Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664)Boyle, Robert
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Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664)
Boyle, Robert
Color -- Early works to 1800; Colors -- Early works to 1800
Glass, which might with the Blew compose that Green, yet was I not
satisfi'd my self with my Conjecture, but the thing seem'd odd to me, as
well as to divers curious persons to whom it was shown. And I lately had a
Broad piece of Glass, which being look'd on against the Light seem'd clear
enough, and held from the Light appear'd very lightly discolour'd, and yet
it was a piece knock'd off from a great lump of Glass, to which if we
rejoyn'd it, where it had been broken off, the whole Mass was as green as
Grass. And I have several times us'd Bottles and stopples that were both
made (as those, I had them from assur'd me) of the very same Metall, and
yet whilst the bottle appear'd but inclining towards a Green, the Stopple
(by reason of its great thickness) was of so deep a Colour that you would
hardly believe they could possibly be made of the same materials. But to
satisfie some Ingenious Men, on another occasion, I provided my self of a
flat Glass (which I yet have by me,) with which if I look against the Light
with the Broad side obverted to the Eye, it appeares like a good ordinary
window Glass; but if I turn the Edge of it to my Eye, and place my Eye in a
convenient posture in reference to the Light, it may contend for deepness
of Colour with an Emerald. And this Greeness puts me in mind of a certain
thickish, but not consistent Pigment I have sometimes made, and can show
you when you please, which being dropp'd on a piece of White Paper appears,
where any quantity of it is fallen, of a somewhat Crimson Colour, but being
with ones finger spread thinly on the Paper does presently exhibit a fair
Green, which seems to proceed only from its disclosing its Colour upon the
Extenuation of its Depth into Superficies, if the change be not somewhat
help'd by the Colours degenerating upon one or other of the Accounts
formerly mention'd. Let me add, that having made divers Tryals with that
Blew substance, which in Painters shops is call'd _Litmase_, we have
sometimes taken Pleasure to observe, that being dissolv'd in a due
proportion of fair Water, the Solution either oppos'd to the Light, or
dropp'd upon White paper, did appear of a deep Colour betwixt Crimson and
Purple; and yet that being spread very thin on the Paper and suffer'd to
dry on there, the Paper was wont to appear Stain'd of a Fine Blew. And to
satisfie my selfe, that the diversity came not from the Paper, which one
might suspect capable of inbibing the Liquor, and altering the Colour, I
made the Tryal upon a flat piece of purely White Glass'd Earth, (which I
sometimes make use of about Experiments of Colours) with an Event not
unlike the former.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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