Experimental philosophy, in three books containing new experiments microscopical, mercurial, magnetical : with some deductions, and probable hypotheses, raised from them, in avouchment and illustration of the now famous atomical hypothesis / by Henry Power ...

MICROSCOPICAL OBSERVATIONS.

OBSERVAT. I. Of the Flea.

IT seems as big as a little Prawn or Shrimp, with a small head, but in it two fair eyes globular and promi∣nent of the circumference of a span∣gle; in the midst of which you might (through the diaphanous Cornea.) see a round blackish spot, which is the pupil or apple of the eye, beset round with a green∣ish glistering circle, which is the Iris, (as vibrissant and glorious as a Cats eye) most admirable to behold.

How critical is Nature in all her works! that to so small and contemptible an Animal hath given such an

exquisite fabrick of the eye, even to the distinction of parts.

Had our famous Muffet but seen them, he would not have spoke so doubtfully as he did: Oculos (saith he, speaking of Flea's) habere, verisimile est, tùm quod suos eligunt recessus, tùm quod appetente luce so subducunt. He has also a very long neck, jemmar'd like the tail of a Lobstar, which he could nimbly move any way; his head, body, and limbs also, be all of blackish armour-work, shining and polished with jemmar's, most excel∣lently contrived for the nimble motion of all the parts: nature having armed him thus Cap-a-pe like a Curiazier in warr, that he might not be hurt by the great leaps he takes; to which purpose also he hath so excellent an eye, the better to look before he leap: to which add this advantageous contrivance of the joynts of his hin∣der legs which bend backwards towards his belly, and the knees or flexure of his fore-legs forwards (as in most quadrupeds) that he might thereby take a better rise when he leaps. His feet are slit into claws or talons, that he might the better stick to what he lights upon: he hath also two pointers before which grow out of the forehead, by which he tryes and feels all objects, whe∣ther they be edible or no. His neck, body, and limbs are also all beset with hairs and bristles, like so many Turn∣pikes, as if his armour was palysado'd about by them. At his snout is fixed a Proboscis, or hollow trunk or probe, by which he both punches the skin, and sucks the blood through it, leaving that central spot in the middle of the Flea-biting, where the probe entred.

One would wonder at the great strength lodged in so small a Receptacle, and that he is not able onely to car∣ry his whole armour about him, but will frisk and curvet

so nimbly with it: Stick a large brass pin through his tayl and he will readily drag it away. I have seen a chain of gold (at Tredescants famous reconditory of Novelties) of three hundred links, though not above an inch long, both fastned to, and drawn away by a Flea. Such a like one it seems as our Muffet tells that one Marcus an Eng∣lish-man made. Nay hear what he saith further, Accepi∣mus item à fide dignis, Pulicem sic Catena alligatum,* 1.1 Currum aureum perfectè suis numeris absolutum, nullo negotio traxisse, id quod & Artificis industriam & suas ipsius vires multùm com∣mendat: Yea, we have heard it credibly reported, saith he, that a Flea hath not onely drawn a gold Chain, but a golden Charriot also with all its harness and accoutre∣ments fixed to it, which did excellently set forth the Ar∣tifice of the Maker, and Strength of the Drawer; so great is the mechanick power which Providence has immur'd within these living walls of Jet.

OBSERVAT. II. The Bee.

THe eye of a Bee is of a protuberant oval figure, black and all foraminulous, drill'd full of innumera∣ble holes like a Grater or Thimble; and, which is more wonderful, we could plainly see, that the holes were all of a square figure like an honey-comb, and stuck full of small hairs (like the pores in our skin) and which (by blowing upon) you might see waft to and fro; all which neat particularities were more palpably discovered in the eye of a great Humble-Bee. Now these holes were not absolute perforations, but onely dimples in their crusta∣ceous

Tunica Cornea; which it seems is full of little pit-holes, like the cap of a thimble: for we cutt out the eye in a large Humble-Bee and Crecket, and bared the shell or horney coat of the eye; and laying either the convex or concave side upwards (upon the object plate) I could easily perceive the little holes or dimples formerly men∣tioned. So that, by the favour of our Microscope, I have seen more in one hour then that famous Bee-master Aristomachus did in his fifty years contemplation of those Laborious Insects.

If you divide the Bee (or Humble-Bee especially) near the neck, you shall, without help of the glasse, see the heart beat most lively, which is a white pulsing vesi∣cle. The stings in all Bees are hollow and tubulous (like a Shoomaker's-punch) so that when they prick the flesh, they do also, through that channel, transfuse the poyson into it: For if you take a Bee, Wasp, or Humble-Bee especially, and gently squeeze her tayl, so that you may see the sting, you shall perceive a drop of diaphanous liquor at the very end of it, which if you wipe off, you shall distinctly see it renewed again, that humour passing down the Cavity into the end thereof. But if you would see their Common-wealth, Laws, Customs, Military Discipline, and their skill in Tacticks and Architecture, then read our English Butler, an experimental and not Theoretical writer on that subject.

OBSERVAT. III. The Common Fly.

IT is a very pleasant Insect to behold: her body is as it were from head to tayl studded with silver and black

Armour, stuck all over with great black Bristles, like Porcupine quills, set all in parallel order, with their ends pointing all towards the tayl; her wings look like a Sea-fan with black thick ribs or fibers, dispers'd and branch'd through them, which are webb'd between with a thin membrane or film, like a slice of Muscovy-glasse: She hath a small head which she can move or turn any way: She hath six legs, but goes onely but upon four; the two foremost she makes use of instead of hands, with which you may often see her wipe her mouth and nose, and take up any thing to eat. The other four legs are cloven and arm'd with little clea's or tallons (like a Cata∣mount) by which she layes hold on the rugosities and asperities of all bodies she walks over, even to the sup∣portance of her self, though with her back downwards and perpendicularly invers'd to the Horizon. To which purpose also the wisdom of Nature hath endued her with another singular Artifice, and that is a fuzzy kinde of substance like little sponges, with which she hath lined the soles of her feet, which substance is always re∣pleated with a whitish viscous liquor▪ which she can at pleasure squeeze out, and so sodder and be-glew her self to the plain she walks on, which otherways her gravity would hinder (were it not for this contrivance) especial∣ly when she walks in those inverted positions.

But of all things her eyes are most remarkable, being exceeding large, ovally protuberant and most neatly dimpled with innumerable little cavities like a small gra∣ter or thimble, through which seeming perforations you may see a faint reddish colour (which is the blood in the eyes, for if you prick a pin through the eye, you shall finde more blood there, then in all the rest of her body.) The like foraminulous perforations or trelliced eyes are

in all Flyes, more conspicuously in Carnivorous or Flesh-Flyes, in the Stercorary or Yellow Flyes that feed upon Cow-dung: The like eyes I have also found in divers other Insects, as the Shepherd-flye or Spinster-flye, which Muffet calls Opilionum Muscam; also in Cantha∣rides or French-Flyes; also in all sorts of Scarabees, black and spotted; also in all sorts of Moth-flyes, called by Muffet, Phalaenae-papiliones; also in the May-Fly, But∣ter-flyes, Scorpion-tail'd-fly, Twinges, and Earwigs; most clearly in the sloe-black eye of the Crecket, and in the large eye of the Dragon-fly or Adderbolt. Many more observables there are in Common Flyes, as their Vivacity; for, when they appear desperate and quite for∣saken of their forms, by virtue of the Sun or warm ashes they will be revoked into life, and perform its functions again.

Had Domitian thus busied himself in the Contemplati∣on of this Animal, it had been an employment, not some∣times unworthy of Caesar.* 1.2 For, to conclude with Muffet; Dei verò virtutem quàm validè animalcula ista, parùm sanè valida, demonstrant? Contemplare enim vel minimum musci∣lionem, & quomodò in Tantillo Corpore, pedes, alas, oculos, pro∣muscidem, aliaque membra, omni filo minora, concinnè adapta∣vit Altissimus, edissere!

OBSERVAT. IV. The Gray, or Horse-Fly.

HEr eye is an incomparable pleasant spectacle: 'tis of a semisphaeroidal figure; black and waved, or rather indented all over with a pure Emerauld-green, so

that it looks like green silk Irish-stitch, drawn upon a black ground, and all latticed or chequered with dim∣ples like Common Flyes, which makes the Indentures look more pleasantly: Her body looks like silver in frost-work, onely fring'd all over with white silk: Her legs all joynted and knotted like the plant call'd Equi∣setum or Horse-tayl, and all hairy and slit at the ends into two toes, both which are lined with two white sponges or fuzballs as is pre-observ'd in Common Flyes. After her head is cut off, you shall most fairly see (just at the setting on of her neck) a pulsing particle (which cer∣tainly is the heart) to beat for half an hour most or∣derly and neatly through the skin.

OBSERVAT. V. The Butter-Fly.

THis Animal might well deserve our Observation without the assistance of a Microscope; for who does not admire the variegated diversity of colours in her expansed wings? which do not onely out-vye the Peacock in all his pride, but does as far out-go the strip'd bravery of the Tulip, as that did Solomon in all his glory: But view them in the Microscope, and you may see the very streaks of the Coelestial pencil that drew them. For the wings of the Butterfly seem like a great plume of feathers, with a glystering splendour exceeding plea∣sant to behold, especially if the wings be strip'd with several colours: yea that small meal and dust of their wings (which sticks to your fingers when you catch them) is all small little feathers, which grow out of

their wings; and you may plainly see the twills by which they stick to the wings, and the holes in the wings, out of which they were pluck'd. Nature having imp'd her wings (for her better flight) with those plumeous ex∣crescences; which shews how vastly * 1.3 they were mista∣ken, that held this mealy dust to be an exudation of atoms out of their wings.

Her eye is large and globular (but somewhat flattish) white like Alablaster, diced or bespeck'd here and there with black spots (like checker'd Marble) all foraminous, both the white and black parts of it. I mean in a white Butterfly, for in a red-wing'd Butterfly, her eye is all black and full of perforations as in a Common Fly.

The Probe (which you see lyes in her mouth in spiral contorsions, wound up like a spring, or like the twining tendrils of the Vine, and which you may with a pin draw out to its full length) seems to be hollow, and sup∣plies the office both of Mouth and Tongue: for you shall see it (if cutt out and laid on the object-plate) to winde and coyl it self up like a Spring, and then open a∣gain a long time together, and to have a transpa∣rent kinde of hollownesse quite throughout. Nature having made it of a considerable length (when extend∣ed) that she might reach her nourishment, else the length of her legs would hinder the stooping of her head: She hath also fitted it with that spiral or cochleary contrivance, that so being drawn up into an Helix, and retracted into the mouth, it might be no hinderance to her flight.

OBSERVAT. VI. A Louse.

SHe appears the bignesse of a large Crecket, the body diaphanous and transparent, with three legs on either side, and two horns in the snout, all transparent and of Gauntlet-work, having here and there hairs and bristles; her feet likewise are slit into toes. Her two eyes were like two black beads, gogled and protuberant, standing somewhat backwards on the side of her head behind her horns: She is blackish about the shoulders; if she be laid on her back, you may perceive her body to be of Escallop'd protuberances, diaphanous also, very hand∣some to behold. In this supine position of hers, there are two bloody darkish spots discernable, the greater in the midst of her body, and the lesser towards her tayl. In the Centre of the middle spot there is a white Film or Bladder, which continually contracts and dilates its self upwards and downwards from the head towards the tayl; and alwayes after every pulse of this white particle or vesicle, then followes the pulse of the great dark bloody spot, in which, or over which, the vesicle seems to swim. This we observ'd two or three hours to∣gether, as long as the Louse lived; and this motion of Systole and Diastole is most palpably seen, when the Louse grows feeble and weak. I prick'd the white vesicle with a small needle and let out a little drop of blood; and then viewing her again in the Microscope, we could not perceive any life or motion after.

In a greater Louse you might see this pulsation of

her heart through her back also; but the white film or vesicle you cannot see till she be turn'd with her belly upwards.

The lower dark spot (which is the lesser towards the tayl) Dr. Harvey probably conjectures to be the excre∣ments in the guts of the Louse, there reposited just before exclusion.

Hear how neatly Sir Theodore Mayhern delivers his Ob∣servation of this Animal,* 1.4 taken in a puny Microscope; Pediculorum oculos prominentes (Ope Conspicilii) cernes, & Cornua, & Crenatum Corporis Ambitum, totam substantiam Diaphanam, per quam Cordis & Sanguinis tanquam in Euripo indesinenter fluctuantis Motum.

OBSERVAT. VII. A Wood-Louse, or Wood-Mite.

THere is a little white Animal (which you shall finde usually running over the leaves and covers of books, and in rotten wood) which in Shape and Co∣lour is like a Louse, onely it has a swift motion, and runs by starts or stages; you may kill it with a very little touch with your finger: This Animal being fastened to the object-plate, by a little spattle, looks like polish'd silver, her whole body cased in Annulary circles, all full of silver hairs, especially towards her tayl, with six legs, three on each side, whose extremities are arm'd with two black tallons, which you might see to move di∣stinctly of themselves: Two long moveable horns were fastened to her head, but revers'd and pointing back∣wards towards her tayl, with little branches and twigs

(like Bezanteliers) springing out of them. She hath two pointers also before, like a pair of pincers, which she moved laterally, all full of hairs, and two round knobs at the ends of them. Her eyes are very protube∣rant, and globular, of a pure golden colour, most admi∣rable to behold, especially when varnish'd with a full light, and most neatly latticed or mashed like a net (as hath been pre-observ'd in other Insects.) And she seem∣ed to have this peculiar Artifice, that she can put out or draw in her eye at her pleasure; so that sometimes we could see them far more prominent then at others; and sometimes again the one eye more then the other: In∣somuch that in one of our Critical Observations, I could see more then a hemisphere of the eye at once; so that what the Processus Ciliares does to our eyes, either in re∣tracting or protruding the Crystalline Humour (for helping the sight) the same does the Optick nerve (it seems) to the whole Globe or Bulk of their eyes.

OBSERVAT. VIII. The House-Spider.

NOw let us see what we can discover in Ovid's Lydian-Spinstresse, that proud Madam which Pallas, for her Rivalship, transform'd into the Spider; which hath not onely the Character of Aristotle, but of Solomon himself, for a wise and prudent Animal, and therefore a fit Residentiary in the Court of Kings.

Of Domestick Spiders there are two sorts; one with longer legs and a little body, and the other contrariwise.

The first eminent thing we found in these House-Spi∣ders,

were their eyes, which in some were four, in some six, and in some eight, according to the proportion of their bulk, and longity of their legs. These eyes are pla∣ced all in the forefront of their head (which is round, and without any neck) all diaphanous and transparent, like a Locket of Diamonds, or a Sett of round Crystal-Beads: so that well might Muffet say of those Philoso∣phers that held them blinde, Sanè coecutiunt illi summo meridie, qui videre ipsas non vident neque intelligunt: Far better might he have said it, if his eyes had had the assi∣stance of our Microscope.

Neither wonder, why Providence should be so Ano∣malous in this Animal more then in any other we know of (Argus his head being fix'd to Arachne's shoulders.) For, first: Since they wanting a neck cannot move their head, it is requisite that defect should be supplyed by the multiplicity of eyes. Secondly: Since they were to live by catching so nimble a prey as a Fly is, they ought to see her every way, and to take her per saltum (as they do) without any motion of their head to discover her; which motion would have scar'd away so timorous an Insect.

They have a very puffy light body of an Oval figure, covered with a sleek thin skin: which they change once a moneth, sayes Muffet; though I hardly believe they cast their spoils so often.

Their skin is not pellucid, for I could never discover any pulsing particle within them: She hath eight legs, four on each side, split into small oblong fingers at the ends, by which she makes her curious Web-work Both body and limbs is all stuck over with small silver hairs, which the very ayr will waft to and fro, as you may see in the Microscope.

OBSERVAT. IX. The little white Field-Spider with short legs.

THere is a little white short-leg'd Spider (which you shall find plentifully amongst new Hey, or in a sweating Hey-mough) which is a glorious spectacle to behold; for her Body is like white Amber imboss'd all over with black Knobs, out of every one of which grow bristles or prickles like whin-pricks

[illustration]

perfectly taper-grown. And (which is most admirable) we could most distin∣ctly see six, in some eight eyes, ranged in this order; the innermost least, and the outermost greatest, of a very quick and lively transparency or fulgour, like Eagle's eyes; every Eye hath a pale yel∣low circle, which encompasseth a vio∣let-blew Pupill, most clear and most admirable, but not perforated at all. Letting her lye on the object-plate for half an hour to∣gether, we perceived her Eyes all of them to grow less and less, and a whitish kind of film or socket, by degrees, to cover part of them: I cutt her in the midst at first, and so layd onely her head with the upper part of her body, on the object-plate.

OBSERVAT. X. The Field Spider with long Legs.

THis Spider was a very pleasant spectacle: having cutt off her legs, and layd her flat with her belly upon the object-plate, I perceived a round knob erected perpendicularly upon the top of her back, which pro∣ved to be her head (though at first I could not perswade my self into that belief;) for in it were fixed two jett-black protuberant (but not foraminulous) eyes, on ei∣ther side one, which by diligent Inspection we found to be of different parts, with a very black smooth pupil in the midst of either of them, more protuberant than the rest of the circumambient matter, which was of a coarser grain, browner and more rugged than the pro∣minent Pupil.

She had before, two claws (at a manifest distance from her head) just like a Crab's claws, with two black tips, like the Chely's in Crabs, which I could distinctly see to open and shutt (exactly like those in a Scorpion) which were indented, or made▪ Saw-wise on the inside (the better to keep fast what she had once laid hold on.)

There is a Field-Spider of a russet colour and long legs, of the same shape and figure.

The head and eyes in all Spiders are contrived with great variety.

OBSERVAT. XI. Another Field-Spider.

I Took a Field-Spider under a stone, 13. of June, with a bag of eggs fastned to her tayl, bigger than all the bulk of her body; I opened it, and saw abun∣dance of blewish eggs in it, which in the Microscope look'd white and round, like your counterfeit pearl, and I could most clearly see abundance of very mi∣nute Spiders, newly hatch'd, no bigger, and just like Mites in Meal, with white hairs and bristles, especially in their tail, creeping and crawling amongst the eggs: The Nett-work of the Purse or Bag seem'd all dia∣phanous; a very pleasant spectacle, and of curious workmanship.

I then made the like Observation of a bag full of House-Spider-eggs, which are round and white, just like white Poppy seed; and all things look'd whitish, and something Transparent therein also: but the youngling Spiders (that were either hatching, or new∣ly hatch'd) were far bigger then the former, and white as Alablaster, but shap'd like the Parent with five legs on each side (without hairs or bristles) and not by far so active as the other. I could not see any Heart beat in any of them all.

OBSERVAT. XII. Mites in Cheese.

THey appeared some bigger, some less; the big∣gest appeared equal to a Nutmeg; in shape they seem'd oval and obtus'd towards the tail: Their colour resembled that of Mother of pearl, or Common pearl, and reflected the light of the Sun in some one point, ac∣cording to their various positions, as pearl doth: so that it seems they are sheath'd and crustaceous Animals (as Scarabees and such like Insects are.) I could perfectly see the divisions of the head, neck, and body. To the small end of the oval Body was fastned the head, very little in proportion to the body, its mouth like that of a Mole, which it open'd and shutt; when open'd, it ap∣pear'd red within: The eyes also, like two little dark spots, are discernable: Near to the head were four legs fastned, two on each side; the legs were just like to those in a Louse, Jemmar'd and Transparent: She has two little pointers at the snout; nay, you may see them sometimes, if you happily take the advantage, like so many Ginny-Pigs, munching and chewing the cud: A∣bout the head and tail are stuck long hairs or bristles: Some we could see (as little, even in the Glass, as a Mustard-seed) yet perfectly shap'd and organiz'd: We also saw divers Atoms somewhat Transparent like eggs, both in form and figure. Nay, in these moving Atoms, I could not onely see the long bristles formerly specifi∣ed, but also the very hairs which grew out of their leggs, which leggs themselves are smaller than the smallest

hair our naked eyes can discover. What rare Conside∣rations might an Ingenious Speculator take up here, even from this singular Experiment? of the strange and most prodigious skilfulness of Nature in the fabrick of so Minute an Animal (a thousand whereof do not weigh one single grain, (for one seed of Tobacco is bigger than any of them) and yet how many thousand parts of Matter must go to make up this heterogeneous Con∣texture? For, besides the parts inservient to Nutrition, Sensation, and Motion, how small and thin must the li∣quours be that circulate through the pipes and vessels disseminated through those parts? nay, How incompre∣hensibly subtil must the Animal-spirits be, that run to and fro in Nerves included in such prodigiously little spindle-shank'd leggs?

OBSERVAT. XIII. Mites in Malt-dust and Oatmeal-dust.

THey seem somewhat different from those of Cheese, formerly described, yet of the same bulk, proportion, and colour; onely besett with more and longer white bristles, especially in the tail: they are far more active and quick in motion than those Inhabitants of Case-Bobby, some bigger, some lesser. Some we saw so exceeding little (yet perfectly organiz'd and shap'd like the rest) that no bristles nor hairs could be discern'd, either because they had none, or else (more probably) because the Glass failed in presenting them: for how small must that hair be, think you, which (though so ex∣cessively augmented in the Glass) yet seems as small as

any hair imaginable? and upon an Animal too, whose whole bulk to the bare eye is quite indiscernable.

If you besprinkle the Object-plate, upon which you view them, with a pretty quantity of Oatmeal, you shall see what working and tugging these poor little Animals make amongst it, running and scudding amongst it; un∣der it, over it, and into it, like Rabbits into their Bur∣rows; and sometimes casting it and heaving it up, (as Moles or Pioners do earth) and trolling to and fro with this mealy dust (which seems something diaphanous) sticking to them, as if it were a little world of Animals, busying themselves in running this way and that way, and over one anothers backs; which is a spectacle very pleasant to behold.

OBSERVAT. XIV. Mites, bred amongst Figs.

THey are in colour like other Mites, but bodyed and shaped like Scarabees, with two little short horns at the snout, and above them two very long ones: you may clearly see three leggs on either side the body: they are more sluggish and unweildy then Meal-mites are, and not bristled like them. Though I have seen some a∣mongst them also full of white bristles, and shaped like those in Oatmeal: the like common (for so I may call them) Mites I have also found in Hay, in the powder that falls off dryed roots, &c.

OBSERVAT. XV. The Mites, in Jujubes and Sebesten's.

FRom Jejub's and Sebesten's, being long kept, there falls a brownish kind of powder, which being laid upon the Object-plate, you shall discover in it small whitish Mites, very little ones, and all besett with bristles and hairs round over like a Hedghog, but not of so quick and lively a motion as the other Mites.

OBSERVAT. XVI. The red Mite, found on Spiders.

THere is a red Mite which you shall often find feeding upon Spiders; She is bodied just like a Tortoise, with a little head and six long small leggs, three on each side: About the leggs of the Field-Spider I have found many of these Coral-Mites or Tortoises, and this thing I have observed of them, That they cling exceeding close to the Animal whilst she is alive; but when dead, they all fall off and creep away from her, as lice do from dying men, or other vermin from an old rotten falling house.

OBSERVAT. XVII. The Mites or Lice found on Humble-Bees.

WIthin that yellow plush or furre of Humble-Bees you shall often find a little whitish very nimbly-running Animal, which hath the shape and form of a Mite in the Microscope: I remember the Industrious Kircher sayes, he hath found by his Glasses Lice upon Fleas: Either our Fleas in England are not like theirs in Italy for this property, or else I have never taken them in their Lowsie season: But I see no reason to the con∣trary, but both Fleas and Lice may have other Lice that feed upon them, as they do upon us. For since the mi∣nutest Animal that comes within the reach of our Micro∣scope, is found to have a mouth, stomack, and gutts, for Nutrition; and most, if not all, the Parenchymata for Cir∣culation and Separation of Excrements, there can be no doubt, but they have also a continual perspiration and exudation through the habit of their body: Of which excrement of the third and last Concoction, all these Vermin that pester the outside of Animals, are gene∣rated.

OBSERVAT. XVIII. Pond. Mites.

THere are bred in most restagnant Waters, Pools and Fishponds, in June and July, an innumerable compa∣ny

of little whitish Animals, which move up and down the water with jerks and stops in their motion; in which Animals we could discover two little horns and leggs, but could never get to see it quick in the Microscope: for as soon as ever it is taken out of the water, it is perfectly dead. Neither may it seem strange to find these Ani∣mals in restagnant fish-waters, since the very Ocean it self in some places (in summer time) is full of Living creatures. For our western Navigators tell us, That in summer, in the West-Indian Seas (about the Coasts of Virginia, Hispaniola, Jaimaca, Cuba, &c. the Sea swarms with Maggots and Grubs, which in a little time will so eat their very ships (as far as they draw water) that lye there at Anchor, that they will be as brittle and as full of holes as a honey-comb, or a grater; insomuch that we are forced to have them cased either with thin sheets of Lead, or with Flax, Pitch and Tarr, to secure them from that danger.

Nay, not onely the Water, but the very Air it self, may certainly at some times and seasons be full of Living creatures; which must be, most probably, when great pu∣trefactions reign therein, as in the Plague-time especi∣ally.

Now it were well worth the Observation, if in such aerial Putrefactions any kind of Living creatures could be discovered, which probably may be done by Glasses: for I am sure in my long Telescope I can some days see a tremulous Motion and Agitation of rowling fumes, and strong Atoms in the air, which I cannot see of other days; of which I shall perchance more largely discourse in my Telescopical Observations.

OBSERVAT. XIX. Whey-worms, call'd by some, Wheal-worms, or Hand-worms, or Barrows.

THese smallest of Creatures (being accounted by Muffet as a Species and kind of Mites, bred upon A∣nimals, as the former sort are in Cheese, Meal, Wax, rotten Wood, &c.) may very well be the subject of our next Observation.

In this small Animal you may see an oval reddish head, and therein a mouth or prominent snout, arm'd with an Appendent Proboscis or Trunk, consisting of many villous filaments in figure of a Cone, wherewith it perforates our skin, and sucks the blood or Aqueous nutriment from the pustules it is bred near. Nay, you may discover feet, laterally ranged on both sides, and many hairy tufts on the tayl, with asperities, rugosities, and protuberances in the skin. To behold all which va∣rieties of parts and organs in so minute a particle of Matter (as this living Atom is), I know not whether it be more admirable to behold, or incredible to believe with∣out an Ocular Demonstration.

Certainly Scaliger and Muffet would have far more admired this almost invisible sub-cutaneous Inhabitant, had they had the happiness to have seen it in our Micro∣scope. Hear their description, taken onely by the Opticks of Nature,* 1.5 Syronibus nulla expressa forma, praeterquam glo∣bi; vix oculis capitur; magnitudo est tam pusilla, ut non atomis Constare ipsum sed unum esse ex Atomis Epicurus dixerit: ità

sub cute habitat, ut, actis cuniculis, pruritum maximum loso ingenerat, praecipuè manibus: extractus acu, & super ungue positus, movet se, si Solis etiam calore adjuvetur. Mirum est quomode tam pusilla Bestiola, nullis quasi pedibus insidens, tam longes sub Cuticula sulcos peragat.

Our famous Mayhern (who had the advantage of an Ordinary Microscope) gives this short, but very neat de∣scription of this poor Animal. Imò ipsi Acari, (saith he) prae exiguitate indivisibiles, ex cuniculis prope aquae lacum,* 1.6 quos foderunt in cute, acu extracti & ungue impositi, caput ru∣brum, & pedes quibus gradiuntur, ad solem produnt. And therefore it is not to tell in what a small particle of Mat∣ter, life may actually consist, and exercise all the functi∣ons too, both of Vegetation, Sensation, and Motion: So that, Omnia sunt Animarum plena, may have more of truth in it, than he could either think or dream of that first pronounced it.

OBSERVAT. XX. The Gloworm or Glassworm.

HEr Eyes (which are two small black points or specks of jett) are pent-hous'd under the broad flat cap or plate which covers her head; which obscure situ∣ation, together with their exceeding exiguity, make them undiscernable to common Spectators. Yet in the Microscope they appear very fair, like black polish'd jett or marble, semi-globular, and all foraminulous, or full of small but very curious perforations (as in Common Flyes.) Her two horns are all joynted and degree'd like the stops in the germination of some Plants, as

Hors-tail and Canes: Under which she hath two other small horns or pointers, of the same stuff and fashion. Take hold of her horns, and you may draw out her eyes and cut them out, and so lay them on your object-plate and see them distinctly. This is that Night-Ani∣mal with its Lanthorn in its tail; that creeping-Star, which seems to outshine those of the Firmament, and to outvye them too in this property especially; that whereas the Coelestial Lights are quite obscured by the interposition of a small cloud, this Terrestrial-Star is more enliven'd and enkindled thereby, whose pleasant fulgour no darkness is able to eclipse.

OBSERVAT. XXI. Common Grasshoppers.

IN those Common Grasshoppers, both great and little, which are so frequent at hay-time with us, there are some things remarkable. First, Their Eyes, which like other Insects are foraminulous; nay, we have taken the Cornea or outward Film of the Eye quite off, and clens∣ed it so from all the pulpous matter which lay within it, that it was clear and diaphanous like a thin film of Sliffe or Muscovy-glass, and then looking again on it in the Microscope, I could plainly see it foraminulous as be∣fore.

You shall in all Grasshoppers see a green Film or Plate (like a Corslet) which goes over the neck and shoulders, which if you lift up with a pin, you may see their heart play, and beat very orderly for a long time together.

The like curious Lattice-work I have also observ'd in the crustaceous Cornea of the Creckets Eye, which I have carefully separated from all the matter which stuff'd it within, which certainly is their Brain; as hereafter shall be made more probable.

OBSERVAT. XXII. The Ant, Emmet or Pismire.

THis little Animal is that great Pattern of Industry and Frugality: To this Schoolmaster did Solomon send his Sluggard, who in those virtues not onely excels all Insects, but most men. Other excellent Observables there are in so small a fabrick: As the Herculean strength of its body, that it is able to carry its triple weight and bulk: The Agility of its limbs, that it runs so swiftly: The equality of its Motion, that it trips so nimbly away without any saliency or leaping, without any fits or starts in its Progression. Her head is large and globular, with a prominent Snout: her eye is of a very fair black co∣lour, round, globular, and prominent, of the bigness of a Pea, foraminulous and latticed like that of other In∣sects: her mouth (in which you may see something to move) is arm'd with a pair of pincers, which move late∣rally, and are indented on the inside like a Saw, by which she bites, and better holds her prey; and you may often see them carry their white oblong eggs in them for bet∣ter security.

OBSERVAT. XXIII. Of the little greenish Grasshopper or Lo∣cust, bred upon the backside of green leaves, especially the leaves of Goos∣berries, Sweet-briar, and golden Muos∣ear, in April and beginning of May.

THis pretty Animal is a pleasant Object to look upon in our Glass, being of a light Green, and in the full Sunshine shews exactly like green Cloth of Sil∣ver; hath two horns and four leggs, two on each side: Her eyes are two such very little black Atoms, that, un∣less to a very critical and smart eye, they are indiscerna∣ble; yet if you advantageously place her, and view her with a full light (transmitted through a Burning-glass (which artifice I sometimes use) you shall fairly see them to be as bigg as two small black round Beads, and drill'd through also with innumerable perforations (as the eye in a Fly) which will try the exquisiteness both of your Glass and Eye to behold.

OBSERVAT. XXIV. The yellow Locust.

THere is a pretty, but very little, white oblong In∣sect, which sticks to the ribs and backside of Rose∣tree-leaves

in August, which in the Microscope looks of a pure white colour, and diaphanous like Sugar-Candy, with an Annular body like a Wasp, with some e••ght hoops or rims, and conical or rush-grown towards the tayl, with six long legs, every leg composed of three joynts, all besett with short hairs, especially in the An∣nulary divisions and Interstices of her body: Her eyes were very globular, protuberant, and large (as they are in all young Animals) white, like two crystal Beads, and most neatly lattic'd, which I could most clearly dis∣cern.

Below the eyes (as she lay upon her belly) was two crook'd horns, which bended backwards towards her tayl, and was fasten'd in two sockets at the roots; and, as I thought, I sometimes see her eyes more protube∣rant than others, as if she could thrust them out, and draw them in at pleasure, as we have formerly observ'd in the Wood-Louse Observ. She has two pair of Bri∣stles or hairs (like Mustacho's) at the snout, one bending one way; and another, another. I could discover no Mouth, though I turn'd her over and over. This puny Insect I have observ'd to turn into a small yellow Lo∣cust, with two white wings longer than the body, and to skip up and down the Rose-tree-leaves in August; and then (when she was metamorphos'd into a Locust) I could discern no Mouth in the Microscope, but onely two pointers like a pair of closed Compasses in her snout, which cannot be seen on her till she be winged, and then laid on the object-plate with her belly upwards.

OBSERVAT. XXV. Of Cuckow-Spitt, and the little Insect bred therein, in May.

THat spumeous froth or dew (which here in the North we call Cuckow Spittle, and, in the South, Wood∣sear; and which is most frequently found in Lavander-Beds, Hors mint, &c.) looks like a heap of glass-bubbles, or a knob'd drinking-glass; in which you shall always find a little Grub, or Animal, which in the Microscope seems a pretty golden-coloured Insect, with three leggs on each side; and two horns, and two round fair goggle-eyes of a duskish red colour, like polish'd Rubies; which you may also see latticed and perforated in a clear light. Her tayl is all jemmar'd with Annulary divisions, which at last end in a stump, which she often draws up, or thrusts out, at her pleasure.

Muffet cals this Insect, Locustellam, or, a puny-Locust; and saith,* 1.7 That first it creepeth, then leapeth, and at last flyeth. She has two blackish claws, or pounces (at the ends of her feet,) which she can open and shut at her pleasure: We could discover no mouth at all, but a long reddish Probe, between the fore-legs, through which, perchance, she suck'd her froathy nourishment.

Now, what this spumeous matter is, and into what A∣nimal this Insect is at last shaped or transpeciated, are Doubts that as yet have found no clear and experimen∣tal Decision.

That the Spattle is a froathy kind of dew that falls

from the Air, I doubt not, whatsoever my Lord Bacon say to the contrary. For, first; It is found upon most, if not all, Plants whatsoever, but most copiously a∣mongst our Whinns, or prickly Broom; and generally about the joynts and ramulous divisions, because there it is best secured from the heat of the Sun, which licks it off the open leaves, or else probably it is imbibed by the full grown and porous leaves of Plants, as the Mill∣dew, and other honey-Dews are.

Secondly, That it is the sole exudation and secrement of Plants, I cannot believe: First, because it is never found upon their Second growth, nor in Eddish: Se∣condly, How should an excrement of so many several Plants, still breed one and the same Animal, when as we see that all Vegetables whatsoever produce their several Insects (as Muffet in his 19. and 20. Chapters has parti∣cularly enumerated.) I shall not deny but the Effluvium's that continually perspire out of all Plants whatsoever, may advantage and promote the nutrition of the little Insect that breeds therein.

For that all Vegetables have a constant perspiration, the continual dispersion of their odour makes out; be∣sides an experimental eviction I shall give you by this singular Experiment: 23. of Feb. (—61.) we weighed an Onyon exactly to two ounces, two scruples and a half, and hanging it up till the 6. of May next following (at which time it had sprouted out a long shoot) we then, upon a re-ponderation of it, had lost near two drams of its former weight, which was exhaled by insensible Transpiration.

OBSERVAT. XXVI. The Cow-Lady, or Spotted Scarabee.

IT is a very lively and nimble Animal: Cut off the head, and erect it perpendicular upon the neck (which must be fasten'd to a bit of soft Wax) and then you shall see those two little small black eyes it hath, sett upon a little short neck (which is moveable within the former) either eye sett between three white plates, like polish'd Ivory (two little ones on the one side, and one great one on the other) her eyes are also foraminulous, and curiously lattic'd like those in a Fly formerly describ'd. If you unsheath her body, and take off her spotted short crustaceous wings, you shall find under them another pair of filmy Tiffany long wings, like those of Flyes, which lye folded up, and cased within the former, of both which pair she makes use in flying; which being re∣moved, nothing remains to secure the bulk of the body but a thin tender black skin, under which you might most lively see the pulsation of her Heart for twelve or fourteen hours, after the head and neck was separated.

OBSERVAT. XXVII. The Water-Insect, or Water-Spider.

THere is a black crustaceous Insect with an Annu∣lar body, and six hairy legs, which moves nimbly upon the water; the two foremost legs are shorter than

the rest by one half, and serve instead of hands to reach any thing to the mouth: She hath two hairy geniculated horns, knotted or joynted at several divisions like Knot-grass, or Hors-tayl: Her body is like Frost-work in sil∣ver: Her eyes black, globular, and foraminulous.

OBSERVAT. XXVIII. The Wasp-like Locust.

THere is a little small long black Insect, which you shall find creeping and leaping amongst Pinks, Gil∣lyflours, Rose-leaves, &c. which in the Microscope hath two fair long wings, and is bodied just like a Wasp (from whence I have given her the name of the Wasp-Locust) with six or seven Annulary divisions, of jett-black and yellow wings: She hath two horns, made of five or six white and black internodium's, very pretty to behold; either of them arising from a black knobb'd root, with three black legs on either side, and two little black eyes, and, as I ghessed, latticed; though what Art can present distinct parts in that eye which is sett in an Animal so small, that the whole bulk of it is no bigger then a little bit of black thread, or hair. They are kill'd with the least touch imaginable. I took them with a Pint point dipp'd in spattle, and so glew'd them to the object-plate, as I do stronger Insects with a touch of Turpentine.

OBSERVAT. XXIX. The Sycomore-Locust.

THere is a pretty little yellow Insect, which is bred, and feeds on the Sycomore-leaves, which at first hath no wings, but six leggs and two horns, and runs nimbly up and down: In the Glass, I could not onely see its eyes, which are red, globular, goggled and pro∣minent; but also I could see them very perfectly latti∣ced. She had two horns, which at the ends were slit and bi-furcated: I could, near her shoulders, see the stumps of her growing wings: This at last is transpeciated in∣to a Fly with two long wings; or rather a Locust: it consists of Annulary Circles, and has hairs towards the tayl.

OBSERVAT. XXX. Of the little white Eels or Snigs, in Vineger or Aleger.

THey appear like small Silver-Eels, or little Snigs, and some of them as long as my little finger, constantly wrigling and swimming to and fro with a quick, smart, and restless motion. In which smallest of Animals these things are most remarkable:

First, They are not to be found in all sorts of Vineger nor Aleger, but onely in such, probably, as has arrived

to some peculiar temper or putrefaction, of which I can give you no Characteristical Signs; for, I have found them in all sorts of Vineger, both in the keenest and smartest, as well as in the weakest and most watrish Vineger; and in all these sorts, you shall sometimes find none at all; and I have both found them, and also vainly sought them, in the former Liquors, at al seasons and times of the year also.

Secondly, The manner and best way of observing them is, upon a plain piece of white glass, whereon two or three drops of the said Liquors are laid; and so lay∣ing that glass on the object-plate, and fitting your Mi∣croscope to it, you may distinctly see them to play and swim in those little Ponds of Vineger (for so big every drop almost seems) to the very brink and banks of their fluid element.

Thirdly, Nay you may see them (especially in old Aleger) with the bare eye, if you put a little of it into a clear Venice-glass, especially into those pure thin white bubbles, which they call Essence-glasses; you may then see an infinite company of them swimming at the edges of the Liquor, nay and in the body of it too, like so ma∣ny shreds of the purest Dutch thread, as if the whole Li∣quor was nothing else but a great shoal or mass of quick Eels or Hair-worms.

I have another advantageous way of discoverance of them to the bare eye also, which is by putting a little of those Liquors into a little cylinder of white glass, of a small bore and length, either sealed or closed up with cork and wax at the one end: therein, if you invert this glass cylinder, and often turn it topsy turvy, no Li∣quor will fall out, onely a little bubble of aire will al∣ways pass and repass through the inverted Liquor, and

one pretty thing I have herein observed, that when this bubble has stood in the superiour end of the glass (and sometimes it would do so for a pretty while together before it broke) I have seen some of those small Snigs or Animals on the top of it, crawling over the smooth convexity of the bubble (like so many Eels over a Look∣ing-glass) without breaking thorow the tender cuticle and film of so brittle and thin a substance.

Fourthly, That as the Liquor (dropt upon your object-plate) spends and dries up, so you shall see those little Quicks to draw nearer and nearer together, and grow feebler in their motion; and when all the Vineger or Aleger is dried away, then they lie all dead, twisted and complicated all together, like a knot of Eels, and after a little time dry quite away to nothing.

Fifthly, Their heads and tails are smaller then the rest of their bodies; which is best observed by the Mi∣croscope, when the Liquor wherin they swim is almost spent and dried up, so that their motion thereby is rendred more feeble and weak, or when they lie ab∣solutely dead.

Sixthly, Another remarkable thing, is, their exceeding exiguity; for certainly of all Animals they are the least that can be seen by the bare eye, which is helped and advantaged also by the refraction of the water where∣in they swim.

Seventhly, If you take a spoonful of the foresaid Vineger and heat it over a few coals, it presently de∣stroys all the Quick's in it, so that you may see them all stretched out at their full length, like a pencil chopt small, or little bits of hairs swimming up and down the Liquor, which in a short time will precipitate and all sink down to the bottom of the glass.

Nay these poor Vermin are not onely slain by actual heat, but by a potential one also: for, putting but a few drops of the Oyle of Vitriol into an Essence-glass full of that Vineger, it also shortly destroyed them in the same manner as the fire had done before.

Eighthly, Now though heat hath that killing proper∣ty, yet it seems that cold hath not: for I have taken a jar-glass full of the said Vineger, and by applying Snow and Salt to it, I have artificially frozen all the said Li∣quor into a mass of Ice, (wherein all these Animals it seemed lay incrystalled) though I could discover none of them in it (though I have taken the Icy-mass out on purpose to look at it) so that now I gave them for gone for ever: yet when I came again (about two or three hours after) to uncongeal the Liquor, by keeping the glass in my warm hand, when the Vineger was again returned to its former liquidity, all my little Animals made their re-appearance, and danced and frisked a∣bout as lively as ever. Nay I have exposed a jar-glass full of this Vineger all night to a keen Frost, and in the morning have thaw'd the Ice again, and these little Ver∣min have appeared again and endured again that strong and long Conglaciation without any manifest injury done to them; which is both a pretty and a strange Experiment.

Ninthly, I have filled an essence-glass half with the said Vineger, and half with Oyle (which floated on the Vineger) in a distinct Region by it self, and I have ob∣served that in frosty weather when the Vineger has been congealed, that all the little Eels have run up into the super-incumbent oyle to preserve themselves there, and would not return till some warmth was apply∣ed to the Vineger again, and then they would al∣ways

presently return down into their native Liquor again.

Tenthly, Their motion is very remarkable, which is restless and constant, with perpetual undulations and wavings, like Eels or Snakes; so that it seems, that Animals that come nearest the classis of Plants, have the most restless motions.

Eleventhly, the innumerable number and compli∣cated motion of these minute Animals in Vineger, may very neatly illustrate the Doctrine of the incomparable Des-Cartes, touching Fluidity: (viz.) That the parti∣cles of all fluid bodies are in a continual and restless motion, and therein consists the true nature of fluidity: for by this ocular example, we see there may be an in∣testine restless motion in a Liquor, notwithstanding that the unassisted eye can discover no such matter, which likewise is evinced by Observ. 13. Of the Mites in Meal.

OBSERVAT. XXXI. Of the great Black Snail.

IN this slimy Animal (the slow-paced Engine of Na∣ture) are very many rare and excellent Observables. The first is his Eyes, which are four in number, (like black atramentous Spots) fixed to the end of their horns; or rather to the ends of those black filaments or optick nerves, which are sheathed in her horns which she can retract or protrude, through the hollow trunck of her horns, as she pleaseth.

If with your finger you take hold of the tip of her

horn when fully extended, and draw out this nervous filament, or then nimbly clip off the extremities of her horns, you shall in the Microscope see those 2. black spots to be semi-spherical eyes, like two large blew Beads: and we could afterwards also, when she re-extended the stump, clearly perceive it with the bare eye to be tubu∣lous and hollow. And therefore however, though the learned Doctor Brown (my ever honoured friend) hath ranked this conceit of the Eyes of a Snail (and es∣pecially their quadruplicity) amongst the Vulgar errours of the multitude; yet through a good Microscope, he may easily see his own errour, and Nature's most admi∣rable variety in the plurality, paucity, and anomalous Situation of eyes, and the various fabrick and motion of that excellent organ; as our Observations will more particularly inform him.

If by a dextrous Dissection you would see the inter∣nal Fabrick of this Animal, there are many excellent things that will recompence your curiosity.

For first, you may find her Heart just over against that round hole near her neck (which Doctor Harvey in∣geniously conjectures to be the place of their respirati∣on; which hole you may observe to open and shut as she moves or stands still, and out of which I have ob∣served some salivous Matter to be evacuated.

We have observ'd her Heart to beat fairly for a quar∣ter of an hour after her dissection; afterwards we took out her guts which were of a pure green colour, by reason of the thinness of their film, and transparency of the green juice of hearbs with which they were re∣pleated.

They were all diaper'd or branched over with pure white Capillary little veins, which (by help of the Mi∣croscope)

we could discern to be hollow, with a blackish kind of pith running through the midst of the smallest of them, which doubtless was their nutrimental juice coagulated there, like the bloud starkn'd in the veins of dead Animals.

They are mouthed like a Hare or Rabbit, with four or six needle-teeth, like those in Leeches.

Nay this poor Animal (how contemptible soever it may seem) hath a whole Sett of the same parts and or∣gans with other Animals, as Heart, Liver, Spleen, Sto∣mach, Guts, Mouth and Teeth, Veins and Arteries: Yea and a pair more of the noblest of the Senses (the Eyes.)

Nay this Animal doth autoptically evince us, that, as sanguineous and more perfect Animals, have a circula∣tion of their bloud within them; so this more ignoble creature hath also a circulation of its nutritive humour, which is to it as Bloud is to other Animals.

Nay further (which is the best Remarkable of all) this juice hath not onely a circular motion; but also the very Animal Spirits (by which she moves) seem to have the like Circulation. For, if you observe her with the bare eye to creep up the sides of a glass, you shall see a little stream of clouds, channel up her belly from her tail to her head, which never return again the same way, but probably go backwards again from the head down the back to the tail; and thus, so long as she is in local motion they retain their circulation, which is a plea∣sant spectacle. And more pleasant, if you let her creep upon the lower side of your glass-object-plate, and so view that wavy Current of Spirits through the Micros∣cope; which handsome experiment does not onely prove the Spirit's circular motion, but also ocularly demon∣strates

that the Animal Spirits are the Soul's immedi∣ate instrument in all Loco-motion.

Now if you reply that it is onely the parts of her bo∣dy, that moving by a kind of undulation protrude one another forwards, as Palmer-worms (which we call Wool-boys,) and some sort of Caterpillars do: To this I answer, that do but intensly observe any one of the former spots or clouds, and you shall see it go quite a∣long from the tail to the head, keeping alwayes an e∣qual distance from the precedent and subsequent spot: so that it is far more ingenious to believe it to be a gale of Animal Spirits, that, moving from her head along her back to her tail, and thence along her belly to her head again, is the cause of her progressive motion.

OBSERVAT. XXII. Of Lampreys.

THe Lamprey hath seven holes or cavities, on ei∣side three or four, and no gills at all, as other fishes have; whence the common people, through igno∣rance of these cavities, and their proper use in nature, have affirmed them to be Eyes; an errour so gross and palpable, that it needs not the Microscope to refute it: For these holes or sluces do indeed supply the defect of gills, and are assisted by the conduit in the head, for (like Cetaceous Animals) the Lamprey hath a fistula, spout or pipe, at the back part of the head, whereat they spirt out water, so that both these cavities and the head-pipe together, do very neatly supply the defect of

gills, and execute their office of receiving and ejecting water again.

These sluces and the fistula, shoot themselves slope∣wise, and not straight forwards, into the cavity of her neck.

The Heart in this Animal is very strangely secured, & lies immured or capsulated in a Cartilage, or grisly sub∣stance, which includes the Heart and its Auricle, as the Scull or Pericranium does the Brains in other Animals; it is of a horny and transparent substance, of an obtuse conical figure, cemented and glewed as it were on all sides to the Pleura, or innermost skin of the Thorax; the Cone or obtuse Tip of this Capsula, butts or shoots it self into the basis of the Liver, which to give way thereunto has an oval cavity or hollowness exactly fit to receive it.

In this Cartilaginous Pericardium, or purse of the heart, is likewise the Auricle co-included, lying not up∣on the basis of the heart as in other Animals, but late∣rally adjacent thereunto, insomuch that it being far more flaggy then the heart, they seem to represent the right and left ventricle of the heart. Yet is the Heart, not onely more solid, but seated in the right side, and the Auricle in the left.

If the Lamprey be laid upon her back, and you gent∣ly lift up with a probe, the Heart and Auricle; you shall see a fine thin Membrane arise, which separates the Heart from the Auricle, as the falx cerebri does sepa∣rate the left side of the brain from the right.

From this Auricle proceeds a little short Channel, which perforates this separating Membrane, and brings the bloud from the auricle into the heart, we thrust a probe just under this Channel betwixt the Heart and the

Auricle, to see the bloud passe from the Auricle into the Heart; for at every pulse of the Auricle you might see the bloud passe through this Channel into the heart; for alwayes, as the bloud passed through it was blew, and, when empty, pale, and transparent, that I could easily see the Probe thorow it.

Whilest I had the Probe in this position, with another Instrument and it together, I quite stopped the Chan∣nel on purpose to hinder the bloud from coming into the heart, which thereupon grew very pale, and in a short time ceased its motion; the Auricle in the interim swelled and was very red. I no sooner opened the Chan∣nel to let the bloud have a free passage as formerly, but the heart began afresh to beat again.

We pricked the heart while it was in its motion with a large pin into the cavity thereof, and at every systole or contraction, we plainly saw a drop of bloud squeez'd and ejected out of that hole.

In this Animal, you may easily distinguish between the motion of the heart and auricle, for there intercedes the time of a pulse twixt the motion of the auricle and the heart; and the heart in every diastole is of a fair pur∣ple and ruddy colour, and in every systole pale and wan, as is observable in Frogs and other Fishes also; where you may see the heart to shift colours by turns, as it receives or ejects the bloud in the performance of the circulation.

Now the reason of this Cartilaginous Capsula of the heart in this Creature, might be its defect of bones and those costal ribs, which serve others to secure the heart from all external violence; for, she wanting these, had not Nature wisely secured and capsulated the heart in this gristle, it had been subject to all external inju∣ries,

which might have hindred the motion, and endan∣gered the life of the Animal.

This horny Capsula, also served instead of a Dia∣phragm to part the lower Venter from the Thorax.

The Lamprey likewise hath no bones: for the spine or back-bone, it hath a Cartilaginous flexible Tube or Channel, without any Vertebrae or Spondyls in it, hollo∣wed or tubulous from one end to the other; in which lay the Spinal Marrow, which was of a serous, thin, and milky substance.

In some Lampreys, I have found the Liver (as Do∣ctor Brown writes) of a pure grass-green colour, which remain'd and kept that tincture whilst the Animal lived; but when I had cut it out of the Body, and layd it by, it presently turned into a faint Olive-colour. Besides I have in the beginning of April cut up many Lampreys, whose Livers were of no such colour at all, but a dull yellow, like that of Eels and other Fishes.

So that in this Animal, and Snakes also, you may di∣stinctly see the Bloud's Circulation.

OBSERVAT. XXXIII. Corns of Sand, Sugar, and Salt.

IT is worth an Hour-glass of Time to behold the Crystal Sands that measure it; for they all seem like Fragments of Crystal, or Alum, perfectly Tralucent, of irregular polyhedrical figures, not any one globular; every Corn about the bigness of a Nuttmeg, or a Wal∣nutt: which from their unequal superficies refracting

and reflecting the Suns rays, seem here and there of Rainbow colours.

Being layd of a row or train, they seemed like a Caw∣sy of Crystal Stones, or pure Alum Lumps: So that now we need not so much wonder with the Vulgar Philosophers, how so clear and glorious a body as glass, should be made of so durty, opace, and contem∣ptible Materials, as Ashes and Sand; since now we are taught by this Observation that Sand, and Salt which is in the Ashes, the two prime Materials thereof, are of themselves so clear and transparent, before they unite into that diaphanous Composition.

OBSERVAT. XXXIV. A small Atom of Quick-silver.

AN Atom of Quick-silver (no bigger then the smallest pins-head) seemed like a globular Look∣ing-glass) where (as in a Mirrour) you might see all the circumambient Bodies; the very Stancheons and Panes in the Glass-windows, did most clearly and distinctly appear in it: and whereas, in most other Mettals, you may perceive holes, pores, and cavities; yet in ☿ none at all are discoverable; the smallest Atom whereof, and such an one, as was to the bare Eye, tantùm non invisibile, was presented as big as a Rounseval-Pea, and proje∣cting a shade; Nay, two other Atoms of ☿, which were casually layd on the same plate, and were undis∣cernable to the bare eye, were fairly presented by our Microscope.

OBSERVAT. XXXV. Mercurial Powders.

IN those Chymical preparations of Mercury, which they call Turbith-Mineral, Mercurius Vitae, dulcis, sublimate, precipitate, and Mercury Cosmetical, you may most plainly and distinctly see the globular Atoms of current and quick ☿; besprinkled all amongst those Powders, like so many little Stars in the Fir∣mament: which shews that those Chymical Prepara∣tions, are not near so purely exalted and prepared, as they are presumed to be; nor the Mercury any way trans∣muted, but meerly by an Atomical Division rendred insensible.

That subtle and pure yellow Powder of Mercury, cal∣led Mercurius vitae, looked like the Yolk of an Egge boyled hard and crumbled to a gross Powder: in it and in that Meal-like Powder of Mercurius Cosmeticus, were globules of ☿ plainly discernable.

OBSERVAT. XXXVI. Of the seven Terrestrial Planets, as the Chymists call them.

Viz.

• ☉ Gold,
• ☽ Silver,
• ♂ Steele,
• ♀ Copper,
• ☿ Quick-silver,
• ♃ Tin,
• ♄ Lead.

LOok at a polish'd piece of any of these Metals and you shall see them all full of fissures, cavities, and asperities, and irregularities; but least of all in Lead, which is the closest and most compact solid Body pro∣bably in the world.

OBSERVAT. XXXVII. Ribbans of all sorts of Colours, Silk, Sat∣ten, Silver and mixed.

IN the Silk Ribbans, you might plainly

[illustration]

see the Contexture, how the Warp and the Weft cross one another at right Angles; and how neatly they are platted, just as in this Picture: In Satten Ribbans, one Warp crossed over three or four Wefts, most lively and pleasant in Cloth of Silver, the Weft (being flat wired Sil∣ver) that crosses the Warp, it makes a fine Chequered Representation.

OBSERVAT. XXXVIII. The small Dust, Powder, or Seeds of the lesser Moon-wort.

THat small pure yellow Meal or Dust, which you may shake off from ripe Moon-wort, appears like a heap of little white round Bugles, or Seed Pearl, and something transparent when the Sun shined, like to some other small Seeds, with a fiber about every one of them like the semi-circular ribbe in a Pompion: So that this Experiment hath decided the old quarrel in

Herbalism, Which is the least of Seeds; for though Mustard-seed do carry the Vogue amongst the People, yet its exiguity is to be respectively understood, of such Seeds as extend to large productions; for we see that the Seeds of sweet Marjerom and wild Poppy, are far lesse; and the Seeds of Tobacco so small that a thousand of them make not above one single Grain in weight: yet must all give place to the super-exiguity of this fa∣rinaceous Seed of Wort, which is indeed 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

The exiguity and smalness whereof may very well be one of the Magnolia of Nature, somewhat illustrating the great Work of the Creation, and vast Production from Nothing.

OBSERVAT. XXXIX. The Seeds of Wall-Rue, or white Mayden∣hair.

TAke one of the Leafs of Wall-Rue, (which hath the blackish scurff sticking to the back side of it) and lay it upon the object-plate, and you shall see all the Seeds look just like a sett of black Buttons upon green Taffata; and every Button or Seed compassed with a circle or ribbe, somewhat resembling a Catter∣pillar: It hath been the Opinion of old Herbarists, that the Capillary Plants had no Seeds, which errour did rise mee••ly from a popular inadvertency; for though these Plants carry not their Seeds in, visible Husks, Pods,

Spikes, Fruits, &c. yet are they constantly to be found on the back side of their Leafs.

OBSERVAT. XL. Of the Seeds of Strawberries.

TIs strange to see, what several wayes Nature pro∣duceth and secureth the several Seeds of Plants; some are preserved in large Pulps, as the Seeds of all pomiferous Plants. Others, besides the circum-involving Pulpe, are immured in Shells, as all Stone-Fruit, &c. Others, in the lesser Pulp of their Berries, as Mulberries, Rasberries, &c. But in Strawberries, Nature hath put out the Seeds, as if they were sprou∣tings from the Pulp: for those small specks or pro∣tuberances on the outside of the Strawberry, are the Seeds thereof, and in the Microscope look not unlike the Strawberry; some reddish, yellowish, and green colours, as the Strawberries themselves are.

OBSERVAT. XLI. Corn Poppy Seeds.

[illustration]

THey are none of them globular, nor of a smooth surface, but all like Kidneys in form, and of the seeming bigness of Walnuts, and like an Hony-Comb on the surface, with regular Sides and Angles, making all of them pentagonal and hexagonal areola's; and gliste∣ring in the Sun-shine like Tissue, or the Foil on the back∣side of a Looking-glass, as is presented in these two Figures. Some other Seeds also looked not unlike them, as Henbane, Flower of Bristow, &c.

OBSERVAT. XLII. The small Dust or Powder on the Pendents of Lillies.

IN all our common Garden-Lillies (especially the Red and White) out of the middle of the Flower groweth a long style or poyntel, beset round about with small chives, which are tipped with pendents, a single pendent on the head of every Chivall pounced over with a small Dust or Powder, which will cleave to and smut your fingers: this Powder (taken from the yellow

Lilly) looks very pleasantly in the Microscope, of a gold∣en colour, and somewhat diaphanous: where you may see every Atom very distinctly to be of an Oval Figure, exactly like some sort of Seeds: the Powder of the white Lilly pendents, looks of a pure pale yellow, and like so many pieces of polished Amber.

OBSERVAT. XLIII. The Leafs of several Trees and Plants.

THe backside of a Rose-tree-Leaf, but especially of a sweet Brier Leaf, looks diaper'd most excel∣lently with silver.

The backside of the Leaf of English Mercury, called bonus Henricus, looks, as if rough-cast with silver, and all the ribs are stuck full of round white transparent Balls, like innumerable Grapes, or Oake Apples, or a Brace∣let of Crystal; and we could discover little foot-stalks in many of them, by which they were fastned to the ribs and fibers of the Leaf, which is a very pleasant Spectacle.

A Leaf of Rue looks all full of holes like an Hony-Comb.

A Sage Leaf looks like a white Rugge, or Shagge, full of Knots, tassel'd all with white silver Thrums, and one or two fine round Crystal beads or pendents, as big as Peas, fastned to every Knot.

OBSERVAT. XLIV. Pink-pendents.

THe chives which grow out of red Pinks, and which are tipped with red Pendents, besmeared over with a small Mealy Powder, look very pleasantly in the Glass; for every Pendent looks like a red Taffa∣ta Cushionet, all beset and sprinkled over with round white Beads, or Grumwel-seed.

OBSERVAT. XLV. Of Nettles.

LOok at the backside of a Nettle-Leaf, and you shall see it all full of Needles, or rather long sharp transparent Pikes, and every Needle hath a Crystal pummel, so that it looks like a Sword-Cutler's Shop, full of glittering drawn Swords, Tucks, and Daggers; so that here you may autoptically see the Causes, as well as you have formerly felt the Effects, of their Netling. Something like them, appear the Prickles on Borrage-Leafs and Stalks.

OBSERVAT. XLVI. Gilla Theophrasti.

IT looks pleasantly, like a diaphanous heap of Icycles or stiriated Niter; but not altogether so regularly figured: but most of them are oblong particles, angu∣lar, and pointed, which may perchance exstimulate the Stomach, (by its netling pungency) like a heap of needles, and so promote its vomitory operation.

OBSERVAT. XLVII. A Nitt.

A Nitt is an Egge glewed by some viscous matter to the sides of the hair it sticks to; it is Oval in shape, white in colour, and full of transparent Liquor or Gel∣ly, and seems to be cased in a brittle Shell by the crack∣ling it makes 'twixt your nails. In the same manner appears a Nitt in a Horse's hair: Muffet will needs have it a quick, or rudely-shaped Animal. Thus discursive Argumentation and Rational probabilities mislead men in the Wilderness of Enquiry; but he that travels by the Clew, which his own sense and ocular observation has spun out, is likeliest to trace the securest path, and go furthest into the Maze and Labyrinth of Truth.

OBSERVAT. XLVIII. A Line drawn upon Paper.

AS these dioptrical Glasses, do heighten and illu∣strate the Works of Nature, so do they on the other side, disparage and depretiate those of Art: For as they shew the incomparable exactness of the former, so do they discover the flaws and deficiencies of the latter; for a right line either printed or drawn never so neatly upon paper appears all ragged, indented, and discontinued by the rugosities and seeming protube∣rances of the paper, in which likewise you may see whole clouds, as it were, of raggs, the primitive materi∣als thereof.

I had a Rarity bestowed on me by Master Taylor (once a famous Scrivener in these Parts) which is, The Lords Prayer and Creed writ in words at length, and a Brevi∣ate also of the ten Commandments, and all couched (but distinctly writ) in the compass of a single penny. In the Microscope you might read it all, as if it were writ in Text hand, but all the Letters appeared (as we have observed of the line) crooked and unhandsome; so In∣artificial is Art when she is pinched and streitned in her Workmanship.

OBSERVAT. XLIX. The Sparks of Flint and Steel.

TAke a good Steel and Flint, and strike fire over a white sheet of Paper, and observe diligently where some eminent Spark falls; for there you shall find a little dark spot or moat, no bigger then a pins point, which through our Microscope did appear to be a per∣fectly round ball polished like Steel or Glass, insomuch that I could see the Image of the Window, and the mo∣tion of my hand reflected from it. What this polished Atom is, Master Hook has ingeniously conjectured, viz. That it is a parcel of the Flint or Steel, or both; which by so violent a percussion is made so glowing hot, that 'tis melted into glass: for first, I observed that it was perfectly globular, and exactly like those glassy Cindars, which are melted at the Iron-forges. Se∣condly, That it was none of the Atoms of the Steel or Stone, grated off by Collision; for those you might easily see were distinguishable from it; now that so lit∣tle a stroak, and so small a fire can vitrify, will be better understood by him that knows, how small a heat at a Lamp-Furnace will melt Glass: I have small Capillary Glass-Tubes, which will melt immediately like Wax, if you hold them but near the flame of a common Can∣dle, without any blast at all; by which Artifice I make small Syphons, for the Tryal of many notable Experi∣ments, of which I have treated at large in our Mercurial Experiments.

This further I shall adde of Flint, that in it you shall

see small Sparks of Diamonds angular, and growing out of the Stone as out of a Mineral bed.

OBSERVAT. L. Of Hair.

WE slit a black Horse's Hair with a Rasor, and perceived it to be hollow, with a white streak like pith in the middle of it; it seemed as big as a Rush, and like a Rush slit length-wayes into two. They are none of them Cylindrical, but angular and corner'd, which you may even perceive by your fingers, by twir∣ling a Horse-hair in them: Now though Borrelius, and some of our Anatomists, as Bartholin, Riolan, &c. say the like of the Hairs of a mans head, that they also are hollow within, and angular and corner'd without: yet I could never perceive neither the one nor the other in any of the Microscopes I have seen, though I have tried it in four excellent ones, the worst whereof I am confi∣dent was better then that of Borrels: In all which, I could perceive nothing of an Hair, but that it was like a thin horn something diaphanous (especially in the full Sun) which diaphanity might perchance hinder the appearance both of its cavity and angularity also: for I my self have little glass pipes of so little a Cylinder, and so small a bore, that their hollowness to the bare eye is utterly imperceptible.

And since the bristles and quils in other Animals are sensibly hollow, which are analogous to the hairs in a man; I doubt not, but every one of our hairs is hollow also, which though our Glasses (by reason of their trans∣parency)

cannot present, yet it is palpably evinced by an odde Experiment in Poland, where there is a disease (they call the Plica) which makes the very hairs of their heads drop bloud at the ends, and if cut any where, to drop bloud there also; which infallibly proves the tubulous cavity of them. Besides, we see the hairs do grain and fork themselves, (when grown too long) which is a sign also of their hollowness.

What, shall we judge them too small to be perforated by Nature? since we see she has perforated Vessels within the Body, as small as hairs, as the Venae Lacteae, and Lymphae-ducts; nay, since we see that Art can blow a glass hollow, and yet as small as hair; and your Wire-drawers know, that if they take a short piece of Wire, as thick as a quill, and drill it through, that then though they draw it out to the smalness of a hair, yet wil it still remain hollow quite through in despite of their Wurdle: which is as great a Miracle in that Engine, as that the like Wire once gilt, shall remain perfectly gilt all over, though it be drawn five hundred yards longer than it was at first; which is an experimental truth, and the dayly practice of our Wire-drawers in London. So that the conclusion of this Observation may be this, that every hair of our head is as a little quill or horn, hollow and transparent. Which seems to be further a∣vouched also by the burning of hair; for there you may perceive the same odour and smell, as of burnt horn; and the Chymists, as I remember, draw out of hair a volatile Spirit, exactly like that of Harts-horn: both which experiments do prove an homogeneity and simi∣larity of their substance.

OBSERVAT. LI. Of Aromatical, Electrical, and Magneti∣cal Effluxions.

SOme with a Magisterial Confidence do rant so high as to tell us, that there are Glasses, which will re∣present not onely the Aromatical and Electrical Efflux∣ions of Bodies, but even the subtile effluviums of the Load-stone it self, whose Exspirations (saith Doctor Highmore) some by the help of Glasses have seen in the form of a Mist to flow from the Load-stone. This Experiment indeed would be an incomparable Evicti∣on of the Corporeity of Magnetical Effluviums, and sen∣sibly decide the Controversie 'twixt the Peripatetick and Atomical Philosophers.

But I am sure he had better Eyes, or else better Glasses, or both, then ever I saw, that performed so subtle an Experiment: For the best Glasses that ever I saw, would not represent to me, the evaporations of Camphire (which spends it self by continually effluvia∣ting its own Component Particles;) nay, I could never see the grosser steams that continually perspire out of our own Bodies, which you see will foil and besmear a polished Glass at any time; and which are the fuligi∣nous Eructations of that internal fire, that constantly burns within us.

Indeed if our Diopticks could attain to that curiosi∣ty as to grind us such Glasses, as would present the Ef∣fluviums of the Magnet, we might hazard at last the discovery of Spiritualities themselves: however it would be of incomparable use to our Modern Corpus∣cularian Philosophers, who have banished Qualities out of the list of the Predicaments. And truly, as the Lear∣ned Doctor Brown hath it; The Doctrine of Effluxi∣ons, their penetrating Natures, their invisible paths, and unsuspected effects, are very considerable: for (be∣sides the Magnetical One of the Earth) several Effusions there may be from divers other Bodies, which invisibly act their parts at any time, and perhaps through any Medium: A part of Philosophy but yet in discovery; and will, I fear, prove the last Leaf to be turned over in the Book of Nature.

Some Considerations, Corollaries, and De∣ductions, Anatomical, Physical, and Op∣tical, drawn from the former Experi∣ments and Observations.

FIrst, Therefore, it is Ocularly manifest from the for∣mer Observations, that, as perfect Animals have an incessant motion of their Heart, and Circulation of their Bloud (first discovered by the illustrious Doctor Harvey;) so in these puny automata, and exsanguineous pieces of Nature, there is the same pulsing Organ, and Circulation of their Nutritive Humour also: as is de∣monstrated

by OBSERV. fourth, sixth, seventeenth, &c.

Nay, by OBSERV. sixth, it is plain that a Louse is a Sanguineous Animal, and hath both an Heart and Au∣ricles, the one manifestly preceding the pulse of the o∣ther; and hath a purple Liquor or Bloud, which circu∣lates in her (as the Noblest sort of Animals have) which though it be onely conspicuous in its greatest bulk, at the heart, yet certainly it is carried up and down in Cir∣culatory Vessels; which Veins and Arteries are so ex∣ceeding little, that both they and their Liquor are in∣sensible: For certainly, if we can at a Lamp-Furnace draw out such small Capillary Pipes of Glass that the reddest Liquor in the World shall not be seen in them (which I have often tried and done;) how much more curiously can Nature weave the Vessels of the Body; nay, and bore them too with such a Drill, as the Art of man cannot excogitate: Besides, we see, even in our own Eyes, that the Sanguineous Vessels that run along the white of the eye (nay and probably into the diapha∣nous humours also) are not discernable, but when they are preter-naturally distended in an Ophthalmia, and so grow turgent and conspicuous.

To which we may adde, that in most quick Fish, though you cut a piece of their flesh off, yet will no bloud be discernable, though they be sanguineous Ani∣mals; but the bloud is so divided by the minuteness of their Capillary Vessels, or percribration through the habit of the Parts, that either it has lost its redness, or our eyes are not able to discover its tincture.

Secondly, It is observable also from the former Ex∣periments, that in these minute Animals their nutritive Liquor never arises to the perfection of bloud, but con∣tinually

as it were remains Chyle within them, for want of a higher heat to dye it into that Spirituous Liquor: Nay, you shall observe in perfect Sanguineous Animals a Circulation of an albugineous chylie-matter (before the bloud have a being) if you take Nature at the rise, and critically observe her in her rudimental and ob∣scure beginnings.

For view but an Egge, (after the second day's Incu∣bation, and you shall see the cicatricula in the Yolk, di∣lated to the breadth of a groat or six-pence into trans∣parent concentrical circles; in the Centre whereof is a white Spot, with small white threads, (which in futurity proves the Heart with its Veins and arteries) but at pre∣sent both its motion and circulation is undiscernable to the bare eye, by reason of the feebleness thereof, and also because both the Liquor and its Vessels were con∣colour to the white of the Eggs they swum in; but the Heart does circulate this serous diaphanous Liquor, be∣fore (by a higher heat) it be turned into bloud.

And one thing here I am tempted to annex, which is a pretty and beneficial Observation of the Microscope, and that is, That as soon as ever you can see this red pulsing Particle appear (which Doctor Harvey conceit∣ed, not to be the Heart, but one of its Auricles) you shall most distinctly see it, to be the whole Heart with both Auricles and both Ventricles, the one manifestly pre∣ceding the pulse of the other (which two motions the bare eye judges to be Synchronical) and without any interloping perisystole at all: So admirable is every Organ of this Machine of ours framed, that every part within us is intirely made, when the whole Organ seems too little to have any parts at all.

Thirdly, It is peculiarly remarkable from Observa∣tion

xxxi. That not onely the bloud in perfect Animals, and the chyle in imperfect ones; but also the Animal Spi∣rits have a Circulation, which singular observation hath often provoked and entised our endeavours into a fur∣ther enquiry after the Nature of these Spirits, as to their Origin or Generation, their activity and motion, with some other eminent properties belonging to them: we shall draw our thoughts together, and so present them to your View: I will not say, that our discourse hereon, shall pass for an un-controllable authentick Truth; it is all my ambition if it attain but to the favou∣rable reception of a rational Hypothesis at last.

A Digression of the Animal Spirits.

FIrst, then, we have not those narrow conceptions of these subtle Spirits to think that they are onely in∣cluded within the Bodies of Animals, or generated (much less created) there, but we doe believe that they are universally diffused throughout all Bodies in the World, and that Nature at first created this aetherial substance or subtle particles, and diffused them through∣out the Universe, to give fermentation and concretion to Minerals; vegetation and maturation to Plants; life, sense, and motion to Animals; And indeed, to be the main (though invisible) Agent in all Natures three Kingdoms Mineral, Vegetal, and Animal.

And lest they should (because of their exceeding volatility and activity) be of little or no use, Nature hath immersed them in grosser matter, and imprisoned them in several Bodies, with which she has intermixed them,

the better to curb the boundless activity of so thin and spirituous a substance, and therefore the Spirits (of all compound Bodies especially) ought to be considered under a triple notion:

Viz. Under the state of

• 1. Fixation.
• 2. Fusion.
• 3. Volatilization.

First of Fixation, when they are so complicated with the grosser Particles of Matter, and lockt therein so fast, that they can hardly be separated, and dis-impriso∣ned as in Minerals, but most especially in Gold.

Secondly, The state of Fusion, I call that, when the Spirits by any kind of help have so wrought themselves towards a Liberty, that they are in the middle way to Volatility, as in half-concocted Minerals, fermenting Vapours or Liquors, and half-ripned Fruits, &c.

Thirdly, The Spirits are in their third state of Vola∣tility, when after a colluctancy with the grosser Parti∣cles they have so subjugated and overcome them, that they are just upon wings, and ready to fly away; as in Wine when it is in the height of its fermentation, and in some part of our arterial bloud alwayes. Now we ob∣serve that those Bodies that relax and open the grosser composition of other Bodies, do presently create a fer∣mentation; for, being like so many Keys, they set the imprisoned Spirits at Liberty, which presently fall on working, and by attenuating the grosser parts, separating the Heterogeneous, volatilizing some, precipitating of others, digesting of others, expelling of others, do at last mould it and work it to such a Body, as the parts of it are fit to make up: In all which interval of time, there is a pal∣pable

and sensible heat produced: Thus this Spirit be∣ing embowelled in the Earth, and meeting there with convenient matter and adjuvant causes, doth proceed to produce Minerals, creating an actual heat, whereso∣ever it operates, as in Allum or Copperase Mines, which being broken, exposed, and moistned, will gather an actual heat, and produce much more of those Minerals, then else the Mine would yield, as Agricola and Thurni∣seer do affirm, and is proved by common experience.

The like is generally observed in Mines, as Agricola, Erastus, and ••ibanius, &c. do affirm and avouch out of the dayly experience of Mineral men, who affirm, that in most places they find their Mines so hot, as they can hardly touch them; although it is likely that, where they work for perfect Minerals, the heat which was in fermentation whilst they were yet in breeding, is now much abated, the Mineral being grown to their per∣fection, as the skilful and excellent Doctor Jordan very well infers.

The like heat we observe constantly to be in our Cole-Pits: Nay, we sometimes observe in our Brass-lumps (as our Colliers call them) which is a kind of Marcasite, a very great heat; for being exposed to the moist Air, or sprinkled with water, they will smoak and grow exceeding hot; and if they be layd up on a heap and watered, they will turn into a glowing red hot fire, as I have seen them my self.

And it was a Casualty once terrible to our Neigh∣bour-Town of Ealand; for there, one Wilson a Patient of mine, having pil'd up many Cart-loads of these Brass-lumps in a Barn of his, (for some secret purposes of his own) the Roof letting rain-water fall copiously in amongst them, they all began to smoak, and at last to

take fire, and burnt like red hot Coals; so that the Town was in an uproar about quenching of them; and one thing further I took special notice of in this un∣lucky Experiment, that the Water which drained from the quenching of them, left little pieces and Crystals of Copperase sticking all along to the Piles of Grass, that grew in the Croft it run down.

Thus Antimony and Sublimate being mixed toge∣ther, will grow so hot (the one relaxing the fermenting spirit in the other) that they are not to be touched.

Thus in the Corrosion of Mettals by Aqua fortis, what a strong heat is there in the Liquor, and what a steam constantly evaporates during their fermentation. In the Commixtion of Oyl of Vitriol with Oyl of Tartar per deliquium, what a violent heat and effervescence do presently arise, besides a sharp and acrimonious vapour that strikes our nostrils. Nay, and we see our Subter∣raneous Damps do sometimes with intermixtion with the moist Air, grow to that over-height of fermentati∣on, that they fire of themselves and strike down all be∣fore them.

Thus the Spirit of Niter mixed with Butter of Anti∣mony, grows so hot, that it is ready to rise in a flame.

Thus certainly do all Baths receive their heat from Mineral Vapours, or the Minerals themselves, being in solutis Principiis, and so the fermenting Spirit sets a play∣ing in them, as the Learned Doctor Jordan did most ra∣tionally conjecture.

This universal fermenting Spirit does not onely play these feats in the Mineral; but also operates in the same manner in the Vegetable Kingdome, which we ocular∣ly behold in the Artifice of Malt, where the Grains of Barly being moistned with water, the parts are relaxed,

the internal Spirits in them are dilated, and put into action; and the superfluity of water being removed (which might choak it) and the Barly being layd up in heaps, the fermentation and heat presently appears, with a kind of vinous steam and effluviums which passe from it, and therefore it shoots forth into Spires. Thus we see in wet-Hay, how the spirits work not one∣ly to a heat, but (if they be not cooled and prevented by Ventilation) they break out into a flame also; Nay, in all Vegetables there is this constant Heat (though it be below our Sensation) as it is in some Fishes and colder Animals also, and a constant steam and transpi∣ration of particles, as we have experimentally proved in our XXV. Observation.

And now let us pursue these Spirits into the Animal Kingdom, and we shall see that they have the like effects and operations there also, as is formerly obser∣ved; onely, being there in greater plenty, and more purely refined, and in a constant state of Fusion and Volatility, they work nobler effects.

Now the Spirits that are lodged in all the meats and drinks we receive, being more or less fixed therein; What does the Soul, but (like an excellent Chymist) in this internal Laboratory of Man, by a fermentation of our nourishment in the stomach and guts, a filtration thereof through the Lacteae, a digestion in the Heart, a Circulation and Rectification in the Veins and Arte∣ries: what does she, I say, by these several Physico-Chy∣mical operations, but strive all this while to unfix, ex∣alt, and volatilize the Spirits conteined in our nutri∣ment, that so they may be transmitted to the Brain, and its divarications, and in that reconditory kept and repo∣sited for her use and service.

So that these we now call Animal Spirits are the purest, subtlest, and most volatile particles and acti∣vest Atoms of the bloud, which by continual pulsation of the Heart are carried with the bloud by the carotidal Arteries up into the Brain, and there by that lax and boggy substance are imbibed and separated from the bloud, and thence by the Spinal Marrow and Nerves transmitted to all the parts of the Body.

Now as the Chyle is perfected in the stomach and guts, and their appendent Vessels, the lacteal Veins; and as the bloud is perfected in the Heart, and its an∣nexed Vessels, the Veins and Arteries: so the Animal Spirits are separated, preserved, and perfected in the Brain, with its continued trunk and branches, viz. the Spinal Marrow, Nerves, and Fibers, for the uses here∣after to be declared.

Now the two former Liquors, the Chyle and the Bloud (because of their grosser liquidity) need to be conveyed in hollow Pipes and Channels (viz. the Veins and Arteries;) but the Spirits which is the quintessence of them both, can easily pass by a swift filtration, through the Brain, Spinal Marrow, and Nerves, Mem∣branes, and Fibers, which are as it were the Cords, Sayls, and Tackling, to move this Engine or Vessel we call the Body.

Nay, though we can give you no sensible eviction of it, Why may not all those long filaments of which the substance of the Brain, Spinal Marrow, and Nerves consists, be tubulous and hollow; so that the Animal-Spirits may be channelled through them, as the bloud through the Veins and Arteries? I am sure, we see by Observation xxxi. and L. what infinitely small filaments and vessels there are in Animals, and yet all tubulous

and perforated; so that the suddain inflation of all those capillary threads or pipes, may serve for Motion of the Body, and the constant though flower filtration of the Spirits through their Coats and Cylindrical Mem∣branes may serve for Sensation. So that it seems, this Cottage of Clay, with all its Furniture within it, was but made in subserviency to the Animal Spirits; for the extraction, separation, and depuration of which, the whole Body, and all the Organs and Utensils therein are but instrumentally contrived, and preparatorily de∣signed. Just as the Chymical Elaboratory with all its Furnaces, Crucibles, Stills, Retorts, Cucurbits, Ma∣trats, Bolt-heads, Pelicans, &c. were made for no other end by the ingenious Chymist, than for the extraction and depuration of his Spirits and Quintessences (which he draws from those Bodies he deals with) in the ob∣tainment of which he hath come to the ultimate design of his indeavours.

Now as in Minerals and Vegetables the colluctancy of these fermenting Spirits with the grosser matter, does both create a constant heat and evaporation of Atoms: So in Animals, the like is more eminently conspicuous, to wit the vital heat, or calidum innatum, and those fuli∣ginous effluviums which pass constantly out of us by insensible transpiration; which Sanctorius hath proved to exceed the bulk and weight of all our sensible Evacu∣ations whatsoever.

Having thus demonstrated how the Soul obtains these Spirits after her several operations of Digestion, Chy∣lification, Sanguification, Circulation, &c. the like now let us see what use she makes of so pretious a sub∣stance.

First, therefore we affirm, that this thin and spiritu∣ous

matter, which is called the Animal Spirits, is the immediate Instrument of the Soul, in all her operations both of Sense and Motion. First, for sense, it is plain by what is discovered in a Vertigo; for the Brain it self is not of such a fluid substance, as to turn round, and make all objects to do so too; wherefore tis a sign that the immediate corporeal instrument of conveying the images of things, is the Spirits in the Brain. Secondly, That they are the chief Engine of Sight, is plain; not onely because the eye is full of these livid Spirits, but also because dimness of sight comes from deficiency of them, though the parts of the eye otherwayes be en∣tire enough, as in sick and old persons, and in those troubled with an Amaurosis, or Gutta Serena. I had the last year a Patient, a young Boy of seventeen years old, who fell casually stark blind of his right eye; in which you could outwardly discover no fault at all (the Dis∣ease being an Amaurosis, or obstruction of the Optick Nerve) for, that Nerve being by successful means dis∣obstructed and relaxed, so that the Animal Spirits were able to flow done to the Retina again, he shortly after perfectly recovered his sight again, without any relapse at all, to this present day. Thirdly, If you cast a Ligature upon any Nerve, you destroy both the sense and motion of that part whither that Nerve was pro∣pagated (as by that pleasant Experiment by tying the recurrent Nerves in a living Dogg, we have tryed) till by relaxing the Ligature the Spirits may have the free∣dome to channel into the Nerves again: Which truth is also handsomely made out, by that ordinary example of a mans Leg being asleep (as we call it) for by com∣pression of the Nerves, the propagation of the Spirits into the part is hindred; for, as sense and motion is re∣stored,

you may feel something creep into the Leg, tingling and stinging like Pismires (as Spigelius com∣pares it) which is the return of the Animal Spirits into that part again. Fourthly, That Spontaneous motion is performed by continuation of the Animal Spirits, from the common Sensorium to the Muscle, (which is the gross Engine of Motion) is sensibly evinced in dead Palsies, where one side is taken away.

To all which add, the former Observation of the Spi∣rits circumundulation when the Snail at any time mo∣ved, and of their joint quiescency together.

Having now shown you how these Animal Spirits are generated in our Body, or, to speak more properly, dis∣imprisoned and separated from our nutriment, and so from fixation, brought through Fusion to Volatilizati∣on; having also shown you what use Nature makes of them in Sensation and Motion: let us screw our Enqui∣ry a little further, and see if we can discover how the Spirits move in the Brain and Nerves, to perform the same operations. First, therefore, we affirm that a lesser quantity and slower motion of the Spirits is re∣quired for Sensation, than there is for Motion; for in this the Muscle swells that moves the part, which is a plain Indication of a greater influx of Spirits directed thither; a greater, I say, for I do not deny but there is re∣quired to sensation a moderate quantity and diffusion of the Spirits into all the parts of the Body, else we should alwayes be benummed and stupid (as when our Leg is asleep) by an interception of the Spirits. Se∣condly, that their motion is slower in sensation then motion; the former Experiment of the Snail does also manifest: whose Animal Spirits never begin to undulate till she begin to move, whereas she is sensible when they

are in Quiescency, as you may, by pricking her with a Needle, easily observe. Thirdly, in the return of the Spi∣rits into the stupefied Leg, we plainly perceive by the prickling, what a flow motion the Spirits have. All which Phaenomena do seem to favour our former Conjecture, that for Motion the Spirits move impetuously down the nervous filaments, (which are hollow;) but for Sensation they onely creep by a filtration down their Coats and Membranes.

Now these Spirits being so subtle and dissipable, the Soul spends them every day in using of them, and they being much spent, she can hardly move the Body any longer: The sense whereof we call Lassitude; For certainly, as Doctor More very ingeniously inferrs, if it were an immediate faculty of the Soul to contribute Motion to any matter; I do not understand (that Fa∣culty never failing nor diminishing, no more than the Soul it self can fail or diminish) that we should ever be weary.

Thus are the Phaenomena of Sense and Motion best salved, whilst we are awake; now what happens when we sleep, is a matter of further enquiry: Some have defined Sleep to be a migration of all the Spirits out of the Brain, into the exteriour parts of the Body; whereas by our former Observations, it may rather seem to the contrary; that is, The retraction of the Spirits into the Brain, or at least a restagnation of them in the nervous parts, does (till Nature being recruited by a new sup∣ply and regeneration of them in the Brain) direct them into the Spinal Marrow and Nerves, which being re∣plenished with them again, they run their current as be∣fore; so the whole Animal thereby is made capable of feeling the Impulses of any external object whatever

(which we call, Walking) and during this Interval and Non-tearm of sensation (for so we may without a Com∣plement call Sleep) why may not the Soul be retracted, and wholly intent upon, and busied about, her Vegeta∣tive and Plastical Operations? So that when she has locked up the doors of this Laboratory the Body, she may be busie in augmenting, repairing, and regenerating all the Organs and Utensils within, and painting and plaistring the Walls without. This I am sure we ob∣serve to be the greatest part of her obscure employ∣ment in the Womb, where the Embryo for the most part sleeps, whilst the Soul is in full exercise of her Pla∣stick and Organo-Poïetical Faculty.

Now these Animal Spirits being continually trans∣mitted from the Brain, through the Spinal Marrow, Nerves, Tendons, & Fibers, into all the parts of the Body (especially whilst we are awaking) may, some of them at least, have a kind of circulation; for those which perspire not, having lost their motion, may either mix with the bloud in habitu partium, or relapse into a kind of insipid phlegm, as Chymical Spirits do, that are not purely rectified, and to be returned back by the Lym∣phiducts again.

Lastly, I have but one paradoxical and extravagant Quaere to make, and that is this; That since we have pro∣ved these Animal Spirits to be the ultimate result of all the concoctions of the Body, the very top and perfection of all Nature's operations, the purest and most aetherial particles of all Bodies in the World whatsoever, (and so consequently of nearest alliance to Spiritualities) and the sole and immediate instrument of all the Soul's ope∣rations here, even in statu conjuncto (the Body and the Organs thereof, being but secondary and subservient

Instruments to the Spirits:) These things being thus pre∣mised, may it not be probable enough that these Spirits in the other World, shall onely be the Soul's Vehicle and Habit, and indeed really that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, mentioned by the Apostle; by a vital re-union with which, it may supereminently out-act all that ever she was able to do in this earthly Prison and heavy Cottage of the Body; since also (which I may super-adde) those volatile Spirits (being freed by a constant and perpe∣tual dissipation from the Body) are diffused through this great aetherial Ocean, as into their proper Element, ready to be united to the Soul at the instant of her Se∣paration.

Fourth Deduction.

FOurthly, The Physiologist also may gather some∣thing from the former Observations, touching the nature of Colours; that they are indeed nothing but the various modification of Light. For most, if not all, Bo∣dies in their minute particles (through which the Sun's Rays have more freedome to penetrate) seem to lose their Colours, and grow diaphanous, as you may ob∣serve in the Microscope.

Secondly, Is it not shrewdly probable, that since mo∣tion is the cause of sight, (which is nothing else, but the impulse that the Luminous Atoms make upon the Reti∣na:) Is it not, I say, shrewdly probable, that Colours are nothing else but a various modification of this motion, since we see that they are both naturally and artificially made by light, to which we can imagine nothing to be added or deducted to super-induce those fine Tinctures

as in the Rain-bow, the Prisme, crystal Pendents, Glass-Globes filled full of water, and in those arenulous A∣toms in the former Experiment xxxiii. except some change in the motion of the Luminous Atoms, which must necessarily follow from the diversities of Objects and Mediums they either hit upon or pass thorow; and so consequently do either accelerate or retardate the Solary Atoms in their Dinetical and progressive Moti∣on; whence arises both the diversity and variety of all colours whatsoever, as that profoundest Master of Me∣chanicks (Des-Cartes) hath both subtilly excogitated, and ingeniously illustrated by the Prisme.

To which we shall add some further experimental E∣viction:

First, If the Hole (through which the Species is transmitted into a dark room) be covered with a leaf of Beaten Gold, it will not onely look of a pure green co∣lour, but all the light trajected through it will put on the same Tincture.

Secondly, If with a Prisme you strike the Rainbow-colours upon a wall, and observing where a red is proje∣cted, you there place an Eye, the Spectator shall judge it to be another colour; because that the Solary Atoms, which shot through the Prisme upon the wall, and there painted that colour, being again and again refracted by the Diaphanous Humours of the Eye, must needs, in all reason, exchange their motion, and so consequently paint the Retina with another colour: both which Ex∣periments shew, that Colour is nothing else but the mo∣dification of Light, which by the alteration of its moti∣on is dyed into colours. The like Artificial alteration of the Colours may be made by interposing a Burning-Glass

'twixt the Prisme and the Light, and 'twixt the Prisme and the Paper.

But this Cartesian Theory of Colours we shall further make out by several Experiments in the Extraction, Commixtion, and Transcoloration of Tinctures. First therefore,

If into the Infusion of Violets you put some few drops of the oyl of Tartar per Deliquium, it will present∣ly strike it into a green Tincture: now, if instead of that oyl you put in oyl of Vitriol, it strikes it into a purple Colour: to which if you super-add some drops of Spirit of Harts-Horn, it strikes it green again.

Secondly, If into the Tincture of dryed Roses (drawn in Hot-water with oyl of Vitriol after the usual manner) you drop a few drops of Spirit of Harts-Horn, or of Urine, or of oyl of Tartar per Deliquium, it will pre∣sently strike the red into a green Colour; which by a su∣per-addition of the oyl of Vitriol, you may re-tincture as before.

Thirdly, If into an Infusion of Copperose you shave a little Gall, it presently puts on a Sable inky Colour; into which if you put a few drops of the Spirit or oyl of Vi∣triol, it strikes out the Colour immediately, and the wa∣ter becomes white again; to which if you super-add a few drops of oyl of Tartar per Deliquium, it re-denigrates it again.

Thus a Glass of the Sweet-Spaw-water also, upon the Infusion of Gall, turns into a Claret-colour: but if you drop but a little of the said oyl or spirit into it, it present∣ly eats out the Colour, and the water returns to its primi∣tive clearness again.

Draw a faint Tincture of Brasil wood, bruised or ra∣sped in luke-warm water, filter it, and clarifie it; then if

you add a little sharp vineger to a good quantity of it, it will strike it into the exact colour of good stale Eng∣lish Beer, and it will partly have the smell of it also.

Secondly, If into another quantity of the said reddish Infusion you add a few drops of the oyl of Tartar per Deliquium, it will turn it to a pure purplish red, like ex∣cellent Claret.

Thirdly, If into this Artificial Claret you drop a few drops of the oyl of Vitriol, it will turn it into a pale Am∣ber colour (like Sack as may be) which with addition of fair water you may empale as you please. By which ingenious commixtion of Spirits and Liquors did Floram Marchand, that famous Water-Drinker, exhibit those rare tricks and curiosity's at London, of vomiting all kind of Liquors at his mouth.

For, first; Before he mounts the Stage, he alwayes drinks in his private Chamber, fasting, a gill of the De∣coction of Brasil; then making his appearance, he pre∣sents you with a pail full of luke-warm water, and twelve or thirteen glasses, some washed in vineger, others with oyl of Tartar, and oyl of Vitriol; then he drinks four and twenty glasses of the water, and care∣fully taking up the glasse which was washed with oyl of Tartar, he vomits a reddish liquor into it, which present∣ly is brightned up and ting'd into perfect and lovely Claret.

After this first assay, he drinks six or seven glasses more (the better to provoke his vomiting) as also the more to dilute and empale the Brasil Decoction within him, and then he takes a glass rinsed in vineger, and vo∣mits it full, which instantly, by its acidity is transcoloured into English Beer; and vomiting also at the same time into another glass (which he washes in fair water) he

presents the Spectators with a glass of paler Claret, or Burgundian wine; then drinking again as before, he picks out the glass washed with oyl of Vitriol, and vo∣miting a faint Brasil-water into it, it presently appears to be Sack; and perchance if he wash'd the one half of the glass with spirit of Sack, it would have a faint odour and flavour of that Wine also.

He then begins his Carouse again, and drinking fif∣teen or sixteen glasses, till he has almost extinguished the strength and tincture of his Brasil water, he then vomits into a Vineger-glass again, and that presents white Wine. At the next disgorgement (when his sto∣mack is full of nothing but clear water indeed (which he has fill'd so, by the exceeding quantity of water which at every interval he drinks) he then deludes the Spe∣ctators by vomiting Rose water, Angelica water, and Cinamon water into those glasses which have been formerly washed with those Spirits. And thus was that famous Cheat perform'd, and indeed acted with such a port and flowing grace, by that Italian Bravado, that he did not onely strike an Admiration into vulgar heads, and common Spectators, but even into the judicious and more knowing part of men, who could not readily find out the ingenuity of his knavery.

The Chymical Elaboratories likewise do teach us this Truth in Fumes and Smoaks, as well as Liquors (which indeed are but rarified and expaused Liquors;) for Ni∣ter it self, though nothing a kin to redness doth in di∣stillation yield bloud-red Fumes (called by the Chy∣mists Salamanders-bloud) which fall again into a Li∣quor which hath nothing of red in it.

So Soot (though black) yet when it is pressed and forced up into an exhalation by a strong fire, will fill

the Receiver with Milk white Fumes; thus Sall-Armo∣niack, and black Antimony, being equally mixed and gradually sublimed in an Urinal, will exhibit a Scene of Colours, and will make a transition out of one into another with a delectable variety.

By all which pleasant Observations, it palpably ap∣pears that the nature of Colours consists in the free ad∣mission, transition, refraction, or reflection of light, from the Objects discoloured; For first, you see seve∣ral Colours introduced into Liquors by those Ingredi∣ents, that neither had nor could communicate any such tincture. Secondly, 'tis as plain, that the minute Parti∣cles and Atoms of those Bodies that were imbibed by the Liquors, and filled up their smallest Cavities or In∣terstices, accordingly as they were altered in their site, position, and motion; so were the Luminous Beams variously transmitted, refracted, or reflected, and so consequently thence resulted those several Scenes of Colours.

Thus when the Atoms wherewith the Liquor is fully impregnated do relax and open themselves, that the light may fairly penetrate, then is the Liquor limpid and clear; but if they draw up a little closer one to another, so that the light be refracted, then is the Liquor yellow; if closer yet to a greater refraction of the Light, then is the Liquor red: but if in this randezvouz they draw up into a very close Body indeed, so that by reason of their contiguity, both in rank and file, no light can be trajected through them; then opacity and darkness a∣rises: If the Rays cannot break the front of them, then is a milky-Whiteness presented there.

The Fifth COROLLARY▪ Anatomical Considerations about the Eye.

OUr next Reflections shall be made upon the Eye, to admire as well as contemplate Nature's variety in the constructure and conformation of so excellent an Organ: The two Luminaries of our Microcosm, which see all other things, cannot see themselves, nor discover the excellencies of their own Fabrick: Nature, that ex∣cellent Mistress of the Opticks, seems to have run through all the Conick Sections, in shaping and figu∣ring its Parts; and Dioptrical Artists have almost ground both their Brain and Tools in pieces, to find out the Ar∣ches and Convexities of its prime parts, and are yet at a loss, to find their true Figurations, whereby to advance the Fabrick of their Telescopes and Microscopes: which practical part of Opticks is but yet in the rise; but if it run on as successfully as it has begun, our Posterity may come by Glasses to out-see the Sun, and Discover Bodies in the remote Universe, that lie in Vortexes, beyond the reach of the great Luminary. At present let us be content with what our Microscope demonstrates; and the former Observations, I am sure, will give all ingenious persons great occasion, both to admire Na∣ture's Anomaly in the Fabrick, as well as in the number of Eyes, which she has given to several Animals: We see the Tunica Cornea in most Insects is full of perforati∣ons, as if it were a Tunica Vvea pinked full of Holes, and whereas perfect Animals, have but one Aperture, these Insects have a thousand Pupils, and so see a

Hemisphere at once: and indeed 'tis worth our conside∣ration to think, that since their Eye is perfectly fixed, and can move no wayes; it was requisite to lattice that Window, and supply the defect of its Motion, with the multiplicity of its Apertures, that so they might see at once what we can but do at several times, our Eyes having the liberty and advantage to move every way (like Balls in Sockets) which theirs have not.

Secondly, We observe no diaphanous parts in those lattic'd Eyes, since it is probable, that the Horney Coat of the Eye serves also for a Pericranium for their Brain: For, that the Brain of most Insects lies in their Eyes, seems to me more than a probability. First, because in Flies, Butter-flies, Bees, &c. you can find no other place in their Heads, wherein any matter analogous to the Brain, can be lodged. Secondly, in the Eyes of those Insects you shall alwayes find great store of a pul∣pous substance, like to be Brain in those Creatures. Thirdly, the Eyes in all Insects are very large, and seem disproportional to so small Bodies, if intended for no other use than Vision. Fourthly, why may not this lattic'd film of their Eye be their Tunica Retina, which as it is concave in us, is convex in them; and as it is made of the Brain in us, so it is in them, and therefore lies contiguous to it, and may indeed be over-cast, by a trans∣parent Cornea, through which the Net-work of this in∣teriour film may thus eminently appear; For certainly such Animals as have distinction of Senses, as Seeing, Feeling, &c. must needs have an Animal-Sensation; an Animal, I say, for I hold also a natural Sensation, which is performed without a Brain, and such an one is disco∣verable even in Animals, and in our own Selves; for besides the Animal-Sensation (whose original is in the

Brain) the Stomach, Guts, and the Parenchymata of the Body, yea and the Bloud too has a natural Sensation of what is good, and what is bad for them, as Doctour Harvey has excellently proved, Lib. de Gener. and so some of the lowest rank of Animals (as the Zoophyta and plant-Animals) may perchance be utterly devoid of Animal, and have onely a Natural Sensation; but this belongeth to some Anatomical Observations I have by me, where I may perchance prove that all Vegetables (as well as the Sensitive and humble Plants) have this latter kind of Sensation, as well as Animals.

But let us return to the Eye again, of which curi∣ous Organ I am tempted to say much more; but that I have reserved that discourse as more proper for my Telescopical Observations. Onely for the present, to encourage the Lovers of free Philosophy, and to let them see that even the greatest Oculists and Dioptri∣cal Writers, that the World ever saw, Kepler, Des-Cartes, Schemar, and Hugenius, have not yet discovered all Nature's Curiosities, even in that Organ; I will here deliver one or two Optical Experiments: The first hints whereof, I must ingeniously confess, I received from some Fragments and Papers of our famous, and never to be forgotten Country-man, Master Gascoign of Midleton near Leeds, who was unfortunately slain in the Royal Service for His late Majesty; a Person he was of those strong Parts and Hopes, that not onely we, but the whole World of Learning suffered in the loss of him.

Take a fresh Eye, and, in a frosty Evening, place it with the Pupil upwards, where it may be frozen through, then in the Morning you may cut it as you please. If you cut it with a plain Parallel to the Optick Axis (which

Section Des-Cartes thought impossible) then shall you see all the Parts, as he has pictured them pag. 92. and each part will be very different in colour, and remain in their natural Site, which may be pricked forth in an oyled Paper: By this trick also you shall find, that there is a dou∣ble Crystalline humour, one circum-included within the other; if you do but thaw the Crystalline you shall see the outward will pill off from the inward: The right Figures of both which Crystallines are monstrous diffi∣cult, if not impossible, to find out; hence it follows that every Ray of incidence is seven times refracted in the Eye before it reach the Retina, whatsoever Scheinar says to the contrary.

The second Experiment, is one of the ingenious Ex∣cogitations of M. Gascoign's, and it is to delineate the prime parts of the Eye; after this manner: Having a Glass and Table fitted to observe the Eye's spots, place an Eye with the Horny Tunicle either upwards or downwards, between the inmost Glass and Table; so near the Glass, as the Eye will almost fill up the com∣pass of the Eye's Image, then the representation of the Eye will be very large (proportionable to the Eye's Image) upon the Table, and thus you may prick out the three Figures of the Cornea, and the outward and in∣ward Crystallines. Many other neat wayes with my Dioptrical Glasses can I take the Figures of the prime Parts of the Eye, which shall be discovered in their fit places.

And now having done with the Fabrick, the Obser∣vations lead us to the Consideration of the Number and Plurality of Eyes, that Nature hath afforded some Crea∣tures. I must confess though I have been very curious and critical in observing; yet I could never find any

Animal that was monocular, nor any that had a multi∣plicity of Eyes, except Spiders, which indeed are so fair and palpable that they are clearly to be seen by any man that wants not his own. And though Argus has been held as prodigious a fiction as Polypheme, and a plurality of Eyes in any Creature, as great a piece of monstrosity, as onely a single one; yet our glasses have refuted this Errour (as Observat. viii. and ix. will tell you:) so that the Works of Nature are various, and the several wayes, and manifold Organization of the Body, inscru∣table; so that we had need of all the advantages that Art can give us, to discover the more mysterious Works of that divine Architectress; but especially, when she draws her self into so narrow a Shop, and works in the retiring Room of so minute an Animal.

Lastly, Many more hints might be taken from the former Observations, to make good the Atomical Hy∣pothesis; which I am confident will receive from the Mi∣croscope some further advantage and illustration, not onely as to its first universal matter, Atoms; but also, as to the necessary Attributes, or essential Properties of them, as Motion, Figure, Magnitude, Order, and Dis∣position of them in several Concretes of the World; especially if our Microscopes arise to any higher perfecti∣on: and if we can but, by any artificial helps, get but a glimpse of the smallest Truth, it is not to tell what a Fa∣brick of Philosophy may be raised from it; (for to con∣clude with that Patriark of Experimental Philosophy, the Learned Lord Bacon,* 1.8) The Eye of the Under∣standing, saith he, is like the Eye of the Sense; for as you may see great Objects through small Cranies or Levels; so you may see great Axioms of Nature, through small and contemptible Instances and Experiments.

These are the few Experiments that my Time and Glass hath as yet afforded me an opportunity to make, which I hasten out into the World to stay the longing thereof; But you may expect shortly from Doctor Wren, and Master Hooke, two Ingenious Members of the Royal Society at Gresham, the Cuts and Pictures drawn at large, and to the very life of these and other Microscopical Representations.

The End of the Microscopical Observations.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Muffet, de Inse∣ctis, lib. 2 cap. 28.
• * 1.2

  Muffet, lib. de In∣sectis, cap. 12.
• * 1.3

  Dr. Brown in his Vulgar Errors.
• * 1.4

  In Epi∣stolâ dedica∣toriâ, Muffeti de Inse∣ctis.
• * 1.5

  Muffet, Cap. 24. de Insect. lib. 2.
• * 1.6

  In Epi∣stolâ Prefato∣riâ, ad Muffet. de Inse∣ctis.
• * 1.7

  Muffet, de Insect. Cap. 16. pag. 122.
• * 1.8

  Sir Fran∣cis Bacon Nat. Hi∣story Exp. 91.