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
have made upon the shining sparks of Steel, for there he shall find that
_the same_ effects are produced upon small chips or parcels of Steel by the
_flame_, and by _a quick and violent motion_; and if the body of _steel_
may be thus melted (as I there shew it may) I think we have little reason
to doubt that almost _any other_ may not also. Every Smith can inform one
how quickly both his _File_ and the _Iron_ grows _hot_ with _filing_, and
if you _rub_ almost any two _hard_ bodies together, they will do the same:
And we know, that a sufficient degree of heat causes _fluidity_, in some
bodies much sooner, and in others later; that is, the parts of the body of
some are so _loose_ from one another, and so _unapt to cohere_, and so
_minute_ and _little_, that a very _small_ degree of agitation keeps them
always in the _state of fluidity_. Of this kind, I suppose, the _Æther_,
that is the _medium_ or _fluid_ body, in which all other bodies do as it
were swim and move; and particularly, the _Air_, which seems nothing else
but a kind of _tincture_ or _solution_ of terrestrial and aqueous particles
_dissolv’d_ into it, and agitated by it, just as the _tincture_ of
_Cocheneel_ is nothing but some finer _dissoluble_ parts of that Concrete
lick’d up or _dissolv’d_ by the _fluid_ water. And from this Notion of it,
we may easily give a more Intelligible reason how the Air becomes so
capable of _Rarefaction_ and _Condensation_. For, as in _tinctures_, one
grain of some _strongly tinging_ substance may _sensibly_ colour some
_hundred thousand_ grains of _appropriated_ Liquors, so as every _drop_ of
it has its proportionate share, and be sensibly ting’d, as I have try’d
both with _Logwood_ and _Cocheneel_: And as some few grains of _Salt_ is
able to infect as great a quantity, as may be found by _præcipitations_,
though not so easily by the _sight_ or _taste_; so the _Air_, which seems
to be but as ’twere a _tincture_ or _saline substance, dissolv’d and
agitated by the fluid and agil Æther_, may disperse and _expand_ it self
into a _vast space_, if it have room enough, and infect, as it were, every
part of that space. But, as on the other side, if there be but some _few
grains_ of the liquor, it may _extract all_ the colour of the tinging
substance, and may _dissolve_ all the Salt, and thereby become _much more
impregnated_ with those substances, so may _all_ the air that sufficed in a
_rarify’d state_ to fill some _hundred thousand_ spaces of Æther, be
compris’d in only _one_, but in a position proportionable _dense_. And
though we have not yet found out such _strainers_ for Tinctures and Salts
as we have for the Air, being yet unable to _separate_ them from their
dissolving liquors by any kind of _filtre_, without _præcipitation_, as we
are able to _separate_ the Air from the Æther by _Glass_, and several other
bodies. And though we are yet unable and ignorant of the ways of
_præcipitating_ Air out of the Æther as we can Tinctures, and Salts out of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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