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
We took good common Vitriol, and having beaten it to Powder, and put it
into a Crucible, we kept it melted in a gentle heat, till by the
Evaporation of some parts, and the shuffling of the rest, it had quite lost
its former Colour, what remain'd we took out, and found it to be a friable
_Calx_, of a dirty Gray. On this we pour'd fair Water, which it did not
Colour Green or Blew, but only seem'd to make a muddy mixture with it, then
stopping the Vial wherein the Ingredients were put, we let it stand in a
quiet place for some dayes, and after many hours the water having dissolv'd
a good part of the imperfectly calcin'd Body, the Vitriolate Corpuscles
swiming to and fro in the Liquor, had time by their opportune Occursions to
constitute many little Masses of Vitriol, which gave the water they
impregnated a fair Vitriolate Colour; and this Liquor being pour'd off, the
remaining dirty Powder did in process of time communicate the like Colour,
but not so deep, to a second parcel of cleer Water that we pour'd on it.
But this Experiment _Pyrophilus_ is, (to give you that hint by the way) of
too Luciferous a Nature to be fit to be fully prosecuted, now that I am in
haste, and willing to dispatch what remains. And we have already said of
it, as much as is requisite to our present purpose.
_EXPERIMENT XLIV._
It may (_Pyrophilus_) somewhat contribute towards the shewing how much some
Colours depend upon the less or greater mixture, and (as it were,)
Contemperation of the Light with shades, to observe, how that sometimes the
number of Particles, of the same Colour, receiv'd into the Pores of a
Liquor, or swiming up and down in it, do seem much to vary the Colour of
it. I could here present you with particular instances to show, how in many
(if not most) consistent Bodyes, if the Colour be not a Light one, as
White, Yellow, or the like, the closeness of parts in the Pigments makes it
look Blackish, though when it is display'd and laid on thinly, it will
perhaps appear to be either Blew, or Green, or Red. But the Colours of
consistent Pigments, not being those which the Preamble of this Experiment
has lead you to expect Examples in, I shall take the instances I am now to
give you, rather from Liquors than Dry Bodyes. If then you put a little
fair Water into a cleer and slender Vial, (or rather into one of those
pipes of Glass, which we shall by and by mention;) and let fall into it a
few drops of a strong Decoction or Infusion of _Cochineel_, or (for want of
that) of _Brazil_; you may see the tincted drops descend like little Clouds
into the Liquor; through which, if, by shaking the Vial, you diffuse them,
they will turn the water either of a Pinck Colour, or like that which is
wont to be made by the washing of raw flesh in fair Water; by dropping a
little more of the Decoction, you may heighten the Colour into a fine Red,
almost like that which ennobles Rubies; by continuing the affusion, you may
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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