184

Sr. Christopher wren alledged that he had not heard any reall obiection
against the wooden balls for sounding the Depths of the Sea. to wch. it
was answerd that the said wooden balls being orderd as was Directed
in the transactions would very certainly doe the effect if care
were taken to obserue exactly when the ball appeared againe
aboue the water, which was easy to be taken notice of in Small
Depths ^ /&/ where the water was wthout motion but where the
water or the ship were in motion soe that the ball did
not ascend againe into the same place whence it Descended
and where the Depth was very great there the Obser
=uing of the moment and place where it appeard againe
after it had been sank to the bottom was very Difficult
and hardly practicable. But as to the way of ordering the ball
and weight wch was presented by Ricciolus that was very
fallacious and the ball oftentimes Letting goe the weight before
it came at the bottom and at other times being detained altoge
ther at the bottom wthout separating from the weight as had
been found by tryall of wch. an account was entred in the
register booke

After this mr Hooke shewd An experiment /obseruation/ of the figure of the parts small
and imperceptible parts of A muscle which he had Discouered by the help
of a microscope. The muscle he made choise to examine was that of a
Lobsters claw wherein all the fabrick of it was such that all the
motion must necessarily be made in the fibrous part thereof for
that first the tendon was nothing els but a bone & gr soe not capable
of shrinking or stretching and secondly the other end thereof was fastnd
immediately to the Inside of the shell. -

In this obseruation notice was taken that the small fibres sought for, though
as much magnifyed and inlightned as needed yet did not appear till by the
adding a small drop of water the irregular refractions on the outside of the
fibre were remoued. After wch. being done it was very plainly visible that
the whole fibrous part of . . . the muscle examined consisted of an in^/de/finite
quantity of number of exceeding small string extended streight between the
Inside of the shell & the tendonous bone in the middle which were soe small
that 500 of them would hardly exceed the bignesse of a hair.

Ref: CELL/RS/HF_186  © Centre for Editing Lives and Letters