Isaac Newton - Index Chemicus Ordinatus.pdf

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Isaac Newton

Index Chemicus

Ordinatus

http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/

Symbol Guide

Newton's use of alchemical symbols was creative and unorthodox.

Like most alchemists, he employed the planetary symbols for the

known metals, and used standard symbols for common substances

such as sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride), salt of tartar (potassium

carbonate), vitriol (iron and copper sulfate), and the strong acids. But

in addition to these and other well known symbols, he created a

multitude of additional, more personal pictograms. The easiest of

these to decipher are Newton's signs for the ores of the metals. These

he represents by taking the standard alchemical symbol and attaching

an "o" to it for "ore." With Newton's other symbols things become

much more difficult, since he does not decode these for the reader. In

general, a horizontal line through a circle may be taken to indicate a

salt, a cross atop a circle may indicate an antimonial compound, and

the asterisk-like sal ammoniac star attached to a symbol may indicate

that the chemical in question is volatile. At present the editors do not

claim to have exact knowledge of the chemical referents to which

most of these compound symbols correspond. Hence we have

provisionally employed the terms for them supplied by Marie Boas

and A. Rupert Hall in their article "Newton's Chemical Experiments,"

Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences,

1958, pp. 113-152.

As our knowledge of Newton's chymistry deepens, the referents to

these pictograms may well become known, in which case we will add

them to the site.