Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 1: Containing a collection of some of the principal phaenomena in nature, accounted for by the greatest philosophers of this age
History
Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 1: Containing a collection of some of the principal phaenomena in nature, accounted for by the greatest philosophers of this age
Natural history; Science -- Early works to 1800; Voyages and travels -- Early works to 1800
Hitherto I have only consider'd the _Air_ and _Atmosphere_, as one
unalter'd Body, as having constantly at the Earth's Surface the 800th
part of the weight of Water, and being capable of Rarifaction and
Condensation _in infinitum_; neither of which _Hypotheses_ are rigidly
true: For here in _England_ it is notoriously known, that the weight of
the whole _Atmosphere_ is various, being counterpoised sometimes by
28½ Inches of _Mercury_, and at other times by no less than 30½;
so that the under parts being pressed by about a 15th part, less weight,
the _specifick_ Gravity of the Air upon that score will sometimes be a
15th part lighter than another; besides Heat and Cold, does very
considerably dilate and contract the Air, and consequently alter its
Gravity; to which add the mixture of _Effluvia_, or steams arising from
almost all Bodies, which assimulating into the Form of Air, are kept
suspended therein, as Salts dissolv'd in Liquors, or Metals in corroding
_Menstrua_; which Bodies being all of them very much heavier than Air,
their Particles by their Admixture must needs encrease the weight of
that Air they lie incorporated withal, after the same manner as melted
Salts do augment the specifick Gravity of Water. The other Consideration
is, that the Rarifaction and Condensation of the Air is not precisely
according to the proportion here laid down; for the Experiment very
nearly agrees thereto, as may be seen in the 58th Chapter of Mr.
_Hook's_ _Micrography_; yet are the Condensations not possible beyond
certain degrees: For being compressed into an 800th part of the Space it
takes up here, its consistence would be equally dense with that of
Water; which yields not to any force whatsoever, as hath been found by
several Experiments tried here, and at _Florence_, by the _Academia del
Cimento_. Nor can the Rarifaction proceed _in infinitum_; for supposing
the Spring whereby it dilates it self, occasion'd by what Texture of
Parts you please, yet must there be a determinate Magnitude of the
natural State of each Particle, as we see it is in Wool, and the like,
whose Bodies being compressable into a very small Space, have yet a
determinate bulk which they cannot exceed, when free'd from all manner
of Pressure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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