The object, through the Microscope, appears like a Congeries or heap of Pibbles, such as I have often seen cast up on the shore, by the working of the Sea after a great storm, or like (in shape, though not colour) a company of small Globules of Quicksilver, look’d on with a Microscope, when reduc’d into that form by the way lately mentioned.  And perhaps, this last may give some hint at the manner of the formation of the former:  For supposing some Lapidescent substance to be generated, or some way brought (either by some commixture of bodies in the Sea it self, or protruded in, perhaps, out of some subterraneous caverns) to the bottom of the Sea, and there remaining in the form of a liquor like Quicksilver, heterogeneous to the ambient Saline fluid, it may by the working and tumblings of the Sea to and fro be jumbled and comminuted into such Globules as may afterwards be hardned into Flints, the lying of which one upon another, when in the Sea, being not very hard, by reason of the weight of the incompassing fluid, may cause the undermost to be a little, though not much, varied from a globular Figure.  But this only by the by.

After what manner this Kettering-stone should be generated I cannot learn, having never been there to view the place, and observe the circumstances; but it seems to me from the structure of it to be generated from some substance once more fluid, and afterwards by degrees growing harder, almost after the same manner as I supposed the generation of Flints to be made.

But whatever were the cause of its curious texture, we may learn this information from it; that even in those things which we account vile, rude, and coorse, Nature has not been wanting to shew abundance of curiosity and excellent Mechanisme.

We may here find a Stone by help of a Microscope, to be made up of abundance of small Balls, which do but just touch each other, and yet there being so many contacts, they make a firm hard mass, or a Stone much harder then Free-stone.

Next, though we can by a Microscope discern so curious a shape in the particles, yet to the naked eye there scarce appears any such thing; which may afford us a good argument to think, that even in those bodies also, whose texture we are not able to discern, though help’d with Microscopes, there may be yet latent so curious a Schematisme, that it may abundantly satisfie the curious searcher, who shall be so happy as to find some way to discover it.

Next, we here find a Stone, though to the naked eye a very close one, yet every way perforated with innumerable pores, which are nothing else but the interstitia, between those multitudes of minute globular particles, that compose the bulk it self, and these pores are not only discover’d by the Microscope, but by this contrivance.