| § BOYLE, Robert (1627-1691).
An essay about the origine and virtues of gems. Wherein are propos’d and historically illustrated some conjectures about the consistence of the matter of precious stones, and the subjects wherein their chiefest virtues reside. London: printed by William Godbid; sold by moses Pitt, 1672. Collation: 8vo: A–M8 N4, 100 leaves, pp. [16] 185 [i.e. 184, p. 181 omitted from pagination].Condition: 165 x 102mm. Staining in the inner margin and into the text in the last few leaves, but generally a good copy. Binding: Nineteenth-century divinity calf, marbled endleaves, red edges. Label replaced, slightly scuffed. Provenance: Contemporary signature ‘Geo: Mason’ with price 2s 2d on title and a nineteenth-century signature scored out; nineteenth-century engraved armorial bookplate of George R. Alexander; Edwin Clarke (1919–1996). References: Wing B3947; Fulton 96; Hoover 161; Sinkankas S 863; Ward and Carozzi 289. Price: £2,400 First edition (E2 correctly signed, E3 unsigned). Advertised in the Trinity Term Catalogue, 1672 at 18d bound (I, 112). ¶ This book marks the beginning of modern crystallography and of chemical mineralogy. Boyle observed the formation of crystals from solution, and concluded that gem stones might also have internal structure. He detected the crystal planes of diamonds microscopically and observed that diamonds and other gems could be split along the crystal planes. He noted that coloured stones always occur in nature in close proximity to veins of metal and conjectured that the ‘virtues’ of gems were derived from the mixture of metals and other minerals. Boyle’s own collection of minerals and gems was bequeathed to the Royal Society.‘Many old stone-cutters’, ‘an eminent Jewler’, ‘an Artificer, whose Trade was to cut and polish Diamonds,’ are referred to as sources of information, and their accumulated experience is combined with experiment and conjecture. Boyle’s work is a good source of information on the contemporary gem trade and an example of the reliance of natural philosophers on trade knowledge and skills. As Pamela H. Smith has shown, the barrier between intellectual and manual workers was not as high as has usually been assumed (The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution, Chicago, 2004). The owner’s inscription on this copy records a price of 2s 2d compared with a published price of 1s 6d bound–was it in a fancy binding, or was it in such demand that second hand copies were soon selling for more than the published price? The book was never reprinted in English, though a Latin edition was published in the following year. |
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