Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15709

    Crystallisations of liquids

    Date
    11 February 1675
    Creator
    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723, Dutch) , Naturalist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p19
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 303mm
    width (page): 204mm
    Subject
    Description
    In a letter from Antoni van Leeuwenhoek to Henry Oldenburg

    A series of observations with regard to the crystallisation of salts and infusions, observed with a microscope:

    - crystals of sal vitriolii
    - a grain of sugar
    - kinds of soap
    - pepper
    - onion
    - aqua fortis
    - bile of a bream
    - bile of a calf
    - mustard seed
    - bile of a cod.
    Transcription
    Ick heb de figueren die de souten vande planten hebben gemaect, na mijn vermogen nageteickent, (maer de volmaecktheden die in veel deeltgens wel vereijschte sij (!) mij niet doenlijck geweest te volgen) (Alle de brieven, vol. 1, p. 232)
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Object history
    Alle de brieven van Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, ed. by a committee of Dutch scientists, 17 vols [ongoing] (Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1939- ), I, 230-75 (letter 16). According to the commentary, this letter is accompanied by two pages of figures of crystals drawn in ink by Leeuwenhoeck. The figure of the crystals of alum is not mentioned in the letter. A number of other drawings mentioned in this letter but not accompanying it were forwarded by Leeuwenhoeck to the Royal Society together with the ‘Missive’ of 26 March 1675.

    There is an autograph copy of this letter in the British Library, London (Add. MS 22953, ff. 122-25). It is kept together with a drawing in red chalk of a dried section of an optic nerve, which belongs to the letter of 4 December 1674.
    Related fellows
    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723, Dutch) , Naturalist
    Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
    Associated place
    <The World>
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          > Netherlands
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