London: printed by E. Flesher for R. Davis, 1674.
Collation: 8vo: A4
(–A1) B–N8,
99 leaves, pp. [6] 51 [3] 6 [2] 5 [3] 11 [3] 39 [3] 5 [3] 11 [3] 27 [3] 14,
lacking the blank A1.
Condition: 169 x 102mm. Light
dampstaining in foremargins
Binding: Contemporary unlettered
blind ruled sheep. Very slightly rubbed.
Provenance: John Rutherfurd of
Edgerston with printed book-label.
References: Fulton 113; Wing B4053;
Madan 3005.
Price: £2,400
First edition, second state of the
titlepage, dated 1674: several of the tracts have titlepages dated 1673, and the
copy presented by Boyle to the Royal Society on 13 November 1673 has a variant
of the main titlepage dated 1673.
¶ A good copy in its original
unlettered bookseller’s binding of a work consisting of 10 tracts describing
Boyle’s work in thermodynamics, the desalination of sea water, and experiments
with a new hygrometer. The first four tracts are sequels to his Experimental
history of cold (1665); they describe experiments on the expansive force of
freezing water and various freezing mixtures measured with spirit thermometers.
The next tract is the one from which the volume takes its title, ‘Observations
and experiments about the saltness of the sea.’ Boyle was very interested in
the practical problems of desalination and much of this tract describes
experiments to discover a practical method which could be used at sea. As a
result of this piece Boyle became involved in a long correspondence, some of
which was printed in Fitzgerald’s Saltwater sweetned (1683). The next
tract is ‘Relations about the bottom of the sea,’ followed by ‘Of the
natural and preternatural state of bodies’. The three final tracts describe
experiments and observations made with Boyle’s hygrometer. This used a sponge
suspended from one arm of a balance, an arrangement he preferred to the more
common hygrometers pioneered by the Accademia del Cimento which relied on the
expansion and contraction of vegetable or animal fibres. Boyle says that the
problem with such hygrometers, using lute strings or oat beards, is that after a
while their contractile power is altered or impaired (see Daumas p. 60).
