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
And now I speak of _Litmass_, I will add, that having this very day taken a
piece of it, that I had kept by me these several years, to make Tryals
about Colours, and having let fall a few drops of the strong Infusion of it
in fair water, into a fine Crystal Glass, shap'd like an inverted Cone, and
almost full of fair Water, I had now (as formerly) the pleasure to see, and
to show others, how these few tincted drops variously dispersing themselves
through the Limpid Water, exhibited divers Colours, or varieties of Purple
and Crimson. And when the Corpuscles of the Pigment seem'd to have equally
diffus'd themselves through the whole Liquor, I then by putting two or
three drops of Spirit of Salt, first made an odd change in the Colour of
the Liquor, as well as a visible commotion among its small parts, and in a
short time chang'd it wholly into a very Glorious Yellow, like that of a
Topaz. After which if I let fall a few drops of the strong and heavy
Solution of Pot-ashes, whose weight would quickly carry it to the sharp
bottome of the Glass, there would soon appear four very pleasant and
distinct Colours; Namely, a Bright, but Dilute Colour at the picked bottome
of the Glass; a Purple, a little higher; a deep and glorious Crimson,
(which Crimson seem'd to terminate the operation of the Salt upward) in the
confines betwixt the Purple and the Yellow; and an Excellent Yellow, the
same that before enobled the whole Liquor, reaching from thence to the top
of the Glass. And if I pleas'd to pour very gently a little Spirit of Sal
Armoniack, upon the upper part of this Yellow, there would also be a Purple
or a Crimson, or both, generated there, so that the unalter'd part of the
Yellow Liquor appear'd intercepted betwixt the two Neighbouring Colours.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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