126 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. PT. in. 



CHAPTER XVL 



SCIENCE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (CONTINUED). 

 Boyle Hooke John Mayow. 



Boyle's Law of the Compressibility of Gases, 1661. 

 The Hon. Robert Boyle, seventh son of the Earl of Cork, 

 and one of the principal founders of the Royal Society, was 

 born in 1626. He had very delicate health, and when quite 

 young travelled much abroad and learned there a great deal 

 about science even before he was eighteen years of age. 

 He was deeply interested in Galileo's discoveries, and was 

 in Florence when that great astronomer died in 1642. 



After his return to England, when he was at Oxford, he 

 read an account of Guericke's air-pump, and was so de- 

 lighted with this new discovery that he set to work at once 

 to make one without ever having seen the original. He 

 succeeded so well, ~with the help of his friend and assistant 

 Dr. Hooke, that his air-pump became famous, and many 

 writers have by mistake given him the credit of being the 

 inventor. We have seen, however, that Guericke was the 

 first to hit upon this instrument ; Boyle only improved it, 

 and made with it many very valuable experiments upon the 

 weight and nature of air. These are too many and lengthy 

 for us to examine here; but there is one law about the 

 compression of gases which you will find connected with 

 Boyle's name in all books on physics, and which you ought 



