Like the other hard working men of science
of his day, Boyle was one of the earliest
associates of the clubs, or societies of men pursuing
researches among natural phenomena, and he was
fully alive to the importance of association. He
was an original promoter of the Royal Society,
being one of the twelve who met after a lecture
by Mr. (afterwards Sir) Christopher Wren, and
at their meeting matured a plan for the
constitution of the body which has since played so
important a part in advancing natural knowledge.

The speciality of Boyle was chemistry—the
chemistry of his day—with a liberal sprinkling
of alchemy, mixed a good deal with mechanics,
and not without a share of theological and
metaphysical controversy. He would hardly
have understood the chemistry of the present
day, or the modern and comprehensive  "Physics"
towards which chemistry, astronomy, geology,
and biology, all now converge; but still he did
what he could. He helped both himself and
others by pursuing, as far as possible, the narrow
path of positive experiment—or if he wandered,
as he occasionally did, into the realms of fancy,
he did so knowingly, not carried away in spite
of himself. He was by no means successful in
speculation, but he accumulated and recorded a
singular variety of facts.

The construction of the air-pump in its modern
form, the discovery of the propagation of sound
by the air, of the absorbing power of the atmosphere,
of the elastic force and combustive power
of steam, an approximation to the weight of the
air, and the fact of the reciprocal attraction of
electrified and non-electrified bodies, are among
the discoveries due to Boyle. Truly, they are
matters concerning any one of which it may be
said that its discovery by experimental
investigation is sufficient of itself to render a man
of science famous.

But, besides these claims to respect, there are
some curious essays and notices in the writings
of Boyle, less known, but not less worthy of
notice, and it is to these that we now wish to
direct attention. One is entitled  "Essays on
men's great ignorance of the uses of natural
things; or, that there is scarce any one thing in
nature whereof the uses to human life are yet
thoroughly understood."  It may seem that this
essay would be more applicable at the date of
its publication than it is now, but it will be found
still wonderfully true, although, as even the
author remarks, it is a paradox that will not be
very willingly admitted by most people. Very
few of the works of nature have up to this time
been sufficiently considered, or are thoroughly
known even in their positive—to say nothing
of their relative—properties.

In alluding to this singular essay, our first
object will be to point out how many subjects
brought forward by Boyle as remarkable in his
day for being in a state of partial illustration,
still remain in the same state. In many points
of minute anatomy, for example, as in the
relation of the brain to the various organs of sense,
in the use of the Pancreas among the viscera, and
in the gradual development of the chick from the
egg, there is still much to be learnt by the most
profound thinker and the best observer.

Again, in natural philosophy, we have yet to
determine the cause of the six-sided crystallisation
of water in snow, the meaning of the
dark spots that partially obscure the sun, the
modifications of animal and vegetable life produced
by differences of climate, and the reason
why certain animals, reptiles, and insects,
venomous in some countries, are less so, or not
at all so, in others. These are all questions
which attracted Boyle's attention, and about
which we still have nearly everything to learn.

Our author mentions next the variations of
the compass-needle as an unexplained fact, and
although the multitude of observations and
mass of facts recorded of late years on the
subject of earth-magnetisrn, have tended to clear up
much of the obscurity in reference to this
subject, it is only those who have done most who
know what and how numerous and important
are still the desiderata.

On the subject of the sun's spots, the results
of recent observation have actually tended to
render the investigation of the subject more
difficult, and laid bare a larger extent of
ignorance as seeming to connect them with
phenomena not previously suspected. Thirty years'
daily observation of these spots by a patient
German astronomer have shown that about every
eleven years the groups of them have passed
through a complete cycle. They have become
larger and more numerous till they obtained a
maximum, and then smaller and fewer till a
minimum was reached, and then the same thing
goes on over again. The variation of the
magnetic needle has been found by series of
observations carried on by persons who thought
nothing of the sun's spots, to have also its
period of increase and decrease. On comparing
the two sets of observations, the cycle of the variation
of the needle has been found to correspond
with the maxima and minima of the spot cycle,
while even magnetic storms producing auroras
and disturbances of the magnetic needle are
found to be periodic phenomena also corresponding,
are conterminous with both these. Who
shall now say where the mutual relations of
terrestrial and celestial phenomena may end?

Another matter concerning which the ignorance
that existed in the time of Boyle has not yet
been dispersed, is expressed in the following
paragraph:  "There are quarries of solid and useful
stone which is employed about some stately buildings
I have seen and which yet is of such a
nature, wherein divers other sorts of stone are
said to resemble it, that though being digged at
a certain season of the year it proves good and
durable, yet employed at a wrong time it makes
but ruinous buildings, as even the chief of those
persons whose profession makes him more
conversant with it has himself acknowledged to me
to have been found by sad experience."  We
may be inclined to ask whether poor Sir Charles
Barry could not have added to this experience,
and have stated whether or not practical suggestions
in regard to the selection of building stone