Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664)Boyle, Robert
History
Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664)
Boyle, Robert
Color -- Early works to 1800; Colors -- Early works to 1800
the very top of the Liquor, wherein you will some times discern a
Sky-colour'd Circle) with an almost Golden Colour, unless your Infusion
have been made too Strong of the Wood, for in that case it will against the
Light appear somewhat Dark and Reddish, and requires to be diluted by the
addition of a convenient quantity of fair Water. But if you hold this Vial
from the Light, so that your Eye be plac'd betwixt the Window and the Vial,
the Liquor will appear of a deep and lovely Cæruleous Colour, of which
also the drops, if any be lying on the outside of the Glass, will seem to
be very perfectly; And thus far we have try'd the Experiment, and found it
to Succeed even by the Light of Candles of the larger size. If you so hold
the Vial over against your Eyes, that it may have a Window on one side of
it, and a Dark part of the Room both before it and on the other side, you
shall see the Liquor partly of a Blewish and partly of a Golden Colour. If
turning your back to the Window, you powr out some of the Liquor towards
the Light and towards your Eyes, it will seem at the comming out of the
Glass to be perfectly Cæruleous, but when it is fallen down a little way,
the drops may seem Particolour'd, according as the Beams of Light do more
or less fully Penetrate and Illustrate them. If you take a Bason about half
full of Water, and having plac'd it so in the Sun-beams Shining into a
Room, that one part of the Water may be freely illustrated by the Beams of
Light, and the other part of it Darkned by the shadow of the Brim of the
Bason, if then I say you drop of our Tincture, made somewhat strong, both
into the Shaded and Illuminated parts of the Water, you may by looking upon
it from several places, and by a little Agitation of the water, observe
divers pleasing Phænomena which were tedious to particularize. If you powr
a little of this Tincture upon a sheet of White Paper, so as the Liquor may
remain of some depth upon it, you may perceive the Neighbouring drops to be
partly of one Colour, and partly of the other, according to the position of
your Eye in reference to the Light when it looks upon them, but if you powr
off all the Liquor, the Paper will seem Dy'd of an almost Yellow Colour.
And if a sheet of Paper with some of this Liquor in it be plac'd in a
window where the Sunbeams may shine freely on it, then if you turn your
back to the Sun and take a Pen or some such slender Body, and hold it
over-thwart betwixt the Sun and the Liquor, you may perceive that the
Shadow projected by the Pen upon the Liquor, will not all of it be a vulgar
and Dark, but in part a curiously Colour'd shadow, that edge of it, which
is next the Body that makes it, being almost of a lively Golden Colour, and
the remoter verge of a Cæruleous one.
[16] _Nicolaus Monardes_ lib _simplic. ex India allatis_, cap. 27.
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