ABSTRACT
On 10 January 1690, Boyle received a visit at the home he shared with his sister, Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh, in London’s Pall Mall, from the explorer and colonialist Pierre-Esprit Radisson. As in many similar cases, he recorded the conversation they had in one of the compilations I have called his workdiaries, which have already been more than once referred to in this volume: these were sheaths of notes in which Boyle recorded experiments or observations he made, or reports he received from others, and there is now a complete online edition of them. 2 What struck me in this instance was Boyle’s note that ‘among other discourse that past between us about his journeys farre up into the continent of the northern America I desird him when our Company withdrew to tell me freely whether he had observd any thing of supernaturall among the savages he had conversd with’. 3
