plants, differing from the vulgar; and to make one tree or plant turn into another.

"We have also parks and inclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds, which we use not only for view or rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials; that thereby we may take light what may be wrought upon the body of man. Wherein we find many strange effects; as continuing life in them, though divers parts, which you account vital, be perished and taken forth; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appearance; and the like. We try also all poisons and other medicines upon them, as well of chirurgery as physic.' By art likewise, we make them greater or taller than their kind is; and contrariwise dwarf them, and stay their growth: we make them more fruitful and bearing than their kind is; and contrariwise barren and not generative. Also we make them differ in colour, shape, activity, many ways. We find means to make commixtures and copulations of different kinds; which have produced many new kinds, and them not barren, as the general opinion is. We make a number of kinds of serpents, worms, flies, fishes, of putrefaction; whereof some are advanced (in effect) to be perfect creatures, like beasts or birds; and have sexes, and do propagate. Neither do we this by chance, but we know beforehand of what matter and commixture what kind of those creatures will arise.2

"We have also particular pools, where we make trials upon fishes, as we have said before of beasts and birds.

"We have also places for breed and generation of those kinds of worms and flies which are of special use; such as are with you your silk-worms and bees.

"I will not hold you long with recounting of our brewhouses, bake-houses, and kitchens, where are made divers drinks, breads, and meats, rare and of special effects. Wines we have of grapes; and drinks of other juice of fruits, of grains, and of roots 3: and of mixtures with honey, sugar, manna, and fruits dried and decocted. Also of the tears or

The translation adds ut corpori humano melius caveamus.

This passage is quoted with great approbation by Geoffroi St. Hilaire at the end of a memoir on the results of artificial incubation read before the Academy of Sciences in 1826, and published in the Annales du Museum for that year. It may be said that he was the first by whom the scientific importance of monstrosities was fully appreciated, and in answer to the objections which were made to the study of Teratology on the ground of its inutility, he invokes the authority of Bacon. - R. L. E. 3 decoctionibus granorum et radicum.

woundings of trees, and of the pulp of canes. And these drinks are of several ages, some to the age or last of forty years. We have drinks also brewed with several herbs, and roots, and spices; yea with several fleshes, and white meats'; whereof some of the drinks are such, as they are in effect meat and drink both 2: so that divers, especially in age, do desire to live with them, with little or no meat or bread. And above all, we strive to have drinks of extreme thin parts, to insinuate into the body, and yet without all biting, sharpness, or fretting; insomuch as some of them put upon the back of your hand will, with a little stay, pass through to the palm, and yet taste mild to the mouth. We have also waters which we ripen in that fashion, as they become nourishing; so that they are indeed excellent drink; and many will use no other. Breads we have of several grains, roots, and kernels: yea and some of flesh and fish dried; with divers kinds of leavenings and seasonings: so that some do extremely move appetites; some do nourish so, as divers do live of them, without any other meat; who live very long. So for meats, we have some of them so beaten and made tender and mortified, yet without all corrupting, as a weak heat of the stomach will turn them into good chylus, as well as a strong heat would meat otherwise prepared. We have some meats also and breads and drinks, which taken by men enable them to fast long after; and some other, that used make the very flesh of men's bodies sensibly more hard and tough, and their strength far greater than otherwise it would be.

"We have dispensatories, or shops of medicines. Wherein you may easily think, if we have such variety of plants and living creatures more than you have in Europe, (for we know what you have,) the simples, drugs, and ingredients of medicines, must likewise be in so much the greater variety. We have them likewise of divers ages, and long fermentations. And for their preparations, we have not only all manner of exquisite distillations and separations, and especially by gentle heats and percolations through divers strainers, yea and substances; but

1 quin et additis quandoque carnibus, ovis, lacticiniis, et aliis esculentis.

Chocolate, which however was well known in Bacon's time, seems to fulfil this description. It long since gave rise to a doubt whether drinking it amounted to breaking fast. See the treatise of the Jesuit Hurtado, "Utrum potio chocolatica frangat jejunium Ecclesiæ."— R. L. E.

3 medicinarum præparationes.

4 per diversa lintea, lanea, ligna, imò et substantias solidiores.

also exact forms of composition, whereby they incorporate almost, as they were natural simples.

"We have also divers mechanical arts, which you have not; and stuffs made by them; as papers, linen, silks, tissues; dainty works of feathers of wonderful lustre; excellent dyes, and many others; and shops likewise, as well for such as are not brought into vulgar use amongst us as for those that are. For you must know that of the things before recited, many of them are grown into use throughout the kingdom; but yet if they did flow from our invention, we have of them also for patterns and principals.2

"We have also furnaces of great diversities, and that keep great diversity of heats; fierce and quick; strong and constant; soft and mild; blown, quiet; dry, moist; and the like. But above all, we have heats in imitation of the sun's and heavenly bodies' heats, that pass divers inequalities and (as it were) orbs, progresses, and returns, whereby we produce admirable effects. Besides, we have heats of dungs, and of bellies and maws of living creatures, and of their bloods and bodies; and of hays and herbs laid up moist; of lime unquenched; and such like. Instruments also which generate heat only by motion. And farther, places for strong insolations; and again, places under the earth, which by nature or art yield heat. These divers heats we use, as the nature of the operation which we intend requireth.

"We have also perspective-houses, where we make demonstrations of all lights and radiations; and of all colours; and out of things uncoloured and transparent, we can represent unto you all several colours; not in rain-bows, as it is in gems and prisms, but of themselves single. We represent also all multiplications of light, which we carry to great distance, and make so sharp as to discern small points and lines; also all colorations of light: all delusions and deceits of the sight, in figures, magnitudes, motions, colours: all demonstrations of shadows. We find also divers means, yet unknown to you,

'officinas etiam aliquarum artium prædictarum.

2

eorum quandoque exempluria, tanquam primigenia, et optimè elaborata, in Domo nostra retinemus,

3 imitationes caloris.

Bacon seems to refer to the result of his investigation into the form of heat, namely that heat is a kind of motion.

R. L. E.

non in forma iridum gliscentes.

6 sed per se simplices et constantes.

M

↑ umbrirum et imaginum in aëre volitantium.

VOL. III.

2

of producing of light originally from divers bodies. We procure means of seeing objects afar off; as in the heaven and remote places; and represent things near as afar off, and things afar off as near; making feigned distances. We have also helps for the sight, far above spectacles and glasses in use.' We have also glasses and means to see small and minute bodies perfectly and distinctly; as the shapes and colours of small flies and worms, grains and flaws in gems, which cannot otherwise be seen; observations in urine and blood, not otherwise to be seen. We make artificial rain-bows, halos, and circles about light.5 We represent also all manner of reflexions, refractions, and multiplications of visual beams of objects. "We have also precious stones of all kinds, many of them of great beauty, and to you unknown; crystals likewise; and glasses of divers kinds; and amongst them some of metals vitrificated, and other materials besides those of which you make glass. Also a number of fossils, and imperfect minerals, which you have not. Likewise loadstones of prodigious virtue; and other rare stones, both natural and artificial.

"We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have; together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as great and deep; likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp; we make divers tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We have certain helps which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly. We have also divers strange and artificial

1 quæ bisoculis vestris et speculis, usu longe præstant.

2 artificia.

It has been proposed to facilitate the examination of diabetic urine by an apparatus in which the amount of sugar present in it is to be measured by its effect on the plane of polarisation of polarised light transmitted through it.—R. L. E.

Nothing that has been accomplished with the microscope would have interested Bacon more than the discoveries of Schleiden and Schwann, because nothing has brought us so near the latens processus by which the tissues of organic life are formed. It is remarkable that when Schleiden had as he conceived destroyed the analogy between the developments of vegetable and animal life, by showing that all vegetable tissues are developed by cells, Schwann should have re-established it more clearly than before by showing that this is true of all animal tissues also. R. L. E.

halones, circulos, vibrationes et trepidationes luminis.

e miscentes non tantum Beta illud acutum et molle, ut vos, sed quadrantes sonorum ; et sonos tremulos aliquos dulcissimos.

echos, reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it: and some that give back the voice louder than it came; some shriller, and some deeper; yea, some rendering the voice differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances.1

2

"We have also perfume-houses; wherewith we join also practices of taste. We multiply smells, which may seem strange. We imitate smells, making all smells to breathe out of other mixtures than those that give them. We make divers imitations of taste likewise, so that they will deceive any man's taste. And in this house we contain also a confiture-house; where we make all sweet-meats, dry and moist, and divers pleasant wines, milks, broths, and sallets, far in greater variety than you have.

"We have also engine-houses, where are prepared engines and instruments for all sorts of motions. There we imitate and practise to make swifter motions than any you have, either out of your muskets or any engine that you have; and to make them and multiply them more easily, and with small force1, by wheels and other means: and to make them stronger, and more violent than yours are; exceeding your greatest cannons and basilisks. We represent also ordnance and instruments of war, and engines of all kinds: and likewise new mixtures and compositions of gun-powder, wildfires burning in water, and unquenchable. Also fire-works of all variety both for pleasure and use. We imitate also flights of birds; we have some degrees of flying in the air; we have ships and boats for going under water, and brooking of seas; also swimming-girdles and

[ad magnam distantiam, et in lineis tortuosis.] by means of gutta percha tubing. - R. L. E.

This is now done very effectively

2 This power of imitating smells is one of the recent achievements of chemistry. From fusil oil, a product of the distillation of spirits from potatoes, itself exceedingly offensive, may be got oil of apples, oil of pears, oil of grapes, and oil of cognac. The oil of pine-apples and that of bitter almonds enable confectioners to imitate perfectly the scent and flavour of pine-apples and bitter almonds respectively, and both, like the perfumes already mentioned, are got from very offensive substances. - R. L. E.

The translation adds imò et condimus ea cum rebus alüs dulcibus, gratissimis, præter saccharum et mel.

4 motus reddere faciliores et intentiores, eos multiplicando per rotas et alios modos. 5 gradus quosdam habemus et commoditates vectura per aèrem instar animalium alatorum.

6 A boat for going under water was one of Drebbel's inventions exhibited in 1620. Bacon in the De Augmentis refers to another namely, Drebbel's method of producing cold. — R. L. E.