Volume 1

The posthumous works of Robert Hooke ... containing his Cutlerian lectures, and other discourses, read at the meetings of the illustrious Royal Society ... Illustrated with sculptures. To these discourses is prefixt the author's life, giving an account of his studies and employments, with an enumeration of the many experiments, instruments, contrivances and inventions, by him made and produc'd as Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society / publish'd by Richard Waller.

  • Hooke, Robert, 1635-1703.
Date:
1705
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The posthumous works of Robert Hooke ... containing his Cutlerian lectures, and other discourses, read at the meetings of the illustrious Royal Society ... Illustrated with sculptures. To these discourses is prefixt the author's life, giving an account of his studies and employments, with an enumeration of the many experiments, instruments, contrivances and inventions, by him made and produc'd as Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society / publish'd by Richard Waller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/592
    fouryj.iln.s. 4 May 23d 1666. There was read a Paper of Mr. Hooke’s ex- c plicating the Inflexion of a direct motion into a Curve, by a fu- c pervening, attractive Principle, which was order’d to be Regi- 4 fler’d. IheDifcourfe contain’d therein is an Introduction to an 4 Experiment to fihew that Circular Motion, is compounded of an 4 indeavour by a direCt motion by the Tangent, and ofanother in- 4 deavour tending to the Center : To which purpofe there was a 4 Pendulum fattened to the Roof of the Room with a large wooden 4 Ball of Lignum Vit<c on the end of it; and it was found, that if 4 the Impetus of the indeavour by the Tangent, at the firft fetting 4 out, was ftronger than the indeavour to the Center, there was 4 generated fuch an Elliptical Motion, whole longeft Diameter was 4 parallel to the direCf indeavour of the Body at the firlt Impulfe: 4 But if that Impetus were weaker than that indeavour to the Cen- 4 ter, there was generated fuch an Elliptical Motion, whofe fhor- 4 ter Diameter was parallel to the direft: indeavour of the Body in 4 the fir ft point of the Impulfe ; if both were equal there was made 4 a perfeCt Circular Motion. There was alfo made another Expe- 4 rimem, by fattening another Pendulous Body by a fhort String 4 on the lower part of the Wire, by which the greater weight was 4 fufpended, that it might freely make a Circular or Elliptical Mo- 4 tion round the bigger, whilftthe bigger mov’d Circularly or Ei- 4 liptically about the firft Center. The intention whereof was to 4 explicate the manner of the Moons motion about the Earth, it 4 appearing evidently thereby, that neither the bigger Ball, which 4 reprefented the Earth, nor the lefs which reprefented the Moon, 4 were mov’d in fo perfeCt a Circle or Ellipfis, as otherwife they 4 would have been, if either of them had been fufpended and 4 mov’d fingly : But that a certain Point which feem’d to be the 4 Center of Gravity of the two Bodies ( howfoever pofited and 4 confider’d as one) feem’d to be regularly mov’d, in fuch a Circle 4 or Ellipfis, the two Balls having other perculiar motions in fmall 4 Epicicles about the faid Point. 4 Aug. ift. 1666. he read his Obfervations of the Comet in 1664. X 4 after Printed among his TraCts, and call’d Coweta. The fame 4 produc’d a certain Contrivance to fhew that the Circular Pendu- 4 lum was made of two ftrait Lines croHing each other, &c. and about the fame time his Inftrument to take the diftance of the Stars from the Moon, the one Object feen direft, the other by Reflexion, this is publifh’din his Book, pag. 503. The dreadful Conflagration of a great part of the City of Lon¬ don happening in the beginning of September 1666. brought an¬ other great hindrance to the Societies Proceedings; fo that they were oblig’d to remove their ufual place of Meeting from Grefbam College to Arundel Houfe in the Strand, where, by the favour of the then Duke of Norfolk, they profecuted their former Inquiries, their firfl: Meeting at Arundel Houfe being on the ninth of Jan, 1667. 4 On the nineteenth of Sep. 1666. he produc’d a Module he had 4 defign’d for the Rebuilding of the City, with which the Society 4 were very well pleas’d, and Sir John Laurence the then late Lord 4 Major, addrefs’d himfelf to the Society, expretfing the prefent Lord 4 Majors and Aldermens liking thereof,as alfo their defire that it might 4 be fhewn to his Majejly, they preferring it far before the Model 4 drawn up by the City Surveyor. What