The Life of Dr. Robert Hooke.

Around this time, he fixed the standard for the thermometer based on the freezing point. He also devised a way to make the motions of the barometer more sensitive, which has since been published with further improvements in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 185, p. 241.

In February 1664, he devised a method to supply fresh air to a diver using a diving bell, employing a chain of buckets and a leaden box for his head, which he could use when he stepped out of the bell to be supplied with fresh air, etc.

At this time, he demonstrated experiments regarding the expansion of glass and other bodies caused by heat.

In July 1664, he produced an experiment to show the number of vibrations of a stretched string made in a specific time, which are necessary to produce a certain tone or note. Through this, it was found that a wire making two hundred and seventy-two vibrations in one second of time sounded G Sol Re Ut on the musical scale. Other experiments were made regarding the division of a monochord, which I shall omit.

Philosophical Transactions, No. 9, p. 147, and No. 24, p. 439.

Around this time, many experiments were made concerning the velocity of bodies sinking and rising in water, in order to perfect the device—later made public—for sounding the depth of the sea with a sounding ball, which is too well known to require further explanation.

At several meetings of the Society in 1663 and 1664, he produced his microscopical observations and read the explanations and discourses upon them, which were later published in his Micrographia at the beginning of 1665. I think it can hardly be denied that this book contains more excellent philosophical discoveries and insights than most books of its size currently in existence. Since the book itself is well known, I shall only note that it describes several types of microscopes and methods for using them, as well as the baroscope, hygroscope, an instrument to calibrate thermometers, an engine to grind optical glasses, and an instrument to measure the refraction of liquids, etc. I remember Mr. Marshal, when he requested the Society’s approval for his new method of grinding spectacles and other optical glasses, admitted that he received his first intimation of it from a hint in Mr. Hooke’s book regarding the polishing of many very small microscope object-lenses at once.

A more particular account of this book is available in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 2, p. 29. To show the esteem foreigners held for it, I refer the reader to the account given in the Journal des Scavans original: "Journal des Scavans"; modern: "Journal of Scholars" for December 1666. In this, the journalist speaks with great respect of the author and esteem for the work itself, observing the vast number of curious remarks made therein concerning the improvement of the other senses, as well as the sense of sight; observations of colors and light, the moon, stars, reflection, inflection, etc., concluding (after mentioning several) that the book contains more than can be noted in a brief extract.

In the beginning of June 1664, Sir John Cutler intimated to some members of the Society his design to found a mechanical lecture, with a yearly gift of fifty pounds. On the twenty-second of the same month, several members met to confer about the manner of settling that lecture, and on the ninth of November following, it was entered in the journals to this effect: Sir