230 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



founding a true science. A prodigy even in childhood, having 

 entered Eton College when but eight years of age, he further en- 

 joyed the advantages of European travels and education. He vis- 

 ited Florence in 1641, and spent the winter there studying the 

 works of Galileo. He may have caught from the words of the 

 then blind old astronomer, as he dictated to his disciples his last 

 work on the "Impact of Bodies," that unwavering devotion to 

 natural science which characterized both men. Returning to 

 England, he gathered around him a circle of congenial friends, 

 which formed the Invisible College, of which he in his works so 

 frequently makes mention, and which subsequently became the 

 Royal Society. 



He was a prolific contributor to the " Transactions/' all based 

 upon his own investigations. His improved air-pump and his ex- 

 periments with it contributed largely to the knowledge of the 

 properties of air and the character of sound, and his work, " Ex- 

 periments and Considerations upon Colours/' prepared the way for 

 Newton's more elaborate work upon the same subject. It is said 

 that Boyle in the latter part of his life was accustomed, when en- 

 gaged upon any of his important experiments, to write above his 

 street-door, " Mr. Boyle can not be spoken with to-day." 



The mere enumeration of the contributions of Boyle would fill 

 a page, but he gleaned in too many fields to thoroughly exhaust 

 any one. By his contemporaries Boyle was considered one of the 

 greatest natural philosophers, and if the succeeding generations 

 failed to retain the same high estimate of his position it is because 

 he was succeeded by some of the greatest minds in English 

 thought. It is sufficient for one man's fame that he originated 

 the Royal Society. 



November 12, 1662. Robert Hooke, an assistant to Boyle, was 

 elected a Fellow. He was but twenty-seven years old, yet as the 

 result of his innumerable experiments " facts multiplied, leading 

 phenomena became prominent, laws began to emerge, and gener- 

 alizations to commence." 



Hooke was possessed of a mind inventive and mechanical to a 

 high degree, which led him to the threshold of some of the grand- 

 est discoveries of his time. His experiments, however, like Boyle's, 

 were too diffuse, and he repeatedly was mortified by seeing his 

 nearly completed discoveries anticipated. Hooke was a genius, 

 but through lack of concentration cut a sorry figure, from always 

 being a little too late. From the controversy with Huygens in 

 relation to the invention of the balance-spring of watches, it was 

 shown that he was entitled to the original conception, but that its 

 practical application as a coil belongs to Huygens. 



He had a faint conception of the undulatory theory of light ; 

 he discovered the mechanical laws which govern the motions of 



