Some considerations touching the usefulnesse of experimental naturall philosophy. Propos'd in familiar discourses to a friend, by way of invitation to the study of it / [Anon].

  • Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.
Date:
1663
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some considerations touching the usefulnesse of experimental naturall philosophy. Propos'd in familiar discourses to a friend, by way of invitation to the study of it / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    99/600 (page 69)
    ($9) its heavy Body upwards, contrary (to fpeak in their Language) to the tendency of its particular Nature, but knows both that Air has been fuck’d out of the Reed, and that unlefsic fucceed the attn’&ed Air, there will follow a Vacuum 5 and that this Water is withal lo generous, as by afcending,to a«fl contrary to its particular inclination for the general good of the Univerfe, iike a Noble Patriot, that facrifices his particular Interefts to the publick ones of his Countrey. But to (hew Men by an eafie Experiment how little Attra- df ion is perform'd to avoid a Vacuum, I have fometimes done thus I have taken a {lender Pipe of Glafs, of about four Foodong, and putting one of the open ends of it intoaVef- fel full ofQuick- filver, I have fuck’d as ftronly as I could at the other, andcauf’d one to yvatch the afcent of theQuick- filver, and mark where it was at the higheft, and I found not that at one fuck, I could raife it up much above a Foot •, and having cauf'd a couple of Prong Men, one after another, to fuck at the fame end of the fame Pipe, I found not that either of them could draw it up much higher. Nor did it appear that by repeated Sudlions, though the upper end of the Pipe were each time flopp’d, to hinder the relapfeof the Quick- filver, it could at all be raif’d above the (even and twenty Di¬ bits at which it ufd to fubfift in the Torrecdlian Experiment lie Vacuo: Whereas the fame end of that Tube being put in¬ to a fmali Veflel of Water, I could at one fuck make the Wa¬ ter fwiftly afcend thorow the perpendicularly held Tube into: my Mouth, which argues, that the afcenfion of Liquors up¬ on Suftion, rather depends upon the prefl ure of the Air, and their refpedlive meafures of Gravity and Lightnels compard to that Preflure, then it proceeds from fuch an abhorrency of a Vacuum as is prefum’d. . ' And fo likewife in the other Qseflion propof’d,it is imply d, that there is in a Female Body fomething,that knows the rule of Phy fitians, that of a Plethora, the Cure is the convenient Eva¬ cuation of’blood, and that this intelligent Faculty is wife e- nough j