^~~ NOVUM ORGAXtTM. [bOOK 11. 



;^>rincipal minerals, stones, liquids, oils, and many otlier natural 

 and artificial bodies : a very useful proceeding both, as regards 

 tlicory and practice, and which is capable of revealing many un- 

 exj^ected results. Nor is this of little consequence, that it serves 

 to demonstrate that the whole range of the variety of tangible 

 bodies with which we are acquainted (we mean tolerably close, 

 and not spongy, hollow bodies, which are for a considerable part 

 filled with air), does not exceed the ratio of one to twenty- one. 

 So limited is nature, or at least that part of it to which we are 

 most habituated. 



We have also thought it deserving our industry, to try if we 

 could arrive at the ratio of intangible or pneumatic bodies to 

 tangible bodies, which we attempted by the following contrivance. 

 We took a vial capable of containing about an ounce, using a 

 small vessel in order to effect the subsequent evaporation witli 

 less heat. We filled this vial, almost to the neck, with spirits of 

 wine, selecting it as the tangible body which, by our table, was 

 the rarest, and contained a less quantity of matter in a given 

 Bpace than all other tangible bodies which are compact and not 

 hollow. Then we noted exactly the weight of the liquid and 

 vial. We next took a bladder, containing about two pints, and 

 squeezed all the air out of it, as completely as possible, and until 

 the sides of the bladder met. We first, however, rubbed the 

 bladder gently with oil, so as to make it air-tight, by closing its 

 pores with the oil. We tied the bladder tightly round the mouth 

 of the vial, which we had inserted in it, and with a piece of 

 waxed thread to make it fit better and more tightly, and then 

 placed the vial on some hot coals in a brazier. The vapour or 

 steam of the spirit, dilated and become aeriform by the heat, 

 gradually swelled out the bladder, and stretched it in every 

 direction like a sail. As soon as that was accomplished, we 

 removed the vial from the fire and placed it on a carpet, that it 

 might not be cracked by the cold ; we also pricked the bladder 

 immediately, that the steam might not return to a liquid state 

 by tlie cessation of heat, and confound the proportions. We 

 then removed the bladder, and again took the weight of the spirit 

 which, remained ; and so calculated the quantity which had been 

 converted into vapour, or an aeriform shape, and then examined 

 how much space had been occupied by the body in its form of 

 spirits of wine in the vial, and how much, on the other hand, had 

 been occupied by it in its aeriform shape in tiie bladder, and 

 subtracted the results ; from which it was clear, that the body, 

 thus converted and changed, acquired an expansion of one 

 hundred times beyond its former bulk. 



Again, let the required nature be heat or cold, of such a degree 

 ft8 not to be sensible from its weakness. Thev are rendered sensible 



