The Foundation of Chemistry - 1680
Robert Boyle (1627 - 1691)

Born in Ireland, Robert Boyle was the best-known British scientist of his day and the greatest experimental scientist of the mid-seventeenth century.¹  This early Latin text is a compilation of six separate Boyle works.  The sections were originally published at the dates given below.

Nova Experimenta roughly translates as New Experiments physico-mechanical, touching the air. Originally published in 1661, it was the first volume to contain the announcement of Boyle's Law of Gases. The second of the sections -- Defensia (A defense of the doctrine touching the Spring and Weight of the Air) was first published in the second edition of Spring of the Air.  It was his defense against "the attacks of Linus on the first edition."⁶  Together, the two works fully demonstrate Boyle's Law: That the volume of air in a confined space varies inversely as the pressure.