes to differ much not onely according to the degree of their Calcination and to their Recentness but also and that especially according to the differing natures of the stones and other bodies calcined Which Observation engages me the more to propose what hath been hitherto deliver'd about Quick-lime as onely Narratives and a Conjecture which I now perceive has detain'd us so long that I am oblig'd to hasten to the remaining Experiments and to be the more succinct in delivering them EXPER. VI. ANd it will be convenient to begin with an instance or two of the Production of Heat wherein there appears not to intervene any thing in the part of the Agent or Patient but Local Motion and the natural Effects of it And as to this sort of Experiments a little attention and reflection may make some familiar Phaenomenon apposite to our present purpose When for example a Smith does hastily hammer a Nail or such like piece of iron the hammer'd metal will grow exceeding hot and yet
very quick and copious diffusion of the parts of one body through those of another whereby both are confusedly tumbled and put into a calorific motion or from this that the parts of the dissolved body come to be every way in great numbers violently scatter'd or from the fierce and confused shocks or justlings of the Corpuscles of the conflicting bodies or masses which may be suppos'd to have the motions of their parts differingly modified according to their respective Natures Or from this that by the plentiful ingress of the Corpuscles of the one into the almost commensurate parts of the other the motion of some etherial matter that was wont before swiftly to permeate the distinct bodies comes to be check'd and disturbed and forced to either brandish or whirl about the parts in a confus'd manner till it have settled it self a free passage through the new mixture almost as the Light does thorow divers troubled liquors and vitrified bodies which at length it makes transparent But without here engaging in a solemn examination of the Hypothesis of Alcali and Acidum and without determining whether any one or more of the newly mention'd Mechanical Causes or whether some other that I have not yet named is to be entitled to the effect it will not be impertinent to propose divers Instances of the Production of Heat by the Operation of one Agent Oyl of Vitriol that it may be consider'd whether it be likely that this single Agent should upon the score of Antipathy or that of its being an Acid Menstruum be able to produce an intense Heat in many bodies of so differing natures as are some of those that we shall have occasion to name And now I proceed to the Experiments themselves Take some ounces of strong Oyl of Vitriol and shaking it with three or four times its weight of common water though both the liquors were cold when they were put together yet their mixture will in a trice grow intensely hot and continue considerably so for a good while In this case it cannot probably be pretended by the Chymists that the Heat arises from the conflict of the Acid and Alcalizate Salts abounding in the two liquors since the common water is suppos'd an elementary body devoid of all salts and at least being an insipid liquor 't will scarce be thought to have Alcali enough to produce by its Reaction so intense a Heat That the Heat emergent upon such a mixture may be very great when the Quantities of the mingled liquors are considerably so may be easily concluded from one of my Memorials wherein I find that no more than two ounces of Oyl of Vitriol being poured but not all at once into four ounces onely of distilled Rain-water made and kept it manifestly warm for a pretty deal above an hour and during no small part of that time kept it so hot that 't was troublesome to be handled EXPER. XIV THe former Experiment brings into my mind one that I mention without teaching it in the History of Cold and it appear'd very surprizing to those that knew not the ground of it For having sometimes merrily propos'd to heat cold liquors with Ice the undertaking seem'd extravagant if not impossible but was easily perform'd by taking out of a bason of cold water wherein divers fragments of Ice were swimming one or two pieces that I perceived were well drenched with the liquor and immersing them suddenly into a wide-mouth'd Glass wherein strong Oyl of Vitriol had been put for this Menstruum presently mingling with the water that adher'd to the ice produc'd in it a brisk heat and that sometimes with a manifest smoke which nimbly dissolved the contiguous parts of Ice and those the next and so the whole Ice being speedily reduced to water and the corrosive Menstruum being by two or three shakes well dispersed through it and mingled with it the whole mixture would grow in a trice so hot that sometimes the Vial that contain'd it was not to be endured in ones hand EXPER. XV. NOtwithstanding the vast difference betwixt common water and high rectified Spirit of Wine whereof men generally take the former for the most contrary body to fire and whereof the Chymists take the later to be but a kind of liquid Sulphur since it may presently be all reduc'd into flame yet as I expected I found upon trial that Oyl of Vitriol being mingled with pure Spirit of Wine would as well grow hot as with common water Nor does this Experiment always require great quantities of the liquors For when I took but one ounce of strong Oyl of Vitriol though I put to it less than half an ounce of choice Spirit of Wine yet those two being lightly shaken together did in a trice conceive so brisk a Heat that they almost fill'd the vial with fumes and made it so hot thar I had unawares like to have burnt my hand with it before I could lay it aside I made the like Trial with the same Corrosive Menstruum and common Aqua vitae bought at a Strong-water-shop by the mixture of which Liquors Heat was produc'd in the Vial that I could not well endure The like success I had in an Experiment wherein Oyl of Vitriol was mixt with common Brandy save that in this the Heat produced seem'd not so intense as in the former Trial which it self afforded not so fierce a Heat as that which was made with rectified Spirit of Wine EXPER. XVI THose Chymists who conceive that all the Incalescencies of bodies upon their being mixt proceed from their antipathy or hostility will not perhaps expect that the parts of the same body either numerically or in specie as the Schools phrase it should and that without manifest conflict grow very hot together And yet having for trials sake put two ounces of Colcothar so strongly calcin'd that it was burnt almost to blackness into a Retort we poured upon it two ounces of strong Oyl of English Vitriol and found that after about a minute of an hour they began to grow so hot that I could not endure to hold my hand to the bottom of the Vessel to which the mixture gave a heat that continued sensible on the outside for between twenty and thirty minutes EXPER. XVII THough I have not observ'd any Liquor to equal Oyl of Vitriol in the number of Liquors with which it will grow hot yet I have not met with any Liquor wherewith it came to a greater Incalescence than it frequently enough did with common Oyl of Turpentine For when we caused divers ounces of each to be well shaken together in a strong vessel fasten'd to prevent mischief to the end of a pole or staff the Ebullition was great and fierce enough to be not undeservedly admired by the Spectators And this brings into my mind a pleasant adventure afforded by these Liquors of each of which having for the Production of Heat and other purposes caus'd a good bottle full to be put up with
other things into a box and sent down into the Countrey with a great charge that care should be had of the Glasses the Wagon in which the box was carried happen'd by a great jolt that had almost overturn'd it to be so rudely shaken that these Glasses were both broken and the Liquors mingling in the box made such a noise and stink and sent forth such quantities of smoke by the vents which the fumes had open'd to themselves that the Passengers with great outcries and much haste threw themselves out of the Wagon for fear of being burnt in it The Trials we made with Oyl of Turpentine when strong Spirit of Nitre was substituted in the stead of Oyl of Vitriol belong not to this place EXPER. XVIII BUt though Petroleum especially when rectified be as I have elsewhere noted a most subtile Liquor and the lightest I have yet had occasion to try yet to shew you how much the Incalescence of Liquors may depend upon their Texture I shall adde that having mixt by degrees one ounce of rectified Petroleum with an equal weight of strong Oyl of Vitriol the former Liquor seemed to work upon the Surface of this last named almost like a Menstruum upon a metal innumerous and small bubbles continually ascending for a while into the Oleum Petrae which had its colour manifestly alter'd and deepen'd by the operation of the spirituous parts But by all the action and re-action of these Liquors there was produced no such smoaking and boiling or intense heat as if Oyl of Turpentine had been employed instead of Oyl of Vitriol the change which was produc'd as to Qualities being but a kind of Tepidness discoverable by the Touch. Almost the like success we had in the Conjunction of Petroleum and Spirit of Nitre a more full account whereof may be elsewhere met with In this and the late Trials I did not care to make use of Spirit of Salt because at least if it be but ordinarily strong I found its operation on the Liquors above mention'd inconsiderable and sometimes perhaps scarce sensible in comparison of those of Oyl of Vitriol and in some cases of dephlegm'd Spirit of Nitre EXPER. XIX EXperienced Chymists will easily believe that 't were not difficult to multiply Instances of Heat producible by Oyl of Vitriol upon solid bodies especially Mineral ones For 't is known that in the usual preparation of Vitriolum Martis there is a great effervescence excited upon the affusion of the Oyl of Vitriol upon Filings of Steel especially if they be well drench'd in common water And it will scarce be doubted but that as Oyl of Vitriol will at least partly dissolve a great many both calcin'd and testaceous bodies as I have try'd with Lime Oyster-shells c. so it will during the dissolution grow sensibly if not intensely hot with them as I found it to do both with those newly named and others as Chalk Lapis Calaminaris c. with the last of which if the Liquor be strong it will heat exceedingly EXPER. XX. WHerefore I will rather take notice of its Operation upon Vegetables as bodies which corrosive Menstruums have scarce been thought fit to dissolve and grow hot with To omit then Cherries and divers Fruits abounding in watery juices with which perhaps on that very account Oyl of Vitriol will grow hot I shall here take notice that for trial sake having mixt a convenient quantity of that Liquor with Raisins of the Sun beaten in a Mortar the Raisins grew so hot that if I misremember not the Glass that contain'd it had almost burnt my hand These kind of Heats may be also produc'd by the mixture of Oyl of Vitriol with divers other Vegetable Substances but as far as I have observed scarce so eminently with any dry body as with the crumbs of white bread or even of brown with a little of which we have sometimes produced a surprising degree of Heat with strong or well-dephlegm'd Oyl of Vitriol which is to be suppos'd to have been employed in the foregoing Experiments and all others mention'd to be made by the help of that Menstruum in our Papers about Qualities unless it be in any particular case otherwise declared EXPER. XXI 'T Is as little observed that Corrosive Menstruums are able to work as such on the soft parts of dead Animals as on those of Vegetables and yet I have more than once produced a notable Heat by mixing Oyl of Vitriol with minced flesh whether roasted or raw EXPER. XXII THough common Sea-salt does usually impart some degree though not an intense one of Coldness unto common water during the act of Dissolution yet some Trials have informed me that if it were cast into a competent quantity of Oyl of Vitriol there would for the most part insue an Incalescence which yet did not appear to succeed so regularly as in most of the foregoing Experiments But that Heat should be produc'd usually though not perhaps constantly by the above-named Menstruum and Salt seems therefore worthy of our notice because 't is known to Chymists that common Salt is one main Ingredient of the few that make up common factitious Sal Armoniac that is wont to be sold in the Shops And I have been inform'd that the excellent Academians of Florence have observed that Oyl of Vitriol would not grow hot but cold by being put upon Sal Armoniac Something like which I took notice of in rectified Spirit of Sulphur made per Campanam but found the effect much more considerable when according to the Ingenious Florentine Experiment I made the Trial with Oyl of Vitriol which Liquor having already furnished us with as many Phaenomena for our present purpose as could be well expected from one Agent I shall scarce in this Paper about Heat make any farther use of it but proceed to some other Experiments wherein it does not intervene EXPER. XXIII WE took a good lump of common Sulphur of a convenient shape and having rub'd or chaf'd it well we found as we expected that by this attrition it grew sensibly warm and That there was an intestine agitation which you know is Local Motion made by this attrition did appear not onely by the newly mention'd Heat whose nature consists in motion and by the antecedent pressure which was fit to put the parts into a disorderly vibration but also by the sulphureous steams which 't was easie to smell by holding the Sulphur to ones nose as soon as it had been rub'd Which Experiment though it may seem trivial in it self may be worth the consideration of those Chymists who would derive all the Fire and Heat we meet with in sublunary bodies from Sulphur For in our case a mass of Sulphur before its parts were put into a new and brisk motion was sensibly cold and as soon as its parts were put into a greater agitation than those of a mans fingers it grew sensibly hot which argues that 't was not by its bare presence or any
emanative action as the Schools speak that the Sulphur communicated any Heat to my hand and also that when 't was briskly moved it did impress that Quality was no more than another solid body though incombustible as common Glass would have done if its parts had been likewise put into an agitation surpassing that of my organs of feeling so that in our Experiment Sulphur it self was beholden for its actual Heat to Local Motion produced by external agents in its parts EXPER. XXIV WE thought it not amiss to try whether when Sal Armoniac that much infrigidates water and Quick-lime which is known to heat it were by the fire exquisitely mingled the mixture would impart to the Liquor a moderate or an intense degree of either of those Qualities In prosecution of which Inquiry we took equal parts of Sal Armoniac and Quick-lime which we fluxed together and putting an ounce by ghess of the powder'd mixture into a Vial with a convenient quantity of cold water we found that the colliquated mass did in about a minute strike so great a heat through the Glass upon my hand that I was glad to remove it hastily for fear of being scorched EXPER. XXV WE have given several and might have given many more Instances of the Incalescence of Mixtures wherein both the Ingredients were Liquors or at least one of them was a fluid body But sometimes Heat may also be produc'd by the mixture of two powders since it has been observed in the preparation of the Butter or Oyl of Antimony that if a sufficient quantity of beaten Sublimate be very well mingled with powder'd Antimony the mixture after it has for a competent time which varies much according to circumstances as the weather vessel place c. wherein the Experiment is made stood in the air would sometimes grow manifestly hot and now and then so intensely so as to send forth copious and fetid fumes almost as if it would take fire There is another Experiment made by the help of Antimony and a pulveriz'd body wherein the mixture after it had been for divers hours expos'd to the air visibly afforded us mineral Fumes And to these I could adde more considerable and perhaps scarce credible Instances of bodies growing hot without Liquors if Philanthropy did not forbid me But to return to our Butter of Antimony it seems not unfit to be enquired whether there do not unobservedly intervene an aqueous moisture which capable of relaxing the salts and setting them a work I therefore suspected might be attracted as men commonly speak from the air since the mixture of the Antimony and the Sublimate is prescribed to be placed in Cellars and in such we find that Sublimate or at least the saline part of it is resolved per deliquium as they call it which is nothing but a solution made by the watery steams wandering in the Air. EXPER. XXVI I Have formerly deliver'd some Instances of the Incalescence produc'd by water in bodies that are readily dissolv'd in it as Salt of Tartar and Quick-lime But one would not lightly expect that meer water should produce an Incalescence in solid bodies that are generally granted to be insoluble in it and are not wont to be at least without length of time visibly wrought on by it and yet trial has assured me that a notable Incalescence may be produc'd by common water in flower or fine powder of Sulphur and Filings of Steel or Iron For when in Summer time I caus'd to be mingled a good quantity as half a pound or rather a pound of each of the Ingredients and caus'd them to be throughly drenched with common water in a convenient quantity whereof they were very well stirred up and down and carefully mingled the mixture would in a short time perhaps less than an hour grow so hot that the Vessel that contain'd it could not be suffer'd in ones hand and the Heat was manifested to other Senses than the Touch by the strong sulphureous stink that invaded the nose and the thick smoak that ascended out of the mixture especially when it was stirr'd with a stick or spattle Whether the success will be the same at all times of the year I do not know and somewhat doubt since I remember not that I had occasion to try it in other Seasons than in Summer or in Autumn EXPER. XXVII IN the Instances that Chymistry is wont to afford us of the Heat produc'd by the action of Menstruums upon other bodies there intervenes some liquor properly so call'd that wets the hands of those that touch it and there are divers of the more judicious Chymists that joyn with the generality of the Naturalists in denying that Quicksilver which is indeed a fluid body but not a moist and wetting one in reference to us will produce Heat by its immediate action on any other body and particularly on Gold But though I was long inclinable to their opinion yet I cannot now be of it several Trials having assur'd me that a Mercury whether afforded by Metals and Minerals or impregnated by them may by its preparation be enabled to insinuate it self nimbly into the body of Gold whether calcin'd or crude and become manifestly incalescent with it in less than two or three minutes of an hour EXPER. XXVIII SInce we know that some natural Salts and especially Salt-peter can produce a Coldness in the water they are dissolved in I thought it might not be impertient to our enquiry into Heat and Cold and might perhaps also contribute somewhat to the discovery of the Structure of Metals and the salts that corrode them if Solutions were made of some Saliform'd bodies as Chymists call them that are made up of metalline and saline parts and do so abound with the latter that the whole Concretions are on their account dissoluble in common water Other Experiments of this sort belonging less to this place than to another I shall here onely for example sake take notice of one that we made upon Quicksilver which is esteem'd the coldest of Metals For having by distilling from it four times its weight of Oyl of Vitriol reduc'd it to a powder which on the account of the adhering Salts of the Menstruum that it detain'd was white and glistering we put this powder into a wide-mouth'd Glass of water wherein a seal'd Weather-glass had been left before it began manifestly to heat the water as appear'd by the quick and considerable ascent of the tincted Spirit of Wine that continued to rise upon putting in more of the Magistery which warm event is the more remarkable because of the observation of Helmont that the Salt adhering to the Mercury corroded in good quantity by Oyl of Vitriol if it be washed off and coagulated becomes a kind of Alom The event of the former Trial deserves the more notice because having after the same manner and with the same Weather-glass made an Experiment with common water and the powder of Vitriolum Martis made with Oyl
without the addition of any sweetning body I have been induced to think by having found upon trial that by the help of insipid Water we may without any violence of Fire reduce Sea-salt into a Brine of so mild and peculiar I had almost said pleasant a tast that one would scarce suspect what it had been or believe that so great a change of a Mineral body could be effected by so slight an intestine Commotion as indeed produced it especially since the alteration of tasts was not the most considerable that was produced by this Operation As to Liquours that come from Vegetables the emerging of new Sapors upon the intestine Commotion of the saporifick parts as Consequences of such Commotions is more obvious than is commonly considered in the juice of Grapes which from a sweet and spiritless Liquour do by that internal motion we call Fermentation acquire that pleasing pungency and briskness of tast that belongs to Wine and afterwards degenerates into that acid and cutting tast that is proper to Vinegar and all this by a change of Constitution made by the action of the parts themselves on one another without the help of any external additament FINIS EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS About the Mechanical Production OF ODOURS By the Honourable ROBERT BOYLE Esq Fellow of the R. Society LONDON â—rinted by E. Flesher for R. Davis Bookseller in Oxford 1675. EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS About the Mechanical Production OF ODOURS SInce Tasts and Odours perhaps by reason of the nearness of the Organs they affect are wont by Physical Writers to be treated of next to one another I also shall imitate them in handling those two Qualities not onely for the intimated Reason but because what I have premised in general and some other things that I have said already under the Title of Tasts being applicable to Odours also 't will not be necessary and therefore 't would be tedious to repeat them here EXPER. I. With two Bodies neither of them odorous to produce immediately a strong Vrinous smell TAke good Quick-lime and Sal Armoniac and rub or grind them well together and holding your Nose to the mixture you will be saluted with an Urinous smell produced by the particles of the volatil Salt united by this operation which will also invade your Eyes and make them to water EXPER. II. By the bare addition of common Water to produce immediately a very strong smell in a Body that had no such smell before THis is one of the Phaenomena of an Experiment made with Camphire and Oil of Vitriol which I have elsewhere mentioned to another purpose For if in that corrosive Menstruum you dissolve a good proportion but not too much of the strongly sented Gum the odour of the Camphire will be quite concealed in the mixture but if you pour this mixture into a good quantity of fair Water the dissolved Gum will immediately recover out of the Menstruum and smell as strong as before if not by reason of the warmth produced in the Operation more strongly EXPER. III. Of producing some Odours each of them quite differing from that of any of the Ingredients HAving taken two ounces or parts of clear Oil of Turpentine and mixt it with one ounce or part of Oil of Vitriol which must be done by degrees for otherwise the Vessel will be endangered the clear Liquour that came over upon the distillation of the mixture in a Sand-furnace in stead of the odour of Turpentine for the Oil of Vitriol alone is wont to be inodorous smelt very strong of Sulphur insomuch that once when I shewed this Experiment approaching my Nose very boldly and hastily to the Receiver newly severed from the Retort the sulphureous stink proved so strong that it had almost to speak with the vulgar taken away my breath And to illustrate yet farther the possible emergency of such odours upon the mixture of Ingredients as neither of them was apart endowed with we caused the substance that remained behind in the Retort in the form of a thin extract after one of the newly mentioned Distillations to be farther pressed by a stronger fire which forced most of it over partly in the form of a thick Oil and partly in that of Butter both which we keep together in the same Vial because their odour is neither that of Oil of Turpentine nor that of Brimstone but they smell exceedingly like the distilled Oil of Bees-wax EXPER. IV. About the production of some Odours by Local motion I Shall not now examine whether the Local motion of an external Agent may not without materially concurring to the operation produce by agitating and shuffling the parts odorous corpuscles But that the celerity and other modifications of the Local motion of the effluvia of Bodies may not onely serve to diversifie their odours but so far produce them as to make them perceptible by the sense which otherwise would not be so may be gathered from some observations which being obvious are not so proper for this place Wherefore I shall rather take notice that I know several Bodies that are not onely inodorous when cold but when considerably hot and are fixt in the fire and yet by having their parts put into a peculiar kind of agitation will presently grow plainly odorous On this occasion I shall add that as there are some very hard Woods that acquire a strong smell by the motion they may be exposed to in a Turner's Lath as I have observed by trialls particularly made with the hard and ponderous Lignum Vitae so some afford whilst the operation lasts an unexpected odour And having inquired about this matter of two eminent Artists whom I often employ concerning the odour of Beech-wood whilst it is turning they both agreed that it would emit well-sented effluviums And one of them affirmed to me farther that having bought a great block of that Wood to make divers pieces of workmanship with it when he came to turn it there would issue out not onely a copious odour but of such a peculiar fragrancy that one that knew not whence it proceeded would have concluded he was smelling Roses EXPER. V. By mixing a good proportion of a very strongly sented Body with an almost inodorous one to deprive it speedily of all its smell TAke Salt of Tartar and drop upon it either Spirit of Nitre or Aqua fortis not too much dephlegmed till all the effervescence cease and the Liquour will no longer work upon the Alkali These by a slow Evaporation of the superfluous moisture may be made to shoot into Crystalls like those of Nitre which after you have if need be by rubbing them with a dried cloath freed them from loose adhering Corpuscles will emulate Salt-peter as in other Qualities so in it s not being odorous though if you distill them or burn them on kindled coals their fumes will quickly make you sensible that they abounded with the stinking Spirits that make Aqua fortis so offensive to the smell EXPER.
three either Gold or Silver or Crystal or Venetian Talck or some other bodies that I elsewhere name yet these bodies are endowed with divers Qualities as the two former with Fusibleness and Malleability and all of them with Weight and Fixity so that in these and the like bodies whence Chymists have not made it yet appear that their Salt Sulphur and Mercury can be truly and adequately separated 't will scarce be other than precarious to derive the malleableness colour and other Qualities of such bodies from those Principles Under this Head I consider also that a great part of the Chymical Doctrine of Qualities is bottom'd on or supposes besides their newly questioned Analysis by fire some other things which as far as I know have not yet been well proved and I question whether they ever will be One of their main Suppositions is that this or that Quality must have its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Sennertus the Learnedst Champion of this opinion calls it or some particular material Principle to the participation of which as of the primary native and genuine subject all other bodies must owe it But upon this point having purposely discoursed elsewhere I shall now onely observe that not to mention Local motion and Figure I think 't will be hard to shew what is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Gravity Volatility Heat Sonorousness Transparency and Opacity which are Qualities to be indifferently met with in bodies whether simple or mixt And whereas the Spagyrists are wont to argue that because this or that Quality is not to be derived truly from this or that particular Principle as Salt for instance and Mercury therefore it must needs be derivable from the third as Sulphur This way of arguing involves a farther Supposition than that newly examined For it implies that every Quality in a compounded body must arise from some one of the tria prima whereas experience assures us that bodies may by Composition obtain Qualities that were not to be found in any of the separate Ingredients As we see in painting that though blew and yellow be neither of them green yet their mixture will be so And though no single Sound will make an octave or diapason yet two sounds whose proportion is double will have an eighth And Tinn and Copper melted and mingled together in a due proportion will make a bell-metal far more sonorous than either of them was before 'T is obvious enough for Chymists themselves to observe that though Lead be an insipid body and Spirit of Vinegar a very sharp one yet Saccharum Saturni that is compounded out of these two has a sweetness that makes it not ill deserve its name But this ill-grounded Supposition of the Chymists is extended farther in an usual Topic of theirs according to which they conclude That I know not how many Qualities as well manifest as occult must be explicated by their tria prima because they are not explicable by the four elements of the Peripateticks To make which argumentation valid it must be proved which I fear it will never be that there are no other wayes by which those Qualities may be explicated but by a determinate number of Material Principles whether four or three Besides that till they have shewn that such Qualities may be intelligibly explicated by their Principles the objection will lye as strong for the Aristotelians against them as for them against the Aristotelians CHAP. II. NExt I consider that there are divers Qualities even in mixt bodies wherein it does not appear that the use of the Chymical Doctrine is Necessary As for instance when pure Gold is by Heat onely brought to fusion and consequently to the state of fluidity and upon the remission of that heat grows a solid and consistent body again what addition or expulsion or change of any of the tria prima does appear to be the cause of this change of consistence Which is easie to be accounted for according to the Mechanical way by the vehement agitation that the fire makes of the minute parts of the Gold to bring it to fusion and the cohesion of those parts by vertue of their gravity and fitness to adhere to one another when that agitation ceases When Venice Glass is meerly by being beaten to pouder deprived of its Transparency and turned into a body opacous and white what need or use of the tria prima have we in the explication of this Phaenomenon Or of that other which occurs when by barely melting down this white and opacous body it is deprived of its opacity and colour and becomes diaphanous And of this sort of Instances you will meet with divers in the following Notes about particular Qualities for which reason I shall forbear the mention of them here CHAP. III. I Observe too that the Spagyrical Doctrine of Qualities is Insufficient and too narrow to reach to all the Phaenomena or even to all the notable ones that ought to be explicable by them And this Insufficiency I find to be two-fold for first there are divers Qualities of which Chymists will not so much as attempt to give us explications and of other particular Qualities the explications such as they are that they give us are often very deficient and unsatisfactory and do not sometimes so much as take notice of divers considerable Phaenomena that belong to the Qualities whereof they pretend to give an account of which you will meet with divers Instances in the insuing Notes And therefore I shall onely to declare my meaning the better invite you to observe with me that though Gold be the body they affect to be most conversant with yet it will be very hard to shew how the specific weight of Gold can be deduced from any or all of the three Principles since Mercury it self that is of bodies known to us the heaviest next to Gold is so much lighter than Gold that whereas I have usually found Mercury to be to an equal weight of water somewhat though little less than fourteen to one I find pure Gold to be about nineteen times as heavy as so much water Which will make it very difficult not to say impossible for them to explain how Gold should barely by participating of Mercury which is a body much lighter than it self obtain that great specific gravity we find it to have for the two other Hypostatical Principles we know are far lighter than Mercury And I think it would much puzzle the Chymists to give us any examples of a compounded body that is specifically heavier than the heaviest of the Ingredients that it is made up of And this is the first kind of Insufficiency I was taking notice of in the Chymical Doctrine of Qualities The other is That there are several bodies which the most Learned among themselves confess not to consist of their tria prima and yet are indowed with Qualities which consequently are not in those subjects to be explicated by the tria prima which are
strange things that are affirm'd of the Operations of the Alkahest we may in favour of our Doctrine urge them with what is deliver'd by Helmont where he asserts that all solid Bodies as Stones Minerals and Metals themselves by having this Liquor duly abstracted or distill'd off from them may be changed into Salt equiponderant to the respective bodies whereon the Menstruum was put So that supposing the Alkahest to be totally abstracted as it seems very probable to be since the weight of the body whence 't was drawn off is not alter'd what other change than of Texture can be reasonably imagin'd to have been made in the transmuted bodies and yet divers of them as Flints Rubies Saphyrs Gold Silver c. that were insoluble before some of them in any known Menstruums and others in any but Corrosive Liquors come to be capable of being dissolv'd in common water EXPER. VIII 'T Is a remarkable Phaenomenon that suits very well with our opinion about the interest of Mechanical Principles in the Corrosive Power of Menstruums and the Corrosibility of bodies that we produc'd by the following Experiment This we purposely made to shew after how differing manners the same body may be dissolv'd by two Menstruums whose minute parts are very differingly constituted and agitated For whereas 't is known that if we put large grains of Sea-salt into common water they will be dissolved therein calmly and silently without any appearance of conflict If we put such grains of Salt into good Oyl of Vitriol that Liquor will fall furiously upon them and produce for a good while a hissing noise with fumes and a great store of bubbles as if a potent Menstruum were corroding some stubborn metal or mineral And this Experiment I the rather mention because it may be of use to us on divers other occasions For else 't is not the onely though it be the remarkablest that I made to the same purpose EXPER. IX FOr whereas Aqua Fortis or Aqua Regis being pour'd upon Filings of Copper will work upon them with much noise and ebullition I have tried that good Spirit of Sal Armoniac or Urine being put upon the like Filings and left there without stopping the Glass will quickly begin to work on them and quietly dissolve them almost as water dissolves Sugar To which may be added that even with Oyl of Turpentine I have though but slowly dissolved crude Copper and the Experiment seemed to favour our Conjecture the more because having tried it several times it appear'd that common unrectified Oyl would perform the Solution much quicker than that which was purified and subtiliz'd by rectification which though more subtle and penetrant yet was it seems on that account less fit to dissolve the Metal than the grosser Oyl whose particles might be more solid or more advantageously shap'd or on some other Mechanical account better qualified for the purpose EXPER. X. TAke good Silver and having dissolv'd it in Aqua Fortis precipitate it with a sufficient quantity of good Spirit of Salt then having wash'd the Calx which will be very white with common water and dried it well melt it with a moderate fire into a fusible Mass which will be very much of the nature of what Chymists call Cornu Lunae and which they make by precipitating dissolv'd Silver with a bare Solution of common Salt made in common water And whereas both Spirit of Salt and Silver dissolv'd in Aqua Fortis will each of them apart readily dissolve in simple water our Luna Cornea not onely will not do so but is so indispos'd to Dissolution that I remember I have kept it in Digestion some in Aqua fortis and some in Aqua Regia and that for a good while and in no very faint degree of heat without being able to dissolve it like a Metal the Menstruums having indeed ting'd themselves upon it but left the Composition undissolv'd at the bottom With this Instance of which sort more might be afforded by Chymical Precipitations I shall conclude what I design'd to offer at present about the Corrosibility of Bodies as it may be consider'd in a more general way For as to the Disposition that Particular Bodies have of being dissolved in or of reâ—isting Determinate Liquors it were much easier for me to enlarge upon that Subject than it was to provide the Instances above recited And these are not so few but that 't is hop'd they may suffice to make it probable that in the Relation betwixt a Solvent and the Body it is to work upon that which depends upon the Mechanical affections of one or both is much to be consider'd and has a great interest in the operations of one of the bodies upon the other FINIS OF THE MECHANICAL CAUSES OF CHYMICAL PRECIPITATION By the Honourable ROBERT BOYLE Esq Fellow of the R. Society LONDON Printed by E. Flesher for R. Davis Bookseller in Oxford 1675. Advertisement THough I shall not deny that in Grammatical strictness Precipitation should be reckoned among Chymical Operations not Qualities yet I did not much scruple to insert the following Discourse among the Notes about Particular Qualities because many if not most of the Phaenomena mentioned in the ensuing Essay may be considered as depending some of them upon a power that certain bodies have to cause Precipitation and some upon such a Disposition to be struck down by others as may if men please be called Precipitability And so these differing Affections may with at least tolerable Congruity be referred to those that we have elsewhere stiled Chymical Qualities But though I hope I may in these few Lines have said enough concerning the name given to these Attributes yet perhaps it will be found in time that the things themselves may deserve a larger Discourse than my little leasure would allow them For that is not a causeless Intimation of the Importance of the subject wherewith I conclude the following Tract since besides that many more Instances might have been particularly referred to the Heads treated of in the Insuing Essay there are improper kinds of Precipitation besides those mentioned in the former part of the Discourse to which one may not incongruously refer divers of the Phaenomena of Nature as well in the greater as in the lesser world whereof either no Causes at all or but improper ones are wont to be given And besides the simple Spirits and Salts usually employed by Chymists there are many compounded and decompounded bodies not only factitious but natural and some such as one would scarce suspect that may in congruous subjects produce such Precipitations as I speak of And the Phaenomena and Consequents of such operations may in divers cases prove conducive both to the Discovery of Physical Causes and the Production of useful effects though the particularizing of such Phaenomena do rather belong to a History of Precipitations than to such a Discourse as that which follows wherein I proposed not so much to deliver the latent Mysteries
the evaporation be not total yet the effects of it are not wont to be reckoned amongst Precipitations And although the way I am about to propose if it be attentively considered has much affinity with the foregoing and the Phaenomena may perhaps in some sort be reduced to them yet the instances that I shall name having not I know been thought of by others and being such as every one would not deduce from what I have been mentioning I shall add a word of the inducements I had to make the tryals as well as of the success of them Considering then that Water will not dissolve Salts indefinitely but when it has received its due proportion 't will then dissolve no more but if they be put into it let them fall to the ground and continue undissolved and that if when water is satiated any of the liquor be evaporated or otherwise wasted it will in proportion let fall the salt it had already taken up I concluded that if I could mingle with water any liquor with which its particles would more readily associate than with those of Salt the depriving the solution of so many of its aqueous particles would be equivalent to the evaporation of as much water or thereabouts as they by being united could compose Wherefore making a lixivium of distilled water or clean rain-water and of Salt of Tartar so strong that if a grain more were cast in it it would lie undissolved at the bottom I put a quantity of this fiery Lixivium into a slender cylindrical vessel till it had therein reached such a height as I thought fit then taking as much as I thought sufficient of strong spirit of wine that would burn every drop away that so it might have no flegm nor water of its own I poured this upon the saline solution and shaking the liquors pretty well together to bring them to mix as well as I could I laid the tube in a quiet place and afterwards found as I expected that there was a pretty quantity of white salt of Tartar fallen to the bottom of the vessel which salt had been meerly forsaken by the aqueous particles that sustained it before but forsook it to pass into the spirit of wine wherewith they were more disposed to associate themselves which I concluded because having before I poured on this last named liquor made a mark on the glass to shew how far the lixivium reached I found what I looked for that after the Precipitation the Lixivium that remained yet strong enough to continue unmixed with the incumbent spirit had its surface not where the mark shewed it had been before but a considerable distance beneath it the spirit of wine having gained in extent what it lost in strength by receiving so many aqueous particles into it I chose to make this tryal rather with a Lixivium of Salt of Tartar than with oyl of Tartar per Deliquium because in this last named liquor the aqueous and saline particles are more closely combined and therefore more difficult to be separated than I thought they would be in a Lixivium hastily made though very strong And though by much agitation I have sometimes obtained some salt of Tartar from the above-mentioned oil yet the experiment succeeded nothing near so well with that liquor as with a Lixivium I made also the like tryal with exceedingly dephlegmed spirit of wine and as strong a Brine as I could make of common salt dissolved without heat in common water and I thereby obtained no despicable proportion of finely figured salt that was let fall to the bottom But this experiment to be succesful requires greater care in him that makes it than the former needs To confirm and somewhat to vary this way of Precipitation I shall add that having made a clear solution of choice Gum Arabic in common water and poured upon it a little high rectified spirit of wine on this occasion there was also made and that in a trice a copious precipitation of a light and purely white substance not unpleasant to behold And for further Confirmation I dissolved a full proportion of Myrrhe in fair water and into the filtrated solution which was transparent but of a high brown colour I dropt a large proportion which Circumstance is not to be omitted of carefully dephlegm'd spirit of wine which according to expectation made a copious Precipitate of the Gum. And these instances I the rather set down in this place because they seem to show that simple water is a real Menstruum which may have its dissolving and sustaining virtue weakened by the accession of Liquors that are not doubted to be much stronger than it By specifying the hitherto mentioned wayes whereby Precipitations may be Mechanically performed and accounted for I would by no means be thought to deny that there may be some omitted here which either others that shall consider the matter with more attention or I my self if I shall have leisure to do it may think on For I propose these but as the chief that occurr to my present thoughts and I forbear to add more instances to exemplifie them because I would not injure some of my other papers that have a greater right to those Instances Only this I shall note in general that the Doctrine and History of Precipitations if well delivered will be a thing of more extent and moment than seems hitherto to have been imagined since not only several of the changes in the blood and other liquors and juices of the humane body may thereby be the better understood and they prevented or their ill consequences remedied but in the practical part of Mineralogy divers usefull things may probably be performed by the assistance of such a Doctrine and History To keep which conjecture from seeming extravagant I shall only here intimate that 't is not alone in bodies that are naturally or permanently liquid but in those solid and ponderous bodies that are for a short time made so by the violence of the fire that many of the things suggested by this Doctrine may have place For whilst divers of those Bodies are in fusion they may be treated as liquors and metalls and perhaps other heterogeneous bodies may be obtained from them by fit though dry Precipitants as in some other writings I partly did and may elsewhere yet further declare FINIS Experiments and Notes ABOUT THE MECHANICAL PRODUCTION OF Magnetism By the Honourable ROBERT BOYLE Esq Fellow of the R. Society LONDON Printed by E. Flesher for R. Davis Bookseller in Oxford 1676. ADVERTISEMENT Concerning the following NOTES About OCCULT QUALITIES THE following Papers about Magnetism and Electricity would appear with less disadvantage if the Author's willingness and Promise that this Tome should be furnished with notes about some Occult Qualities as well as about divers sorts of those that are presumed to be Manifest did not prevail with him to let the ensuing Notes appear without those about the Pores of Bodies and Figures of Corpuscles that
form have the power to work on Metals as I elsewhere shew that by barely boiling some Solutions of Salts of a convenient structure as Nitre Sal Armoniac c. with foliated Gold Silver c. we have corroded these Metalas and can dissolve some others And by boiling crude Copper in Filings with Sublimate and common water we were able in no long time to make a Solution of the Metal EXPER. V. SOmetimes also so languid an Agitation as that which seems but sufficient to keep a Liquor in the state of fluidity may suffice to give some dry bodies a corroding power which they could not otherwise exercise as in the way of writing ones name or a Motto upon the blade of a knife with common Sublimate For if having very thinly overlaid which side you please with Bees-wax you write with a bodkin or some pointed thing upon it the Wax being thereby removed from the strokes made by the sharp body 't is easie to etch with Sublimate since you need but strew the powder of it upon the place bared of the Wax and wet it well with meer common water for strong Vinegar is not necessary For after a while all the parts of the blade that should not be fretted being protected by the Case or Film of Wax the Sublimate will corrode onely where way has been made for it by the bodkin and the Letters will be more or less deeply ingraven or rather etch'd according to the time the Sublimate is suffer'd to lye on And if you aim onely at a legible impression a few minutes of an hour as four or five may serve the turn EXPER. VI. THis brings into my mind an Observation I have sometimes had occasion to make that I found more useful than common and it is That divers Bodies whether distill'd or not distill'd that are not thought capable of dissolving other Bodies because in moderate degrees of heat they will not work on them may yet by intense degrees of heat be brought to be fit Solvents for them To which purpose I remember that having a distill'd Liquor which was rather sweet to the taste than either acid lixiviate or urinous though for that reason it seem'd unfit to work on Pearls and accordingly did not dissolve them in a considerable time wherein they were kept with it in a more than ordinarily warm digestion yet the Glass being for many hours amounting perhaps to some days kept in such an heat of sand as made the Liquor boil we had a Dissolution of Pearls that uniting with the Menstruum made it a very valuable Liquor And though the Solvents of crude Gold wont to be employed by Chymists are generally distill'd Liquors that are acid and in the lately mention'd Solvent made of crude Salts and common water Acidity seem'd to be the predominant quality which makes the use of Solutions made in Aqua Regia c. suspected by many Physicians and Chymists yet fitly chosen Alcalizate Bodies themselves as repugnant as they use to be to Acids without the help of any Liquor will be enabled by a melting Fire in no long time to penetrate and tear asunder the parts even of crude Gold so that it may afterwards be easily taken up in Liquors that are not acid or even by water it self EXPER. VII THe Tract about Salt-peter that gave occasion to these Annotations may furnish us with an eminent Instance of the Production of Solvents For though pure Salt-peter it self when dissolv'd in water is not observ'd to be a Menstruum for the Solution of the Metals hereafter to be named or so much as of Coral it self yet when by a convenient Distillation its parts are split if I may so speak and by Attrition or other Mechanical ways of working on them reduc'd to the shapes of Acid and Alcalizate Salts it then affords two sorts of Menstruums of very differing natures which betwixt them dissolve or corrode a great number and variety of Bodies as the Spirit of Nitre without addition is a Solvent for most Metals as Silver Mercury Copper Lead c. and also divers Mineral Bodies as-Tin-glass Spelter Lapis Calaminaris c. and the fixed Salt of Nitre operates upon Sulphureous Minerals as common Sulphur Antimony and divers other Bodies of which I elsewhere make mention EXPER. VIII BY the former Trials it has appear'd that the increase of Motion in the more penetrating Corpuscles of a Liquor contributes much to its Solutive power and I shall now adde that the Shape and Size which are Mechanical affections and sometimes also the Solidity of the same Corpuscles does eminently concur to qualifie a Liquor to dissolve this or that particular body Of this even some of the more familiar practices of Chymists may supply us with Instances For there is no account so probable as may be given upon this supposition why Aqua Fortis which will dissolve Silver without medling with Gold should by the addition of a fourth part of its weight of Sal Armoniac be turn'd into Aqua Regia which without medling with Silver will dissolve Gold But there is no necessity of having recourse to so gross and compounded a Body as Sal Armoniac to enable Aqua Fortis to dissolve Gold For the Spirit of common Salt alone being mingled in a due proportion will suffice for that purpose Which by the way shews that the Volatile Salt of Urine and Soot that concur to the making up of Sal Armoniac are not necessary to the dissolution of Gold for which a Solvent may be made with Aqua Fortis and crude Sea-salt I might adde that the Mechanical affections of a Menstruum may have such an interest in its dissolutive power that even Mineral or Metalline Corpuscles may become useful Ingredients of it though perhaps it be a distill'd Liquor as might be illustrated by the Operations of some compounded Solvents such as is the Oyl of Antimony made by repeated Rectifications of what Chymists call its Butter which whatever some say to the contrary does much abound in Antimonial Substance EXPER. IX BUt I shall return to our Aqua Regia because the mention I had occasion to make of that Solvent brought into my mind what I devis'd to make it probable that a smaller change than one would lightly imagine of the bulk shape or solidity of the Corpuscles of a Menstruum may make it fit to dissolve a Body it would not work on before And this I the rather attempted because the warier sort of Chymists themselves are very shye of the inward use or preparations made of Gold by the help of Aqua Fortis because of the odious stink they find and the venenosity they suspect in that corrosive Menstruum Whereas Spirit of Salt we look upon as a much more innocent Liquor whereof if it be but diluted with fair water or any ordinary drink a good Dose may be safely given inwardly though it have not wrought upon Gold or any other body to take off its acrimony But whether or
no this prove of any great use in Physick wherein perhaps if any quantity of Gold be to be dissolved a greater proportion of Spirit of Nitre would be needed the success will not be unfit to be mention'd in reference to what we were saying of Solvents For whereas we find not that our Spirit of Salt here in England will at all dissolve crude Gold we found that by putting some Leaf-gold into a convenient quantity of good Spirit of Salt when we had dropt-in Spirit of Nitre shaking the Glass at each drop till we perceived that the mixture was just able in a moderate heat to dissolve the Gold we found that we had been oblig'd to employ but after the rate of twelve drops of the latter Liquor to an ounce of the former so that supposing each of these drops to weigh a grain the fortieth part of Spirit of Nitre being added served to turn the Spirit of Salt into a kind of Aqua Regia But to know the proportion otherwise than by ghess we weigh'd six other drops of the same Spirit of Salt and found them to amount not fully to three grains and an half Whence it appeared that we added but about a seventieth part of the Nitrous Spirit to that of Salt The Experiments that have been hitherto recited relate chiefly to the Production of Corrosive Menstruums and therefore I shall now adde an account of a couple of Trials that I made manifestly to lessen or quite to destroy Corrosiveness in Liquors very conspicuous for that quality EXPER. X. WHereas one of the most corrosive Menstruums that is yet known is Oyl of Vitriol which will fret in pieces both divers Metals and Minerals and a great number and variety of animal and vegetable bodies yet if you digest with it for a while onely an equal weight of highly rectified Spirit of Wine and afterwards distill the mixture very warily for else the Experiment may very easily miscarry you may obtain a pretty deal of Liquor not corrosive at all and the remaining substance will be reduc'd partly into a Liquor which though acid is not more so than one part of good Oyl of Vitriol will make ten times as much common water by being well mingled with it and partly into a dry substance that has scarce any taste at all much less a corrosive one EXPER. XI ANd though good Aqua Fortis be the most generally employed of corrosive Menstruums as being capable of dissolving or corroding not onely many Minerals as Tin-glass Antimony Zinke c. but all Metals except Gold for though it make not a permanent Solution of crude Tin it quickly frets the parts asunder and reduces it to an immalleable substance yet to shew how much the power of corroding may be taken away by changing the Mechanical Texture of a Menstruum even without seeming to destroy the fretting Salts I practis'd and communicated to divers Virtuosi the following Experiment elsewhere mentioned to other purposes We took equal parts of good Aqua Fortis and highly dephlegm'd Spirit of Wine and having mingled them warily and by degrees without which caution the Operation may prove dangerous we united them by two or three Distillations of the whole mixture which afterwards we found not to have the least fretting taste and to be so deprived of its corrosive nature that it would not work upon Silver though by Precipitation or otherwise reduc'd to very small parts nay it would scarce sensibly work in a good while on Filings of Copper or upon other bodies which meer Vinegar or perhaps Rhenish wine will corrode Nay I remember that with another Spirit that was not Urinous and afterwards with Alkool of Wine we shew'd a more surprizing Specimen of the power of either destroying or debilitating the Corrosiveness of a Menstruum and checking its Operation For having caused a piece of Copper-plate to be put into one ounce of Aqua Fortis when this Liquor was eagerly working upon the Metal I caus'd an ounce of the Alkool of Wine or the other Spirit to be poured which it should warily be upon the agitated mixture whose effervescence at the first instant seemed to be much increased but presently after was checked and the Corrosiveness of the Menstruum being speedily disabled or corrected the remaining Copper was left undissolved at the bottom Nor are these the onely acid Menstruums that I have many years since been able to correct by such a way For I applied it to others as Spirit of Nitre and even Aqua Regis it self but it has not an equal operation upon all and least of all as far as I can remember upon Spirit of Salt as on the other side strong Spirit of Nitre was the Menstruum upon which its effects were the most satisfactory Most of the Chymists pretend that the Solutions of bodies are perform'd by a certain Cognation and Sympathy between the Menstruum and the body it is to work upon And it is not to be denied that in divers Instances there is as it were a Consanguinity between the Menstruum and the body to be dissolved as when Sulphur is dissolved by Oyls whether exprest or distill'd But yet as the opinion is generally proposed I cannot acquiesce in it partly because there are divers Solutions and other Phaenomena where it will not take place and partly because even in those instances wherein 't is thought most applicable the effect seems to depend upon Mechanical Principles EXPER. XII ANd first 't will be difficult to shew what Consanguinity there is between Sal Gem and Antimony and Iron and Zinke and Bread and Camphire and Lapis Calaminaris and flesh of divers kinds and Oister-shells and Harts-horn and Chalk and Quick-lime some of which belong to the Vegetable some to the Mineral and some to the Animal Kingdom and yet all of them and divers others as I have tried may even without the assistance of external Heat be dissolved or corroded by one single Mineral Menstruum Oyl of Vitriol And which is not to be neglected on this occasion some of them may be bodies supposed by Chymists to have an Antipathy to each other in point of Corrosion or Dissolution EXPER. XIII I Observe also that a Dissolution may be made of the same body by Menstruums to which the Chymists attribute as I just now observed they did to some Bodies a mutual Antipathy and which therefore are not like to have a Sympathy with the same third body as I found by trial that both Aqua Fortis and Spirit of Urine upon whose mixture there insues a conflict with a great effervescence will each of them apart readily dissolve crude Zinke and so each of them will the Filings of Copper Not to mention that pure Spirit of Wine and Oyl of Vitriol as great a difference as there is between them in I know not how many respects and as notable a heat as will insue upon their Commixture will each of them dissolve Camphire to which may be added other instances