177

Then mr Hooke Read a Discourse of his own being an account of his
obseruations that in Prosecution of mr Leeuwenhoeks Discouery he had made
of the small wormes in pepper water and in the steeping of seuerall other
liquors as Barly wheat oats aniseeds coffee &c. as also of sugar allume
Blood milk fatt. Ligaments muscles &c. And together herewth. Discourd
also the seuerall ways and contriuances by wch he made those obseruations
and therein shewd, how easily and apt such person are to be deceiud by the
appearances of these transparent bodys through a microscope who are
not aware of certaine proprietys of transparent and bodys especialy
such as are peculiar to substances of such small bulks. And for the
auoyding & preuenting all those inconueniences he shewd seuerall
ways & expedients wth.out wch. noe true discouery could be made and
by the help of them they were very easily done. some of those he mentiond
were Glasse plates and plates of muscouy glasse particular kinds of light
the immersing the bodys in waters & other liquors, the squeezing bodys
between two glasse plates the stretching and squeezing others wth. a kind
of tongues &c whilst they are look vpon in a conuenient light by . . .
after wch. he also shewd the way how he made those /two sorts of/ microscopes and the conue
niences and inconuiences of both those. the first was a single microscop
made by a small globule of glasse by wch. means wth. very little or
noe Difficulty the any obiect might be prodigiously magnifyd. he also
explaind how that globule was made out of a threed of glasse and howthat glasse threed and also how small glasse cones were made. The second
was a double microscope consisting of two glasses whereby many -
obseruations might be more conueniently made then wth. the single one
Then he explaind how by the help of these the parts of a muscle fibre tendon
ligament &c might be Examined. and to verify this by Experiment he
produced a small part of the Ligament of the neck of a sheep and shewd
it to consist of an Infinite company of exceeding small threeds 400
of wch. would hardly make the bigness of one single hair of a mans head
but as to the fibres of a muscle he affirmd them to be very differing wch
he would some other time produce.
Dr. Croon shewd a stone on wch. a peice of Alga was growing -

Ref: CELL/RS/HF_179  © Centre for Editing Lives and Letters