A new Sympathetic Ink. 37o 



the world has hitherto lived and breathed in, and been un- 

 coriverfant about) has yet been fo little truly examined or 

 explained, that a diligent enquirer will be able to find but 

 very little information from what has been (till of late) writ- 

 ten of it : but being once well understood, it will, I doubt 

 not, enable a man to render an intelligible, nay probable, if 

 not the true reafon of all the phenomena of fire, which, as 

 it has been found by writers and philofophers of all ages a 

 matter of no fmall difficulty, as may be fufficiently under- 

 fiood by their ftrange hypothefes and unintelligible folutions 

 of fome few phaenomena of it ; fo will it prove a matter of 

 no fmall concern and ufe in human affairs, as I fliall clfe- 

 where endeavour to manifeft when I come to mew the ufe of 

 the air in refpiration, and for the prefervation of the life, 

 nay, for the confervation and reltauration of the health and 

 natural conftitution of mankind as well as all other aerial 

 animals, as alfo the ufes of this principle or propriety of the 

 air in chymical, mechanical, and other operations. In this 

 place I have only time to hint an hypothetic wliich, if God 

 permit me life and opportunity, I may elfewhere profecute, 

 improve and publifli." 



This appears to be exactly the do&rine of Maycr.v, who 

 firft publifhed his treatife on refpiration in 1668, and his 

 other treatifes on the compofition of nitre, See. in 1674, 

 mewing clearly the priority of Hookc. 



VI. On a New 'Kind of Sympathetic Ink. By M. Meyer. 

 From Crcll's Chemical Annals, Vol. I. 1798. 



jl\ TRAVELLER, wh« wifhedto have fympathetic ink of 



a rofe red colour, mewed me a receipt he had procured for 

 preparing an ink of that kind; according to which, cobalt 

 was to be dill'olvcd in the nitrous acid, and a quantity of 

 fidtpetre, equal to that of the cobalt difiblved, was to be 

 |ikled to the folutionj but as this ptopefc had never iuc- 

 J', }> 4, ceeded 



