Tracts written by the Honourable Robert Boyle, containing New EXPERIMENTS, touching the relation betwixt flame and air. And about EXPLOSIONS. An HYDROSTATICAL Discourse occasion'd by some objections of Dr. Henry More against some Explications of New Experiments made by the Author of these Tracts : To which is annex't, An Hydrostatical Letter, dilucidating an Experiment about a Way of Weighing Water in Water. New experiments : Of the Positive or Relative Levity of Bodies under Water. Of the Air's Spring on Bodies under Water. About the Differing Pressure of Heavy Solids and Fluids.
London: Printed for Richard Davis, Book-seller in Oxon 1672. First Edition. [2] (blank), [1] (title), [1] (adv to binder),[1] ("New Experiments... Flame & Air"), [1] (blank), [2] ("The Publisher to the Reader"),1-142 (text), [1] ("New experiments about explosions"), [1] (blank), 1-17 (text), [1] (blank), [1] ("An Hydrostatical discourse...Dr. Henry More"), [1] (adv), [10] ("to the reader"), 1-176 (text), [4] (blank), [1] ("New Experiments...Levity of Bodies Under Water"), [1] (blank), 1-19 (text), [1] ("New Experiments...Airs Spring"), [1] (blank), 1-16 (text), [1] ("New Experiments ... Pressure...Solids and Fluids"), [1] (blank), 1-39 (text), [1] (adv), [2] (blank) pages. 4 1/4 x 6 3/4 inches. 8vo. Excusing this rather tortured description, the reader should be comforted that this copy is complete per Fulton 101, noting this copy bound differently than the Fulton example, with "An Hydrostatical discourse...Dr. Henry More" etc bound before "Levity of bodies" rather than after "New Experiments ... Pressure...Solids and Fluids". Glazed leather binding, with early rebacking and portions of earlier spine laid down. Old tape residue on endpapers along with inked ownership note (E Libriss Georgij Tullie? Coll. Reg. Alumni Prel ?). Previous owner name at top of title page (Jos Plumbe?) Tightly bound, with text in gutter difficult to read in some places. Other margins reasonable. In a cloth slipcase. Withall a complete, albeit not pretty copy. Good. Boards. [27573]
"Important observations on respiration are scattered through nearly all of Boyle's works. He was impressed with the idea that life was a slow-burning flame, and he often pointed out the analogy between living processes and the burning of a candle. It was in the present tract, however, that he gave special attention to the theme, insisting upon the term flamma vitalis (pp. 105 et seq). In many places he approached the modern theory of oxidation...."
"Bibliographically the 'Flame and the Air' is one of the most difficult of all Boyle's erratic publications." Fulton quotes Mr. Falconer Madan's bibliographic overview of this "truly lamentable volume," where he discusses portions misplaced during printing, experiments (of the author!) "falling into his hands" after much of the volume was printed, eleven pages of the copy for the printer being lost to the printer (and us) and lastly noting the book was printed in one place, and publishing in another. In short, a bibliographical nightmare.
Interesting content by a productive and respected scientist, a Fellow of the Royal Society, whom many term the first modern chemist.
See Fulton, "A Bibliography of the Honourable Robert Boyle", 2nd edition, Oxford:1961, pp 70-72.
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