62 GREAT MEN OF SCIENCE 



on the part of his fellow-citizens; his salary and income 

 of Burgomaster were often withheld, while he was still not 

 allowed to rest even when over seventy-four. There was 

 clearly no one of like skill and devotion available to carry on 

 the continual difficult negotiations which were needed as a 

 result of the Thirty Years War. In any case, Guericke had 

 done his utmost all his life for his native town, obviously 

 from a pure sense of duty to the community to which his 

 father had belonged. That he did not succeed in obtaining 

 the rights of a free town of the Empire for Magdeburg after 

 the war, was not his fault, as the documents prove.^ He had 

 certainly established the best possible connections with the 

 Hapsburg Emperors (Ferdinand III, Leopold II), who gave 

 him an hereditary title of nobility in 1666, but nevertheless 

 finally decided against Magdeburg; he was likewise highly 

 regarded by the great Kurfiirst Frederick William. He died 

 at the age of eighty-four at the home of his son in Hamburg, 

 who was there the 'Kurfiirstlicher Resident' for Lower 

 Saxony, having been faithfully nursed by his family. His 

 place of burial, which he desired to be in Magdeburg, is not 

 known. 



ROBERT BOYLE {1627-1691) 

 EDMfi MARIOTTE {1620-1684) 



The knowledge of Guericke's experiments with the air- 

 pump and of the properties of the air which were revealed 

 by them, soon spread over Europe, and people began to 

 repeat the experiments in many places. One of the most 

 enthusiastic experimenters in this field, and also in several 

 others, was Robert Boyle. He was born in the Irish county 

 of Cork, of an old and very well-to-do family; he made long 



1 See the work already referred to by Hoffmann, who is also the 

 author of a history of Magdeburg. 



