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On the Early History of the Air- Pump in England. By 

 George Wilson, M.D., F.R.S.E., Lecturer on Chemistry , 

 Edinburgh. Communicated by the Author.* 



In the course of a recent perusal of some of the works of 

 the Honourable Robert Boyle, I have had occasion to study 

 with some attention, the treatises in wiiich he describes the 

 air-pumps which were first employed inEngland, and the steps 

 by which they were improved. I have been led in conse- 

 quence to notice, that, in the hands of recent writers, the 

 whole history of the English air-pump has been allowed to fall 

 into great confusion, so that the steps by which the instru- 

 ment was improved, the periods at which those improve- 

 ments were made, and the parties by whom they were effect- 

 ed, are all more or less confounded with each other or mis- 

 stated. The authors of those errors, moreover, are parties 

 justly held in the highest esteem among men of science, as 

 the late Professor Robison, Dr Thomas Young, and Pro- 

 fessor Baden Powell. They have been implicitly followed, 

 as might be expected, by writers of less note, and errors 

 have been multiplied, as the erroneous account has been 

 repeated, till the evil has reached a climax in the History of 

 the Royal Society, quite recently published by Mr Weld. 

 It is stated in that work, that the Society possesses Boyle's 

 original air-pump, whilst the instrument referred to as such 

 is totally unlike the air-pumps described and figured by 

 Boyle, — is, on the lowest computation, twenty years more 

 recent, as regards the date of its construction, than it is 

 affirmed to be ; and probably does not so much as belong to 

 Boyle's century. 



Whilst grave mistakes, in reference to the history of the 

 air-pump, have thus been committed by eminent authorities, 

 and those mistakes are justified by reference to an existing 

 instrument, which, if it were what it professes to be, would 



* The substance of this paper was read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 January 15, 1849, and discussed at some length in the British Quarterly Re- 

 view for February of this year. It is now published in full, with diagrams 

 and additional observations. 



