[42 1 J 
Francis Bacon , Lord Veridam &c. in his Hijloria 
denfi et rari , printed in the fccond volume of his 
works in folio , London 1741. p- 69. has given a 
table, which he calls, Tabula coitionis et expan - 
fonts mater ice per fpatia in tangibilibus {qua fci - 
r licet dotantur ponder e) cum fup put at tone rationum 
in corporibus diverfis. This tract docs not appear 
to have been publilhed till after his death, which 
happened in the year 1626, but was probably written 
feveral years before 5 and the experiments were even 
as he tells us made long before that. 1 lane Tabu- 
lam multis abhinc annis confect atque ut memini , 
bona nfus diligentia. I therefore apprehend it to 
be the ol deft table of Specific Gravities now extant.. 
The experiments therein mentioned were not made 
hydroftatically, but with .a cube of an ounce weight 
of pure Gold, as he fays, to which he caufed cubes 
of other materials to be made equal in fize: as he 
did alfo two hollow ones of filver, and of equal 
weights, the one to be weighed empty, and the 
other filled with fuch liquid as he wanted to exa- 
mine. He was himfelf fenfible that his experiments 
of this fort were, notwithftanding his care, very 
defective, poffit proculdubio tabula multo ex adit or 
eomponi , videlicet turn ex phiribus , turn ex ampliore 
menfura: id quod ad ex all as rat tones plurimum 
facet, et omnino paranda eft , cum res fit ex funda- 
ment alibiis. From among thefe,. notwithftanding 
their imperfection, as they appear to have been fome 
of the firft experiments of the fort regularly digefted,. 
and as they were befides made by fo great a man, I 
have extracted the fpecific gravities of the fixed metals, 
which I have inferted as examples in the follow- 
ing tables : after reducing them to the common. 
4 form,, 
