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
_Sixthly_ that the number of the _Pearls_ or _Hemispheres_ in the clusters
of this Fly, was neer 14000. which I judged by numbering certain rows of
them several ways, and casting up the whole content, accounting each
cluster to contain about seven thousand Pearls, three thousand of which
were of a size, and consequently the rows not so thick, and the foure
thousand I accounted to be the number of the smaller Pearls next the feet
and _proboscis_. Other Animals I observ’d to have yet a greater number, as
the _Dragon-Fly_ or _Adderbolt_: And others to have a much less company, as
an _Ant_, &c. and several other small Flies and Insects.
_Seventhly_, that the order of these eies or _Hemispheres_ was altogether
curious and admirable, they being plac’d in all kind of Flies, and _aerial_
animals, in a most curious and regular ordination of triangular rows, in
which order they are rang’d the neerest together that possibly they can,
and consequently leave the least pits or trenches between them. But in
_Shrimps_, _Crawfishes_, _Lobsters_, and such kinds of _Crustaceous_ water
Animals, I have yet observ’d them rang’d in a quadrangular order, the rows
cutting each other at right angles, which as it admits of a less number of
Pearls in equal surfaces; so have those creatures a recompence made them,
by having their eyes a little movable in their heads, which the other
altogether want. So infinitely wise and provident do we find all the
Dispensations in Nature, that certainly _Epicurus_, and his followers, must
very little have consider’d them, who ascrib’d those things to the
production of chance, that wil, to a more attentive considerer, appear the
products of the highest Wisdom and Providence.
Upon the Anatomy or Dissection of the Head, I observ’d these particulars:
First, that this outward skin, like the _Cornea_ of the eyes of the greater
Animals, was both flexible and transparent, and seem’d, through the
_Microscope_ perfectly to resemble the very substance of the _Cornea_ of a
man’s eye; for having cut out the cluster, and remov’d the dark and
_mucous_ stuff that is subjacent to it, I could see it transparent like a
thin piece of skin, having as many cavities in the inside of it, and rang’d
in the same order as it had _protuberances_ on the outside, and this
propriety, I found the same in all the Animals that had it, whether Flies
or Shell-Fish.
Secondly, I found that all Animals that I have observ’d with those kind of
eyes; have within this _Cornea_, a certain cleer liquor or juice, though in
a very little quantity, and,
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