Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries ThereuponHooke, Robert
History
Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon
Hooke, Robert
Magnifying glasses -- Early works to 1800; Microscopy -- Early works to 1800; Natural history -- Pre-Linnean works
part, the heads were broken, and some much wasted, as E; what these heads
contain’d I could not perceive; whether they were knobs and flowers, or
seed cases, I am not able to say, but they seem’d most likely to be of the
same nature with those that grow on Mushroms, which they did, some of them,
not a little resemble.
Both their smell and taste, which are active enough to make a sensible
impression upon those organs, are unpleasant and noisome.
I could not find that they would so quickly be destroy’d by the actual
flame of a Candle, as at first sight of them I conceived they would be, but
they remain’d intire after I had past that part of the Leather on which
they stuck three or four times through the flame of a Candle; so that, it
seems they are not very apt to take fire, no more then the common white
Mushroms are when they are sappy.
There are a multitude of other shapes, of which these _Microscopical_
Mushroms are figur’d, which would have been a long Work to have described,
and would not have suited so well with my design in this Treatise, onely,
amongst the rest, I must not forget to take notice of one that was a little
like to, or resembled, a Spunge, consisting of a multitude of little
Ramifications almost as that body does, which indeed seems to be a kind of
Water-Mushrom, of a very pretty texture, as I else-where manifest. And a
second, which I must not omit, because often mingled, and neer adjoining to
these I have describ’d, and this appear’d much like a Thicket of bushes, or
brambles, very much branch’d, and extended, some of them, to a great
length, in proportion to their Diameter, like creeping brambles.
The manner of the growth and formation of this kind of Vegetable, is the
third head of Enquiry, which, had I time, I should follow: the figure and
method of Generation in this concrete seeming to me, next after the Enquiry
into the formation, figuration; or chrystalization of Salts, to be the most
simple, plain, and easie; and it seems to be a _medium_ through which he
must necessarily pass, that would with any likelihood investigate the
_forma informans_ of Vegetables: for as I think that he shall find it a
very difficult task, who undertakes to discover the form of Saline
crystallizations, without the consideration and prescience of the nature
and reason of a Globular form, and as difficult to explicate this
configuration of Mushroms, without the previous consideration of the form
of Salts; so will the enquiry into the forms of Vegetables be no less, if
not much more difficult, without the fore-knowledge of the forms of
Mushroms, these several Enquiries having no less dependance one upon
another then any select number of Propositions in Mathematical Elements may
be made to have.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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