igS INTRODUCTION 



Royal Society in 1778 and who is known to have bequeathed his 

 collection of books and botanical specimens to the British Museum. 

 The copy in the Library of the Geological Society is inscribed with 

 the name Rob. Dav on the upper right-hand corner of the fly-leaf, 

 where the last part of the name, Davis, has been worn away. 



The Harvard copy is thus described by its donor, Professor J. B. 

 Woodworth, in Science, Vol. 25 (1907), pp. 738, 739: "There are 

 sixteen pages of preface with the title-page, and 112 pages of text 

 and one plate ; the size of the printed part of the page measures 2.75 

 inches wide by 5.5 inches high. . . . The copy in the writer's pos- 

 session is bound up as a separately paged tract at the end of a small 

 volume of the celebrated Robert Boyle's ' Essays of Effluvium, etc.,' 

 containing also his ' Essay about the Origine and Virtue of Gems ' of 

 1672.1 A general title-page gives reference to Steno's work. This 

 title-page is dated 1673.^ All of the contained tracts appear to have 

 been separately printed at different dates between 1671 and 1673, at 

 which last date they were brought out in the form above described." ^ 



' In this connection the following item from the History of the Royal Society (Vol. Ill, p. 

 55) is of interest: "Mr. O. presented from Mr. Boyle his Essay about the Origin and Vir- 

 tues of Gems, printed at London, 1672, in 8vo." 



2 Woodworth's title-page, as reproduced in Science, vol. 25, p. 738, ascribes the publica- 

 tion of the treatise to F. Winter. The letter is not F but a quaintly formed J, as is clear 

 from the reappearance of the same letter in the spelling of the viorA juyces in the " Interpreter 

 to the Reader." Maar, op. cit.. Vol. II, p. 336 also printed F, but in a letter in reply to my 

 contention writes : " Of course you are quite right. It is a / and not an F on the title-page of 

 Steno's treatise." 



' Dr. Maar is the possessor of a similar copy which is not described in his Opera Philo- 

 sophica. The title-page reads : 



ESSAYS 

 Of the 

 Strange Subtility 1 

 Determinate Nature [of EFFLUVIUMS 

 Great Efficacy J 



To which are annext 



New Experiments to make FIRE 



and FLAME Ponderable. 



Together with 



A Discovery of the Perviousness of Glass. 



ALSO 



An ESSAY, about the Origine 

 and Virtue of GEMS. 

 By the Honorable Robert Boyle, 

 Fellow of the Royal Society. 

 To which is added 

 The PRODROMUS to a Dissertation 

 concerning Solids naturally contained with- 



