Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15710

    Crystallisations of several liquids

    Date
    11 February 1675
    Creator
    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723, Dutch) , Naturalist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p21
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 304mm
    width (page): 203mm
    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:

    - sal tardus benedictii
    - sal tartari vitriolati
    - salt of absinth
    - salt of a stone
    - thorax
    - the spirit of salt
    - sublimated mercurius
    - salt of ammoniac
    - salt of rosemary
    - salt of the carnation flower
    - salt of vinegar
    - salt of elderflower
    - salt of paritory
    - salt of anis
    - salt of black hellebore.
    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
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