Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries ThereuponHooke, Robert
History
Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon
Hooke, Robert
Magnifying glasses -- Early works to 1800; Microscopy -- Early works to 1800; Natural history -- Pre-Linnean works
One of these Boxes (for I had two of them) I fill’d with a pretty deep
tincture of _Aloes_, drawn onely with fair Water, and then stopt the hole
with a piece of Wax, then, by holding this Wedge against the Light, and
looking through it, it was obvious enough to see the tincture of the liquor
near the edge of the Wedge where it was but very thin, to be a pale but
well colour’d Yellow, and further and further from the edge, as the liquor
grew thicker and thicker, this tincture appear’d deeper and deeper, so that
near the blunt end, which was seven Inches from the edge and three Inches
and an half thick; it was of a deep and well colour’d Red. Now, the clearer
and purer this tincture be, the more lovely will the deep Scarlet be, and
the fouler the tincture be, the more dirty will the Red appear; so that
some dirty tinctures have afforded their deepest Red much of the colour of
burnt Oker or _Spanish_ brown; others as lovely a colour as _Vermilion_,
and some much brighter; but several others, according as the tinctures were
worse or more foul, exhibited various kinds of Reds, of very differing
degrees.
The other of these Wedges, I fill’d with a most lovely tincture of Copper,
drawn from the filings of it, with spirit of _Urine_, and this Wedge held
as the former against the Light, afforded all manner of Blues, from the
faintest to the deepest, so that I was in good hope by these two, to have
produc’d all the varieties of colours imaginable; for I thought by this
means to have been able by placing the two _Parallelogram_ sides together,
and the edges contrary ways, to have so mov’d them to and fro one by
another, as by looking through them in several places, and through several
thicknesses, I should have compounded, and consequently have seen all those
colours, which by other like compositions of colours would have ensued.
But insteed of meeting with what I look’d for, I met with somewhat more
admirable; and that was, that I found my self utterly unable to see through
them when placed both together, though they were transparent enough when
asunder; and though I could see through twice the thickness, when both of
them were fill’d with the same colour’d liquors, whether both with the
Yellow, or both with the Blue, yet when one was fill’d with the Yellow, the
other with the Blue, and both looked through, they both appear’d dark,
onely when the parts near the tops were look’d through, they exhibited
Greens, and those of very great variety, as I expected, but the Purples and
other colours, I could not by any means make, whether I endeavour’d to look
through them both against the Sun, or whether I plac’d them against the
hole of a darkned room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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