Workdiary 33 (Miscellaneous observations, recipes and experiments from a notebook of the early 1680s)

Content: Chymical and medical recipes, mnemonic verses, accounts and memoranda

General Information

• Creation: early 1680s
• Hands: Robert Boyle (entries 2, 6-8, 16, 21-6, 37-8) Robin Bacon (entries 3-5, 9-15, 27-31, 34, 36, 40-3, 45-50) Hugh Greg (entries 32-3) John Warr, Jr. (entries 17-20) uncertain (entry 39) hand B (entry 35) hand C (entries 1, 44)
• Source: Royal Society MS 194, fols. 1-10, 22 and 25v (part) written from front, and fols. 25v (part)-23 and 21-11 written from rear. In other words, the volume was used for the front for various entries, mainly on the early leaves, but also including fol. 22 and the final verso; it was then reversed and the final verso re-used, prior to other pages in the latter part of the volume. The entries may not have been written in the order in which they appear, and there is some uncertainty as to the end from which end the entries written across the page were inserted.
• Languages: English (41 entries) Latin (6 entries) German (1 entry) French (2 entries)
• Length: 50 entries, unnumbered
• Format: These entries are in a small bound notebook, of approximately octavo size. In this they mark a departure from Boyle's usual way of recording experiments using folded foolscap sheets. There are stubs from conjugate leaves between fols. 3 and 4 and 4 and 5. Fol. 6 is a smaller sheet than the rest, and has been pasted in in rebinding. The notes are rougher and more informal than those found in the other workdiaries recorded on foolscap sheets. The following pages in this workdiary are blank and are therefore recorded here but not reproduced as images: MS 194, fols. 2v, 7r-v, 8v, 9r, 10v, 11r, 12v, 13r-v, 14r, 15r-v, 16r, 17r, 18r-v, 20r, 21r, 22r, and 23r. These have, as usual, been recorded prior to the folio references immediately following them. Where the entries were written from the back of the notebook, this means that versos precede rectos.
• Note 1: MS 194 is a largely miscellaneous collection of recipes, mnemonic verses, accounts, and other scribblings. We have included all this material, since it seemed artificial to split it up, although some of it comprises personal memoranda such as accounts. It thus has a somewhat different flavour from the rest of the workdiaries.
• Note 2: The first page of the workdiary, fol. 1r, was blank until the 19th century, when it was inscribed 'Robert Boyle - Note-book' and '194', denoting its position in the Royal Society' sequence of general manuscripts.