Below are the remaining queries about aspects of Boyle's published works that the editors were not able to resolve before publication of the new 14-volume edition of The Works of Robert Boyle (Pickering & Chatto, 1999-2000). Any suggestions readers may have should be submitted to Michael Hunter (m.hunter@history.bbk.ac.uk), although it will not be possible to incorporate the answers in the current edition of the Works.
Please also consult our present list of queries for the new edition of Boyle's Correspondence, now in preparation
There are various references to "Modern Naturalists" and the like which we have not been able to tie down: pp. 44, 48, 89, 122, 162, 228, 258, 300-1, 371.
p. 25: Who was the "honest man that furnished the greatest part of London with large Looking-Glasses"?
pp. 170, 294-5: What is the source of the proverb, "That good Wits have bad Memories"?
p. 356: Where is "that famous place in France known by the name of Les Caves Goutieres, where the Water falling from the upper Parts of the cave to the ground does presently there condense into little stones, of such figures as the drops..."
p. 113: Where did Luther express the wish "that all his Books of Devotion were burnt, when he once perceiv'd that the Peoples fondnesse and Over-valuation of them produc'd a Neglect of the Study of the Bible"?
p. 147-8: (1) Who was "the Cardinal (who flourish'd in the last Age) that said, That once indeed he had Read the Bible, but if he were to do so again, 'twould lose him all his Latinity"?
(2) Who was the "no obscure Prince... in no obscure Company" who disputed with Boyle "an Opinion about the Style of the Scriptures"?
(3) Who was the Englishman who preferred the odes of Pindar before the Psalms?
p. 155: Who is "Kessaeus", cited here by Boyle?
p. 64: Who was Vicenzo Vincenti of Urbino?
p. 1: Where did Pythagoras say that two things make man Godlike: To know the truth, and to do good?
p. 66: Where did Aristotle say "As the Eyes of Owls are to the splendor of the Day, so are those of our Minds even to things obvious and manifest"?
p. 74: Who was Dr Haberfeld, "one of the principal Physitians of Bohemia"?
p. 98: Who was Dr Gordon, "our experienced Mint-master"?
p. 153: Where does van Helmont recommend horse dung as an antidote to the plague?
p. 370: Who was "Mr B.B."to whom a sulphur-based remedy was applied?
p. 775: What was "a Ditch in the North of England (in some regards more strange, though less famous then the sulphureous Grotta near Naples)" with inflammable sulphuric fumes.
p. 132: Who was the Lord who "told his accused Lady, that he knew she was too proud to be a Whore"?
p. 171: Who was "P.S.", source of the discourse that Boyle paraphrases?
p. 175: Who was "Lady D.R.", owner of a fine cabinet?
p. 199: What is the source of the proverb about a king who sold his liberty for a draught of water
p. 218: Who was the heathen who said "Non est vivere sed valere Vita"?
In appendices 1 and 2, Boyle deals with the views of two writers, neither of whom is identified. The one addressed in the first, described as "a very recent Writer of Hydrostaticks", whose work is referred to as "these Erotemata", apparently wrote in English: but it does not appear to be Hobbes, although he had dealt with such issues at the end of dialogue 1 of his Problemata physica (1662), nor Henry Power, whose Experimental Philosophy (1664) also deals with related topics.
In Appendix Two, Boyle deals with the views of "a famous Writer, and, for ought I know, the Recentest (except Monsieur Paschal) that has treated of Hydrostaticks": this author appears to have written in Latin, though Boyle paraphrases some of his remarks into English. Again, he has not been identified: it does not appear to be Gaspar Schott, nor Pierre Petit.
Who are these two targets of Boyle's writing?
p. 212: Where does Paracelsus write of a 'Magistery'?
'Subordinate Forms' (1667), p. 322: Who is the "late modern Writer, follow'd as I remember by another Naturalist of good account", who affirm the ability of the Rose of Jericho to be revived when shrivelled up?
'Subterraneal Regions', p. 5: Who was the "Chymist, that had purposely travelled to Hungary, and other places to visit the mines those parts are justly famous for"?
'General Considerations', p. 37: Who is "an ingenious and well known Person, that is a great Dealer in Cider": any clues?
Ibid., p. 40: What is the source of the proverb, "That every thing is beautiful in its Season"?
'Trades', p. 25: Who was "Bareius who was able to stay six houres under water"?
Ibid., p. 26: Who was "the Secretary of a forreign Embassador" at The Hague who made "Emboss'd works of Wood in Molds"?
p. 174: What is the book attributed to Galen in praise of 'Treacle'?
p. 98: What are "those little instruments that are now us'd at London to examine the strength of Powder"
p. 133: Who were "those naturalists, that hold the Seeds of Living Creatures to be animated"?
'Great Efficacy', p. 40: Who is the lady who was Maid of Honour at court, with allergy to roses?
'Determinate Nature', p. 65: Who was Nicolaus Florentinus, cited by Sennert?
sig A6v: Who was the "excellent divine" who said "that what ever comes out of the Pulpit does with many pass but for the foolishness of Preaching
p. 20: What is the source for the account of "those fabulous Chaldeans, whose fond account [of the age of the world] reachd up to 40000 or 50000 years"?
p. 34: Who was the "Gentleman, who was in Spain, for a State-crime, which yet he thought an Heroick action, kept close prisoner for a year in a place, where though he had allowed him a diet not unfit for a Person of Note; yet he was not permitted the benefit of any Light and was not accosted by any humane creature"? It is presumably the same person referred to (with slightly different details) in 'Vitiated Sight' in Final Causes (1688), pp. 272-3.
p. 104: What is the source of the quote "The vain work of a year perishes at leisure"?
p. 170: Where does Francis Bacon discuss "Level[ling] the wits"?
p. 172: What is source of "what a Roman said of Alexander's Triumph over the effeminate Asiaticks 'That his only daring was to despise what was despicable'"? Boyle expresses it otherwise in'Greatness of Mind' in Christian Virtuoso (1690), p. 8, "he durst well despise despicable things".
p. 210: Did Boyle have a role in publicizing in England Christiaan Huygens's discovery of Titan, a satellite of Saturn, in 1656 and his later observations of Saturn published in Systemata Saturnium (1659)?
'Suspicions about Some Hidden Qualities in the Air', p. 35: Who was the "ingenious man" who made "that very pretty Observation that has been newly made in Italy . . . that [if a black clot of blood be broken up and exposed to the air, it will become as red as the superficial part of blood]
'Observations about the Growth of Metals in their Ore exposed to the Air', p. 9: Who was the "Gentleman, whose House was seated near several Lead Mines, and who was himself Owner of one or two, which he yet causes to be wrought"? Who was his neighbour ("in the same Country"), "a Person of Quality, who had a Patent for divers Leaden Mines that were suppos'd to contain silver, and wrought some of them himself at no small charge, yet not without profit"?
'Of the Cause of Attraction by Suction', p. 17: Who are the "followers of Gassendus" and "Modern Philosophers" who "admit not the Fuga Vacui to be the Cause [of suction] ... [and] do generally enough agree in referring it to the action of the Suckers Thorax ..." ?
[title-page] "That men are disbelieving without judgment of things, is [a matter of] the utmost ignorance". We have not located this quotation in the text Boyle gives as his source, Francis Bacon's New Organon (1620).
'Possibility of the Resurrection', p. 33: Source for the story of Columbus predicting an eclipse?
'Of the Mechanical Origine of Heat and Cold', p. 24: Who are the "famous Writers" who disagree "about the temperament of some Medicines, as Mercury, Camphire, &c which some will have to be cold, and others maintain to be hot"?
'The Mechanical Production of Tasts', p. 31: Who are those "that think the Maturation of Fruits and the changes of Tasts, must needs be the effect of the Vegetable soul of the plant. For after the Fruit is gathered, and so, by being no longer a part of the Tree, does, according to the most common opinion, cease to be a part of the living Plant ..."?
'Of the Imperfection of the Chymist's Doctrine of Qualities', p. 36: Who are the "learned modern Chymists" who "would be thought to explicate divers of the Changes that happen to Bodies in point of Odours, Colours, etc. by saying that in such alterations the sulphur or other Hypostatical Principle is intraverted or extraverted, or, as others speak, inverted"?
'Reflections upon the Hypothesis of Alcali and Acidum', p. 14: What is the source of the story of "a Lyon, that he is a fourfooted beast that flies from a Crowing Cock"?
'The Mechanical Origine or Production of Corrosiveness and Corrosibility', p. 54: Who is the "Ingenious German Gentleman" who told Boyle of an experiment wherein "if Mercury be precipitated per se, that is, reduc'd to a red powder, the Texture will be so chang'd, that the above-mention'd spirit [spirit of salt] will readily dissolve it"?
Ibid., p. 64: Where does Helmont assert "that all solid Bodies, as Stones, Mineral, and Metals themselves, by having this Liquor duly abstracted or distill'd off from them, may be changed into salt, equiponderant to the respective bodies whereon the Menstruum was put"?
'The Mechanical Origine or Production of Electricity', p. 35: Who is the "late most learned Writer" who "reciting the Electricks, reckon'd up by our industrious Countryman Gilbert, and increasing their number by some observed by himself ... denies electricity to a couple of transparent Gems, the Cornelion and the Emerald"?
vol 9, p. 147: Who was the "expert Chymist sent by a German Prince to Complement Johannes Baptista van Helmont, some of whose Manuscripts...he procur'd together with a way of making his Laudanum" and who later communicated the recipe of the Laudanum "as a great Secret" to Boyle ?
sig. 3r: Who is the "very Ingenious Man, from whom I chiefly expected it [a reply to Sceptical Chemist]", who "told me, that he had indeed design'd to write one, but was hindered by considering, ... that an answer could not confute that Book, by any meer Justification of the Chymists Principles, since he would be obliged also to defende the Chymical Doctrine as 'tis generally taught by the vulgar Chymists"?
'Advices', p. 82: Where did "Pythagoras . . . discern and teach that these two phenomena were produced by one and the same planet Venus, determined by its peculiar motion (about the Sun) to shew itself near our Horizon, sometimes before he ascends it, and sometimes after he had left it."?
p. 88: Boyle argues that his noctiluca will "give Light enough for taking of Gun-powder out of the Gun-room of a Ship" without searching for it with a naked flame, thus preventing "those sad accidents, that have but too frequently happened to Ships, especially of War, of which we had very lately a notable instance in the River of Thames". What was the specific occurrence of a warship exploding in the Thames that Boyle is referring to?
p. 47: Who are the "divers Learned Naturalists and physicians" who hypothesize "what would happen upon putting together the Volatile Salt of Humane Blood, and the spirit of Nitre, with the more fugitive parts of which Salt they conceive the air to be plentifully, and some of them to be vitally impregnated"?
p. 92: Who are the "Learned Men" who believe that "this degenerated Serum [distilled and then putrified blood] should have been of an Acid, not alcalisate nature"?
p. 114: Boyle points out that "of late years Saline Spirits obtain'd by Distillation have been observ'd to be of two sorts [i.e. acid and lixiviate]. But because there are many, even of the Learned especially in the remoter parts of Europe, that are not well acquainted with this distinction, ..." What discovery is he referring to? Where and how far was it made known among the "learned" of Europe?
p. 128: Boyle discusses blood's "greater or lesser Immunity from Tenaciousness or Viscosity, which some Modern Philosophers (whose Opinion needs not here be discuss'd) think to belong to all Liquors as such." Who are these philosophers and in what texts do they discuss this view?
p. 198: Who are the "divers happy Practitioners, as well Physicians as profess'd Chymists" who "do highly extol the Oyl of Amber, against Convulsion fits and other Distempers of the Brain and Genus Nervosum"?
p. 198: Where does Helmont discuss "the great Character . . . of Amber dissolv'd in spirit of wine ..."?
p. 210: Who is the "famous writer about the Hermetick Physic (but better vers'd in divers other parts of Learning, than in Chymical Arcana)" who "tho he so far depretiates Spagyrical Preparations, as to commend the Utility but of a very few of them, is pleas'd to put the Distill'd Liquor of Blood into the number of those very few that he vouchsafes a good character to."?
sig. A2v: Who is "one of the most ancient and famous of Physicians" who "hath said, that a mans body is almost every where perspirable..."? Presumably Galen, but where?
p. 18: Where does Helmont "talk much of the great vertue of white Briony root"?
p. 25: Who was the "great Chirurgeon, who having practised his Art in the West-Indies" told Boyle that "having Divers times dressed with this Juice [tobacco juice] a small Ulcer in a womans leg, the patient soon after the application would grow sick, and have her stomack turned, or actually vomit"?
p. 40: Who was the "considerable Person of my acquaintance" who "having had the Curiosity to ascend a burning mountain in America, till the sulpherous steams grew too offensive to him, he told me that, among other operations he observed them to have upon him, one was, that he found the money he had about him turned of a black and dirty colour,...."?
p. 42. Through J.G.Schenck's Observationum medicarum rariorum libri VII (1644) Boyle cites a story from the physician Helidaeus de Paduanis. Who is Helidaeus, when did he live, and what did he write?
p. 68: What is the "learned Book of an eminent Roman Professor of Physick" which recounts "several curious observations in the famous Hospital of the Incurabili at Rome" including one in which "in the Cavity of at least one Pocky-mans Bones, there was found real Quick-Silver..."?
p. 84: Where does "the learned Gassendus well observe" that "Emery, Pumice-Stone, and even Puttee ...do themselves consist of little hard angular Corpuscles that leave small scratches on their surfaces which must needs hinder the perfect contact of the whole surfaces of two contiguous Bodies, ..."?
p. 97: Who was the "learned member of the Royal Society" who "found the Oculus Mundi to weigh more in a balance, when it was taken out of the Water and well wiped, than before it was put in"?
p. 128: Who are the "men of Note" who have recently delivered accounts of experiments "of the Permeableness of ordinary Glass Vessels to Chymical Liquors, as that Mercury and Aqua fortis being digested together in a Bolt-head may be made visibly and palpably to transudate. Which Experiment I purposely tryed with care, but without success."?
p. 38: Who are those "Navigators that discovered America" who "took notice that at their first coming into some parts of it, though they found great store of animals and Plants, yet they met with few of the same Species with the living Creatures of Europe"?
p. 71: Who are the "modern Philosophers" who "tell us, that we judge the rising or setting sun and Moon, to be greater and more distant from us than when they are nearer the Meridian, because when they are in the Horizon we consider them as placed beyond Mountains that we know to be great Objects ..."?
p. 83: What is the source of "the known saying , Pluribus intentus, Minor est ad singula sensus." (`Attention to many things is less than awareness of single things')?
p. 83: Who were those "great men among the ancients" who reputedly "could dictate to two or three Secretaries at once"?
p. 90: What is the source of (biblical?) maxim `Examiner of majesty', which we cannot identify.
p. 51: What are the details of the large earthquake in 1601 which "good writers relate to have happened, since it reached from Asia to that Sea that washes the French shores, and besides some Asiatick regions, shook Hungary, Germany, Italy, and France"?
p. 73: Who was the "late French Traveller into the Levant" who "affirms that rowing along the brink of Tigris or Euphrate they were terrified by Lions that attended them along the brink of the river and would not at all be frighted by the frequent crowing of the cocks that chanced to be in the passengers boats"?
p. 89: Who is Petrus Spehrerius, whom Johannes Georg Schenck describes in his Observationum medicarum rariorum libri VII (1644) as "Rever. et Illustr. Elect. Archiepiscopi Moguntini Aulicus Medicus."? In this passage Schenck also discusses a cure performed by Serianus Pacyonius. Who is he?
p. 111: Who are those "Learned Moderns" who argue that "the restitution of a springy body, forcibly bent, proceeds only from the endeavour of the comprest parts themselves to recover their former state"?
'Salubrity of the Air', p. 15: What and where are "those sulphureous steams in the Neapolitan Grotta di Cani"?
'Salubrity of the Air', p. 74: Who is "the recentest writer I have met with of voyages into Egypt" who "has lately publish'd about the annual pestilence at Grand Cairo, a City he much frequented" in which he writes of a dew that falls in June which purifies the air and stops the plague and alsohelps the corn to grow without worms]?
'Salubrity of the Air', p. 51: Who are the "good authours" who write "that as some plagues destroy'd both men and beasts, so some others did peculiarly destroy brute animals, of very little consideration or use to men, as cats, etc."
p. 9: Who are those "Dogmatical Physicians who reject all Medicinal vertues that they think not reducible to manifest Qualities" and where does "Galen somewhere justly complain, that they either deny matters of fact, or assign very incompetent causes of the effects they pretend to explain"?
p. 26: Who was the "famous Knight . . . who commanded the English there [in a part of Africa distinct from the River Gambia]" who "lately died a ship-board in his way home, . . . poysoned as a parting Treat, by a young Negro woman of Quality, whom he had enjoy'd and declin'd to take with him, according to his promise, into Europe"?
p. a5: We have not located the passage to which Boyle refers here in the writings of the early Christian father, St. Jerome (c. 324-420).
p. 5: Who is the author, and what is the book, of the 'Body of Divinity, published by a famous Writer' that argues 'that since the world was made for the sake of Man in his travelling condition, when once Man is possess'd of his Everlasting State of Happiness or Misery, there will be no further use of the world?' Boyle adds that this opinion choque Descartes.
p. 110: Where does Aristotle argue that the whole aggregate of stars in the Milky Way is a single meteor?
p. 137: Apparently a reference to the blindness of the Greek philosopher Democritus (c.460-c.370 BC)?
p. 172: Who is the 'eminent Mathematician' who tells Boyle that silk worms hatched in a glass container will still spin silk?
p. 256: Who is the 'Noble person, who having in a Fight, where he play'd the Hero, had one of his Eyes strangely Shot out, by a Musquet-ball that came out at his Mouth', and cannot now properly judge the proper distances and situations of objects?
p. 272: Who is the 'gentleman of great Courage and good Parts' who was a Major in one of Charles I's regiments, and fled to Spain after the King's fall, where he was imprisoned for performing a 'service' to his King which the Spanish looked upon as 'irregular'? While in prison his eyes became so accustomed to the dark that he could see as if the room was lighted. Could this be a reference to the 1st Earl of Bristol (1580-1653)?
p. 171: Who is the virtuoso, 'that is now Overseer of one of the Emperours best Mines' to whom Boyle presented 'a curiously shaped, and very fine Marcasite'?
p. 201: Who is the 'late Author, who hath published an account of Swedeland' who 'declares that one of the best sorts of Swedish Iron is divers times found, in the Form of a red Mud, at the bottom of Lakes'?
p. 202: Who is the 'inquisitive Traveller, who has been in the Indies' who presented BOyle 'with a certain Earth, which he affirmed to be from the Diamond Mines (I presume, in the Kingdom of Colchonda) . . .'?
p. 212: Who is the 'ingenious and skilful Gentleman, Master of his Majesties Royal Mint',who assured Boyle that lead ores could have 80 lbs. of lead to 100 lbs. of ore'?
p. 24: Who are 'the Modern Peripateticks' who 'maintain Substantial forms, by some of them, styled Semi-substantiae '?
p. 102: Which Church Father expounded the idea that 'if so uneasy and persecuted a religion [as Christianity] was propagated without miracles, that propagation itself may justly pass for a Miracle'?
p. 112: Where does Aristotle teach 'that the Understanding is like Blank Paper; and that it receives no Knowledge, but what has been conveyed to it through the Senses'?
'Reflections on Theological Disinction', p. 16: Where does Plato say that 'he was rather a Beast than a Man that would deny it'? Greatness of Mind
'Greatness of Mind', p. 19: From where does Boyle derive the story that 'among the Roman Persecutors, the exemplary Lives and Constancy of the Primitive Christians, brought it to be proverbially said, That such a Man was a good Man, saving that he was a Christian'?
'Greatness of Mind', p. 19: What is the source of the proverb, 'Only Christians scorn death' ('soli Christiani mortis contemptores')?
'Greatness of Mind', p. 39: Who is the 'Ancient' who 'reckons it among the Glories of that Great Captain, Hannibal, that he resolved to Besiege Rome, though he never proved able to lead his army within the sight of her walls'?
p. 38: We need more information on 'the Diamond came from the King of Colchonda'. (cf. Medicina Hydrostatica, p. 202, where the same diamond and its presenter are mentioned).
p. 68: Who is the 'very tall and well set Gentleman, aged about 24 years' who, 'by a fall from his horse, had his skill broken in several places' and three days later 'was taken with a dead palsey on his right side, which paralyzed his arm and head, but not his leg. It was found that the palsey was caused by a splinter of bone that bore hard upon the dura mater.' Boyle knows 'this Knight (for so he now is)' personally and has discussed his cure with him.
p. 77: Who is Boyle's acquaintance, 'a Gentleman that liv'd to be an eminent Virtuoso and to oblige many by his useful Writings', who when he was a youth forty years previously, fell into a violent and obstinate Sciatica', and, being left in a church, 'the Town being a Frontier Garrison', an alarm of the approach of the enemy was raised and 'the young man was so frightened that his paralysis left him'.
p. 117: Who is Mr. W., 'an ingenious and credible person ', who 'assur'd me that in one of the fine Gardens near Genoa, that he delighted to visit....'?
p. 118: Who are the protagonists in the Controversy whether Fishes hear under water?
'Strange Reports', p. 5: Who is the 'Physician of Bruxels' who told Boyle 'that he himself had prepar'd 3 or 4 resuscitable Plants, one of which he had presented to the Marquess of Castel Rodrigo, now Governor of the Spanish Netherlands'?
'Strange Reports', p. 11: Who is the 'pious and learned Schoolmaster, that ventur'd to stay in London in the great plague 1665, and was much employ'd, as some friends of mine that knew him and commended him, assur'd me, to visit the sick and distribute alms and relief to them, [and] went indiscriminately to all sorts of infected and even dying person to the number, as he told me, of nine hundred, or a Thousand'?
'Strange Reports', p. 15: Who is the 'inquisitive Traveller that not long since waited on a German Prince addicted to Chymistry, and was imploy'd by him in his private Laboratory; being asked by me some questions about Ore of Bismute or Tin-glass, whereof there is said to be a mine in that Prince's Territories .. He found that the distilled liquor from this mineral rose and fell with the waxing and waning moon'?
p. 63: What is the origin of the story of Alexander the Great measuring sea around Santorini, without finding a bottom?
p. 63: What is the origin or source of the following account: 'On July 24 An. 1681 the ship Albemarl, whereof Mr. Edward Lad was then master being an hundred leagues from Cape Cod in Latitude 48 about 3 P.M. met with a thunder storm , the lightning burnt the main-top sail, split the main cap in pieces, etc'?
pp. 146-7: Who is the author of the Latin text included at this point.
p. 161: Who are the 'two Gentleman belonging to the Province of New Hampshire in New England (whence they came not long since) and imployed by that Colony to his Majesty' who told Boyle that 'in the winter the coldest wind that blows in their country is the northwest, which is also their hottest wind in the summer'?
p. 171: Who is 'Dr. Pugh, a person of very great reputation, at this time in the city [of Oratava], who lived twenty years himself on the place, both in the quality of a physician, and a merchant, and was very curious and inquisitive into all that was in the island'?
p. 199: Who is George Man, who was with the James, Duke of York, in Scotland ?
p. 207: Who is the 'learned Gentleman that is owner of an iron mine' who informed Boyle that 'he has a house in Suffolk within 6 miles of the sea and the iron bars of the window that look towards the sea are swelled and being brittel, easy to be crumbled into powder'?
p. 13: Where does 'Mahoment himself (in his discourse with the Jew Adia), having at the Last Day divided Mankind into Threescore Troops, makes but Three of them Believers, and all the rest REprobates'?
p. 90: What is the source of this couplet:
Weak is th'Excuse that is on Custom built;
For th'Use of sinning lessens not the Guilt
p. 122: What is the source for 'the fam'd folly of Lysimachus, who (parch'd with extreme Thirst) to get a little drink, became a voluntary Prisoner to his (soon after vanquish'd) Enemies?'
p. 30: Who was the Jew 'Barraban' with whom St Jerome studied?
p. 657, clmn. 1: What is the reference to this quotation from Virgil's Georgics?
p. 677, clmn. 2: Where does 'the excellent Grotius' 'judiciously observe' that Aristotle's 'sentiments appeared much more favourable to religion in his exoterical writings, where he was to keep fair with popular readers, than in his acroamatical, where he delivers his sense as a philosopher'?
p. 680, clmn. 1: Where does 'our illustrious Verulam' give 'to several of his physiological rules or theorems the modest title of Canones Mobiles'?
p. 691, clmn. 2: Who was the 'general of the English forces in America' who told Boyle 'that in his army several animals were killed by the use of [manioca], before they knew the mischievous qualities of it'?
p. 700, clmn. 1: Where does 'Cicero tell us of one that wrote so small a hand, that he shut up Homer's Iliads and that written upon a sort of parchment, within the narrow bounds of a nut-shell (which relation hath since given rise to a proverbial speech)'?
p. 700, clmn. 1: What is the source of the story 'of one Myrmecides, who, when Rome flourished, was famous for having made a chariot so small, that a fly framed of the same matter, could cover it with her wings; and a ship that a bee could hid with hers'?
p. 721, clmn. 2: What is Paracelsus's book that describes 'those elementary spirits' that he calls 'silphes, nymphs, gnomes, and salamanders'?
p. 722, clmn. 1: What is the source that recounts that Mithridates was a great linguist?
p. 727, clmn. 1: Who (and in what text) are the 'Jewish Rabbies, who were wont to say, that no mischief falls upon Israel, in which there is not a mixture of the golden calf'?
Note: references are by short title of the work in question; references are to fols./pages of the MS version.
fol. 291: Who is the 'excellent Divine who is no less vers't in the Practice than skild in the Theory of so admirable an Art' ['this true Method of Thouhts'], from whom an Essay is expected?
fol. 130: Where does Paracelsus say 'that oftentimes a Flint is better than a Cous' [it seems to say 'Cous']?
fol. 20: Who is the 'ancient learned Mahometan' who wrote 'Hazaddaula de Comperatione trium Legum' and what is this work?
fol. 23: What is the source of the story about Pomponazzi, 'who being justly question'd by the Inquisition for denying the Imortality of the Soul & demanded by them where he beleev'd it made a Negative Reply, & scap'd by adding that he did not Believe, it but Knew it'?
fol. 43: Who is 'Kessaeus', whom Boyle cites?
fol. 43: Boyle cites Aristotle via Clearchus, as quoted in Peter Cunaeus, De republica Hebraeorum (1617), i. 4. Is there any part of Aristotle that survives only through Clearchus?
fol. 60: Who is 'the King of France's Herbarist'?
fol. 89: Who said 'Nunquam satis docetur, quod nunquam satis discitur', 'It is never sufficiently taught, because it is never sufficiently learnt'?
fol. 77v: Who is the English chymist who is 'a great client' of Glauber's?
fol. 78v: Who is 'the Artist in Holland, that got so much by Antimoniall rings'?
fol. 81: Who is 'Strobelbergerus'?
fol. 87v: Who is the 'Ingenious physitian [who has] taken great paines about the improving of poysons'?
fol. 265: Where are Ovid's views on spontaneous generation to be found?
fol. 49: Who is the inventor of a combination of a fire extinguisher and garden sprinkler?
fol. 49v: Who is the 'ingenious friend of mine excellently skill'd in Mechanicks' who 'has in a furnace devis'd for that purpose though not hatch't Egges yet brought them to Animation'?
fol. 54v: Where are 'the Cartesians . . . now wont to endeavour to explicate the abstruse nature of winds by what we see perform'd in an Eolipile'?
fol. 58: What is the special ink for copying devised by 'an ingenious person in Holland'?
Where does Kircher talk about the growth of frogs from spawm?
Who is the Belgian refiner whom Boyle describes as 'a man of no mean faith'?
BP 20, fol 403: Why does Boyle talk about 'our Glasshouse' in the possessive?
BP 21, p. 97: Who is the 'Minister of State' sailing in a Man of War near Sicily who gives information to Boyle?
BP 21, p. 117: Boyle cites a work called Relatio de locis Subteraneis, pp. 135-6. What is it?
BP 21, fol. 151: Who is the 'very learn'd Geographer' who described the effects of the 1638 volcanic eruption in the Azores?
p. 485: Who is the 'certain distiguished gentleman whom curiosity more than business had called to different parts of America (in one of which he was Governor)'?
p. 505: What is that part of Jamaica called 'Ligonee' and why?
fols. 37-8: Who is the 'modderne French Phisitian & Navigator' and 'ingenious person' who was the author of 'a particular little Discourse concerning the Saltnes of the Sea'?
fol. 41: Where does Hippocrates say 'all things are transfluxible and permeable'?
fol. 41: Where does Galen write of 'some Men that had injections made into wounds that perforated the Thorax'? Shortly after this sentence is a reference to Galen '5l de Loc[?] Affect Cor' (apparently concerning evacuation of humours).
fol. 573: Who is the 'excellent Person very well versd in Mathematicks' who lent Boyle Dr Wyberd's book?
BP 22, p. 155: Who are the 'modern Philosophers' who adduce an Experiment that he examines 'as a manifest proof of the Earth's Magnetism'?
BP 22, p. ?: Where does Kepler write about great magnetical beds being aligned north-south?
fols. 65-6: Who was the blasphemous Jew who cursed God in the desert and died just like Stephen Martyr?
fol. 281: Who said 'Since the Christians swallow their God, may my soul be with the Philosophers'?
In the catalogues of Boyle's books that he issued in 1690-2, the bookseller Samuel Smith noted five recent reissues of works by Boyle, for all of which he was apparently responsible. Of the five, copies of three have been located. One, a reissue of Saltness of the Sea, was known to Fulton and appears in his Bibliography as F113A. Another, that of Flame and Air, the only known copy of which survives in Cambridge University Library, is included in Wing. A third, of Mechanical Qualities, is known only in a single copy in the Plume Library, Maldon. This therefore leaves two to be located: one is a reissue dated 1690 or 1691 of the 1680 edition of The Sceptical Chymist; the other is a similarly dated issue of Hidden Qualities of the Air. We would welcome news of any copy of either of these.