which was therefore the first I set upon, and what
I have therein perform’d, I leave the Judicious
Reader to determine. For as that form proceeded
from a propiety of fluid bodies, which I have call’d
Congruity, or Incongruity; so I think,
had I time and opportunity, I could make probable,
that all these regular Figures that are so conspicuously
various and curious, and do so adorn
and beautifie such multitudes of bodies, as I have
above hinted, arise onely from three or four several
positions or postures of Globular particles,
and those the most plain, obvious, and necessary conjunctions
of such figur’d particles that are possible,
so that supposing such and such plain and obvious causes
concurring the coagulating particles must necessarily
compose a body of such a determinate regular Figure,
and no other, and this with as much necessity and
obviousness as a fluid body encompast with a Heterogeneous
fluid must be protruded into a Spherule or Globe.
And this I have ad oculum demonstrated with
a company of bullets, and some few other very simple
bodies; so that there was not any regular Figure, which
I have hitherto met withall, of any of those bodies
that I have above named, that I could not with the
composition of bullets or globules, and one or two
other bodies, imitate, even almost by shaking them
together. And thus for instance may we find that
the Globular bullets will of themselves, if
put on an inclining plain, so that they may run together,
naturally run into a triangular order, composing
all the variety of figures that can be imagin’d
to be made out of aequilateral triangles; and
such will you find, upon trial, all the Surfaces of
Alum to be compos’d of: For three
bullets lying on a plain, as close to one another as
they can compose an aequilatero-triangular
form, as in A in the 7. Scheme. If a fourth
be joyn’d to them on either side as closely
as it can, they four compose the most regular Rhombus
consisting of two aequilateral triangles, as
B. If a fifth be joyn’d to them on either side
in as close a position as it can, which is the propriety
of the Texture, it makes a Trapezium,
or four-sided Figure, two of whole angles are 120.
and two 60. degrees, as C. If a sixth be added, as
before, either it makes an aequilateral triangle,
as D, or a Rhomboeid, as E, or an Hex-angular Figure,
as F, which is compos’d of two primary Rhombes.
If a seventh be added, it makes either an aequilatero-hexagonal
Figure, as G, or some kind of six-sided Figure,
as H, or I. And though there be never so many placed
together, they may be rang’d into some of these
lately mentioned Figures, all the angles of which
will be either 60. degrees, or 120. as the figure
K. which is an aequiangular hexagonal Figure
is compounded of 12. Globules, or may be of
25, or 27, or 36, or 42, &c. and by these kinds of