Wrote Letter 48 of 1686-01-22 (AB 89) to Members of the Royal Society

Date:

January 22, 1686

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Text of the letter in the original Dutch and in English translation from Alle de Brieven / The Collected Letters at the DBNL - De Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren.

The original manuscript on twelve quarto pages, written by a copyist and signed by Leeuwenhoek, is preserved at the Royal Society (MS. 1908. L 1. 79).

Leeuwenhoek's summary

From both editions of Cinnaber Naturalis and translated into Latin for all of the editions, some re-titled, of Anatomia Seu Interiora Rerum.

Ontledingen en Ontdekkingen, van de Cinnaber naturalis, dat in het selvige is Quikzilver, Oli en Zout; van het Bus-Poeder dat in een bestlooten glas is opgevlogen; Wat plaats het opgevolgen Bus-Poeder van nooden heeft; Wat figuur de opgevlogen Salpeter-deelen aannemen als die in rust komen: Dat een over-lang Kanon soo verre niet en schiet als het geene dat korter is; Datter lugt door het Bus-Poeder ende Kreeften-oogen gemaakt werd.

Dissections and discoveries, of cinnabar naturalis, that in the same is quicksilver, oil, and salt; of the gunpowder that was blown up in a closed glass; what room the blown-up gunpowder needed; what shape the blown-up saltpeter pieces took as they came to rest: that an over-long canon shoots not as far as that which is shorter; air that was made by gunpowder and crab's eyes.

Reception in London

Over two months after it was written, this letter was noted at the regular weekly meeting of the Royal Society on March 24 / April 3 (O.S./N.S.; Birch's History, vol. IV p. 468, 470, 479):

Mr. Lodwick was desired to translate a letter of Mr. Leeuwenhoeck's, containing his microscopical observations upon cinnabar and gun-powder.

A week later, Lodwick had done as desired and the letter was read in a discussion of exploding gunpowder.

At their next weekly meeting on March 31 / April 10, 1686, the members spent some time discussing how gun-powder exploded. They tried a live demonstration, which did not work, perhaps fortunately.

Dr. Papin shewed his experiment of firing gun-powder in vacuo; but it not succeeding by reason of some soot got in with the powder, it was ordered to be tried again at the next meeting.

Robert Hooke was ready to step into the breach:

Mr. Hooke gave an account of his firing gun-powder in vacuo with a burning-glass; and said, that now and then a single corn would go off upon the whole heap without kindling the next corn; and that at length having melted the heap into a lump, it went off after the manner of the pulvis fulminans with a very great report, and burst his glass into a thousand pieces, and stuck great part thereof into the cieling.

Having set the scene, they turned to Leeuwenhoek.

Part of a letter of Mr. Leeuwenhoeck was read, containing several curious observations on cinnabar and gun-powder, and mentioning an experiment, proving the expansion of gun-powder to be into a space above 2000 times greater than the space, which it takes up before fired; for that a grain weight of powder containing 13 corns takes up as much room, when fired, as 2080 grains of water.

Dr. Papin had a different experience.

Three papers of Dr. Papin were read relating to his experiment of firing gun-powder in vacuo; in one whereof he said, that by the experiment made after the last meeting was over, he found, that 9 grains of gun-powder produces as much air, as fills the space of a third part of a pound of water; from whence he concluded, that 9 grains of powder yields 2 1/3 grains of air: and from hence it would follow, that each grain gives but 213 times as much air as its own bulk; which is far short of Mr. Leeuwenhoeck's experiment.

The note that followed was probably added later by Hooke:

N. B. That air being but about x/x00 [ed: illegible] of the weight of water, which is near the weight of gun-powder, a grain of gun-powder, if it should be turned into air, could take up but 800 times as much space as its own bulk. Wherefore either the observation of Mr. Leeuwenhoeck is faulty; or else the air produced by the explosion of gnn-powder has a greater elasticity than the common air in a lighter body.

The discussion ended when Edmond Halley brought out some shells, but Thomas Henshaw had the last word, at least for that day:

Mr. Henshaw was of opinion, that the constituent parts of the air are no other than the steams and exhalations out of the earth.

Even though Leeuwenhoek's next letter had arrived and been translated and read, at the meeting of April 21, the discussion returned to Leeuwenhoek's gunpowder experiments.

Part of a letter of Mr. Leeuwenhoeck was read, wherein he described the particles composing cinnabar, shewing them to be made up mostly of hexagonal figures, yet not without the mixture of some sulphureous and saline particles, whose figures, as viewed in his microscope, he described.

They weren't finished with this topic yet. A week later, they heard even more about Leeuwenhoek's investigations of gunpowder.

Part of a letter from Mr. Leeuwenhoeck was read, containing his observations upon the figure of the parts of the nitre after the explosion of the gun-powder; with several curious remards about the manner of firing gun-powder, about the quantity of air produced by the blast, and about the length of a cannon to carry farthest.

Whether there was further discussion is not reported in Birch's History. The next paragraph notes the arrival of not just a letter, but a long manuscript:

Dr. Vincent presented to the Society a manuscript treastise intitled, Philosophie Naturalis principia mathematica, and dedicated to the Society by Mr. Isaac Newton, wherein he gives a mathematical demonstration of the Copernican hypothesis as proposed by Kepler, and makes out all the phaenomena of the celestial motions by the only supposition of a gravitation towards the center of the sun decreasing as the squares of the distances therefrom reciprocally.

The Royal Society printed this book the following year, title page on right.

Specimens and methods

In this letter, Leeuwenhoek reported on his investigations of cinnabar and gunpowder.

Cinnabar (right) is a toxic mercury sulfide mineral. Because of its bright red color, people have used it for millenia as the pigment we commonly call vermilion. They also carve it into jewelry and ornaments. It was used for art and decoration during the height of the Roman empire. During the Middle Ages, it was used to illuminate manuscripts and later in oil paintings. It was also used for Chinese lacquerware.

Ever the empiricist, Leeuwenhoek had no trouble reporting that "I have not been able to find anything about it worth the recording". He then recounted what he learned from burning cinnabar in various forms from unprocessed mineral to powder. He doesn't say, but perhaps he was investigating cinnabar so the Delft pottery makers could use it to imitate the fashionable imported Chinese ware. Leeuwenhoek seemed to have no sense that the mercury was toxic.

The letter turned to Leeuwenhoek's investigations of gunpowder. What was the connection?

In order to satisfy myself on this point, I called to mind the observations which I made some years ago in relation to gunpowder. So I again took several small glass bottles, and made them so clean as if the same had just come out of a glass-blower's furnace; some of them were three, others four, and some, again, quite six fingers high.

I heated these glasses, in order to remove the humid air which we had in the autumn, so that there should be a thinner air in the little bottle than that in which we live. In such a bottle I then put one or more of the largest grains of gunpowder; I then closed it so tight and firmly that no thick or humid air, in which we live, could get into it; and I then placed the part of the bottle where the gunpowder lay, near to a fire which was so strong that the gunpowder flared up.

He was referring to his investigations of gunpowder reported in his letter of January 11, 1675. As he did so often, he saw unbelievable quantities, "thousands of millions":

This number of saltpetre parts which come from one grain of gunpowder is so incredibly great that I dare not form an estimate of their number; and this over and above the sulphur parts and the charcoal parts, and while I have, in my imagination, divided a small part such as a coarse grain of sand into a thousand million particles, and, moreover, determined the large number of parts of which such a particle is composed, yet the saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal particles, coming from a grain of gunpowder appeared to me present in still larger number than a thousand million particles.

Figures

The original drawings are lost. According to Alle de Brieven / Collected Letters, this letter was illustrated by three figures. In the manuscript, Leeuwenhoek numbered three plates and fifteen figures in them: No. 1 Figs. A-H, No., 2 Figs. I, K, and L, and No. 3 Figs. M, N, and O. They are treated here as three figures, as they appeared in scans from the 1686 first edition of Cinnaber Naturalis.

In the text, Leeuwenhoek does not say who drew them. They were well within his skills, so he probably drew them himself with red chalk.

Publication history

Related sources, especially Philosophical Transactions, and first editions only of Leeuwenhoek's volumes of letters. For later editions see Related events under Learn more.

Year	Author	Title
1665	various	Philosophical Transactions
1686	Leeuwenhoek, A. van	Cinnaber Naturalis
1686 - 1718	Clerc, J. le, and J. C. de la Croze	Bibliothèque universelle et historique
1687	Leeuwenhoek, A. van	Anatomia Seu Interiora Rerum
1693	Leeuwenhoek, A. van	The Extract of a Letter from Mr. Anthony Van Leuwenhoek, S. R. S. to the R. Soc. Containing Several Observations on Cinnabar and Gunpowder
1957	Leeuwenhoek, A. van	Alle de Brieven. The Collected Letters. Volume 5

Other publications:

In 1687, a lengthy extract but without any of the figures was published in Bibliothèque universelle et historique vol. 5, pp. 372-383.

It was another six years before an extract of this letter appeared in Philosophical Transactions, vol. 17 no. 200.

Learn more

Related letters:

What Leeuwenhoek wrote ...
Wrote Letter 9 of 1675-01-22 (AB 15) to Henry Oldenburg

Period 4 - 1694-1702

Period 2 - 1679-1686

Structure of the letters in Period 2

1686: Royal Society

Related people:

Members of the Royal Society

Related events:

Date	Event
January 1, 1686	Published Cinnaber Naturalis (Natural Cinnabar), Letters 48 - 52
April 3, 1686	The Royal Society asked Francis Lodwick to translate Letter 48 of 1686-01-22 about cinnebar and gunpowder
April 10, 1686	The Royal Society read and discussed Letter 48 of 1686-01-22 about cinnebar and gunpowder
May 1, 1686	The Royal Society read part of Letter 48 of 1686-01-22 about the particles composing cinnabar
May 8, 1686	The Royal Society read another part of Letter 48 of 1686-01-22 about gunpowder explosions and cannon lengths
January 1, 1687	Published Anatomia Seu Interiora Rerum (Interior Anatomy), 19 Letters from 28 - 52
January 1, 1696	Published Arcana Naturae Microscopiorum (Nature's Mcroscopical Mysteries), 19 Letters from 28 - 52 (2nd)
January 1, 1708	Published Arcana Naturae Microscopiorum (Nature's Mcroscopical Mysteries), 19 Letters from 28 - 52 (3rd)
January 1, 1713	Published Cinnaber Naturalis (Natural Cinnabar), Letters 48 - 52 (2nd)
January 1, 1722	Published Opera Omnia, seu Arcana Naturae Microscopiorum (The Works, or Nature's Microscopical Mysteries), 25 Letters from 28 - 60 (4th)

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Wrote Letter 48 of 1686-01-22 (AB 89) to Members of the Royal Society

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