1715 in science

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The year 1715 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

May 3 - Total solar eclipse across southern England, Sweden and Finland (last total eclipse visible in London, UK for almost 900 years).
Edmond Halley suggests that nebulae are clouds of interstellar gas.

Ginseng, first used by Native Americans, is discovered by a Jesuit missionary in Canada.
Mine La Motte, in Madison county, Missouri, is discovered by De la Motte Cadillac.
The "miracle" springs are discovered in Cheltenham, England, a small Cotswold village at the time.

Edmund Halley suggests using the salinity and evaporation of salt lakes to determine the age of the Earth.^[1]

Brook Taylor's Methodus Incrementorum Directa et Inversa added a new branch to the higher mathematics, now designated the "calculus of finite differences."
Taylor also published his Essay on Linear Perspective, which discussed the principles of perspective and the vanishing point.

April 3 - William Watson, English physician and scientist (died 1787 in science)
September 22 - Jean-Étienne Guettard, French physician and scientist (died 1786)
October 8 - Michel Benoist, French Jesuit missionary and scientist (died 1774)
November 23 - Pierre Charles Le Monnier, French astronomer (died 1799)

January 19 - Nicolas Lemery, French chemist (born 1645)
February 17 - Antoine Galland, French archaeologist (born 1646)
March - William Dampier, English explorer and hydrographic surveyor who circumnavigated the world three times (born 1651)
August 16 - Raymond Vieussens, French anatomist (born c. 1635)
September 24 - Wilhelm Homberg, Dutch/French chemist (born 1652)
October 15 - Humphry Ditton, English mathematician (born 1675)
date unknown - Thomas Savery, English inventor of steam engine (born 1650)

^ Jackson, Patrick Wyse (2006). The Chronologers' Quest: The Search for the Age of the Earth. Cambridge University Press. p. 61. ISBN 0521813328. Halley's original paper was titled "A Short Account of the Cause of the Saltness of the Ocean, and of the Several Lakes That Emit no Rivers; With a Proposal, by Help Thereof, to Discover the Age of the World."