Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15298

    Microscopic structures observed in frozen urine and ice

    Date
    10 December 1662
    Creator
    Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural philosopher
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p3
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 292mm
    width (page): 186mm
    Subject
    Physics
       > Optics
          > Microscopy
    Description
    Illustrations showing the structures observed in frozen urine by Robert Hooke and communicated to the meeting of the Royal Society on 17 December 1662. They accompany a paper titled 'Observables in the six Branched figures frozen in Urine, by Mr Hook' (Cl.P/20/5) and were printed in Hooke's Micrographia (1665), scheme VIII.

    Fig. 1 shows the branching structures on the surface of frozen urine; fig. 6 shows the parallel lines observed on flakes of ice frozen on the top of water.

    Copies can be found at RBO/2i/060, MS/215/037 and MS/776/261.
    Transcription
    'This figure is to be drawn on ye side of ye paper concerning ye Figures frozen in Urine, marked by Mr Hook'
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 17 December 1662, ‘Mr. Hooke communicated likewise some remarks on the figures in frozen urine, frozen water, and snow; and those of the small shootings of hoar-frosts; which were ordered to be registered’ (Birch 1:154).

    Published as Figure 1 of Scheme VIII in Robert Hooke, Micrographia (London, 1665), described on pp. 88-91 (Fig. 1) and p. 93 (Fig. 6).
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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