this, Nature wonderfully disposes this End of the Case to bend itself downwards, as
the Ears of Wheat and Barley usually do when ripe.
On opening some of these Cases, when dry and red, they were found quite empty ;
but being cut asunder with a sharp Pen-knife, while green, a smaller round Case was
discovered within the other, with a Multitude of stringy Fibres, occupying the Space
between the two Cases, the innermost whereof was full of exceedingly minute white
Seeds, as in the Seed-Vessel of a Carnation, after the Flowers have been a few Days
fallen off.
Our Author compares the Thickness of this little Vegetable, with that of some
Trees we have Accounts of in the hot Climates of Guinea and Brazil ; (the Bodies of
which are, they tell us, twenty Feet in Diameter, whereas the Body of this Moss is,
commonly, not more than the sixtieth Part of an Inch) ; and finds, by Calculation, that
the Thickness of the one exceeds that of the other 2,985,984 Millions of Times. He
then supposes the Production on a Rose-Leaf, just now described, to be a thousand Times
less bulky than this Moss ; and, consequently, that one of these Trees must exceed the
Bulk of that a thousand Times the Number above given. So prodigiously various are
the Works of the Creator! and so all-sufficient his Power to perform what to Man would
seem impossible.
An EXPLANATION of the ELEVENTH PLATE
FIG. I.
A Piece of Sea-Weed
THE Subject under our Eye at present, is a small Piece, (the eighth Part of an Inch
only in Diameter) of a most beautiful Fucus or Sea-Wrack ;
a large Tuft whereof
is given, Fig. 2. Plate VI. very little bigger than its natural and common Size ; but the
Piece we are now describing, A, B, C, D, is magnified a great deal. The whole Surface
of this Plant appears covered with a most curious Kind of carved Work, consisting of a
Texture much resembling Honey-comb, and seems every where full of innumerable
Holes, no bigger than what the Point of a small Pin would make, ranged in the Manner
of a Quincunx, or like the pearled Rows in the Eye of a Fly, which are exactly regular
which way soever they are observed.
These little Holes, which the naked Eye would imagine circular, are shewn by the
Microscope to be of quite a different Figure, having nearly the Shape of the Sole of a
round-toed Shoe, the hinder Part whereof seems covered, as it were, by the Toe of the
next that follows it. Each. Hole is edged about with a very thin and transparent Sub-
stance, of a pale Straw-Colour ; from which four small transparent Thorns, of the same
Colour, issue, two on each Side, and almost meet across the Cavity. But no Words can
give so good a Notion of such a wonderful and uncommon Structure as the Picture now
before us.
This Species of Sea-Weed is called by Mr. RAY, Fucus telam lineam sericeamve tex-
tur?á suá æmulans ; by others, the broad-leaved borned Wrack. It is found here and there,
thrown by the Sea upon the Shores ; but as no body has ever seen it growing, it is pro-
bably produced in the deepest Parts thereof.
The Sea affords an endless Variety of Corals, Corallines, Spunges, Mosses, &c. every
Part of which is a delightful Object for the Microscope.
PLATE XI. FIG. 2.
A Piece of Rosemary-Leaf
THE Under-side of the Leaf was what Dr. HOOKE examined, and what, he says,
exhibited to him a smooth and shining Surface. A B, is a Part of the Upper-
side of the Leaf, but by a kind of Doubling turns down and covers some of the Under-
side, looking like a quilted Bag of green Silk, or like some very pliable and transparent
Membrane filled out with a green Liquor. Several other Plants have Leaves, whose Sur-
