What Are Effluviums

Effluvium Now there s a rare word Websterss New World Dictionary of the American Language (College Edition) defines it as follows 1. A real or supposed out- 

Whether we suppose with the Ancient and Modern ATOMISTS, that all sensible Bodies are made up of Corpuscles, not only insensible, but indivisible, or whether we think with the CARTESIANS, and (as many of that Party teach us) with ARISTOTLE, that Matter, like Quantity, is indefinitely, if not infinitely divisible It will be consonant enough to either Doctrine, that the EFFLUVIA of Bodies may consist of Particles EXTREMELY SMALL. For 

London Printed by W. G. for Al Put, at the near the little North Door of Church. 1673. 

FIGURE 170. Title page of Robert Boyle s wonderful essay in which he estimates the mass of the smallest measurable effluvia of silver, gold, silk, and alcohol vapors. In the Denis L Duveen collection there is a copy of this book autographed by Robert Boyle for Isaac Newton (kind of like the Old Testament autographed by Abraham for Jesus). 

One grain (0.0648 grams or g) of silver has been drawn by a master silversmith into a wire 27 ft long. Boyle had a special ruler subdivided into 200 divisions per inch. Therefore, the wire can be subdivided into 27 x 12 x 200 = 64,800 silver cylinders each weighing 0.0000010 gram (1.0 x lO g). 

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