The Sceptical Chymist: or Chymico-Physical Doubts & Paradoxes, Touching the Spagyrist's Principles Commonly call'd Hypostatical; As they are wont to be Propos'd and Defended by the Generality of Alchymists. Whereunto is præmis'd Part of another Discourse relating to the same Subject.Boyle, Robert
Philosophy
The Sceptical Chymist: or Chymico-Physical Doubts & Paradoxes, Touching the Spagyrist's Principles Commonly call'd Hypostatical; As they are wont to be Propos'd and Defended by the Generality of Alchymists. Whereunto is præmis'd Part of another Discourse relating to the same Subject.
Boyle, Robert
Chemistry -- Early works to 1800
salt employ'd to bring the sand to fusion, I found that the knowingst
Workmen imputed these Mis-adventures to the Ashes, of [Errata: Ashes
off] some certain kind of Wood, as having observ'd the ignobler kind
of Glass I lately mention'd to be frequently produc'd when they had
employ'd such sorts of Ashes which therefore they scruple to make use
of, if they took notice of them beforehand. I remember also, that an
Industrious Man of my acquaintance having bought a vast quantity of
Tobacco stalks to make a fixt Salt with, I had the Curiosity to go see
whether that Exotick Plant, which so much abounds in volatile salt,
would afford a peculiar kind of _Alcali_; and I was pleas'd to find
that in the _Lixivium_ of it, it was not necessary, as is usual, to
evaporate all the Liquor, that there might be obtain'd a Saline Calx,
consisting like lime quench'd in the Air of a heap of little
Corpuscles of unregarded shapes; but the fixt salt shot into figur'd
Crystal, almost as Nitre or _Sal-armoniack_ and other uncalcin'd salts
are wont to do; And I further remember that I have observ'd in the
fixt Salt of Urine, brought by depuration to be very white, a tast not
so unlike to that of common salt, and very differing from the wonted
caustick Lixiviate tast of other salts made by Incineration. But
because the Instances I have alledg'd of the Difference of
_Alcalizate_ salt are but few, and therefore I am still inclin'd to
think, that most Chymists and many Physitians do, inconsideratly
enough and without Warrant from Experience, ascribe the Vertues of the
Concretes expos'd to Calcination, to the salts obtain'd by it; I shall
rather, to shew the Disparity of salts, mention in the first Place the
apparent Difference betwixt the Vegetable fixt salts and the Animal
Volatile ones: As (for Example) betwixt salt of Tartar, and salt of
Harts-horn; whereof the former is so fixt that 'twill indure the brunt
of a violent Fire, and stand in fusion like a Metal; whereas the other
(besides that it has a differing tast and a very differing smell) is
so far from being fixt, that it will fly away in a gentle heat as
easily as Spirit of Wine it self. And to this I shall add, in the next
place, That even among the Volatile salts themselves, there is a
considerable Difference, as appears by the distinct Properties of (for
Instance) salt of Amber, salt of Urine, salt of Mans Skull, (so much
extoll'd against the falling Sicknesse) and divers others which cannot
escape an ordinary Observer. And this Diversity of Volatile salts I
have observ'd to be somtimes Discernable even to the Eye, in their
Figures. For the salt of Harts-horn I have observ'd to adhere to the
Receiver in the forme almost of a _Parallelipipedon_; and of the
Volatile salt of humane blood (long digested before distillation, with
spirit of Wine) I can shew you store of graines of that Figure which
_Geometricians_ call a _Rhombus_; though I dare not undertake that
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