| Boyle, Robert New experiments physico-mechanicall, touching the spring of the air and its effects 1660 |
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lively enough, though after about two mi
nutes more he fell down quite dead, yet
with Convulsions far milder then those
wherewith the two Birds expired.
This
alacrity so little before his death, and his
not dying sooner then at the end of the
eighth minute, seem'd ascribable to the
Air (how little soever) that slipt into the
Receiver.
For the first time, those Con
vulsions (that, if they had not been sud
denly remedied, had immediately dis
patch'd him) seis'd on him in six minutes
after the Pump began to be set awork.
These Experiments seem'd the more
strange, in regard, that during a great part of
those few minutes the Engine could but
considerably rarefie the Air (and that too,
but by degrees) and at the end of them
there remain'd in the Receiver no incon
siderable quantity; as may appear by what
we have formerly said of our not being
able to draw down Water in a Tube, with
in much less then a Foot of the bottom:
with which we likewise consider'd, that by
the exsuction of the Air and intersper
sed Vapors, there was left in the Recei
ver a space some hundreds of times ex
ceeding the bigness of the Animal, to re
ceive the fuliginous Steams, from which,
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