So that Cork seems to suck its nourishment from the subjacent bark of the Tree immediately, and to be a kind of excrescence, or a substance distinct from the substances of the entire Tree, something analogus to the Mushrome, or Moss on other Trees, or to the hairs on Animals.  And having enquir’d into the History of Cork, I find it reckoned as an excrescency of the bark of a certain Tree, which is distinct from the two barks that lie within it, which are common also to other trees; That ’tis some time before the Cork that covers the young and tender sprouts comes to be discernable; That it cracks, flaws, and cleaves into many great chaps, the bark underneath remaining entire; That it may be separated and remov’d from the Tree, and yet the two under-barks (such as are also common to that with other Trees) not at all injur’d, but rather helped and freed from an external injury.  Thus Jonstonus in Dendrologia, speaking de Subere, says, Arbor est procera, Lignum est robustum, dempto cortice in aquis non fluitat, Cortice in orbem detracto juvatur, crascescens enim praestringit & strangulat, intra triennium iterum repletur:  Caudex ubi adolescit crassus, cortex superior densus carnosus, duos digitos crassus, scaber, rimosus, & qui nisi detrahatur dehiscit, alioque subnascente expellitur, interior qui subest novellus ita rubet ut arbor minio picta videatur.  Which Histories, if well consider’d, and the tree, substance, and manner of growing, if well examin’d, would, I am very apt to believe, much confirm this my conjecture about the origination of Cork.

Nor is this kind of Texture peculiar to Cork onely; for upon examination with my Microscope, I have found that the pith of an Elder, or almost any other Tree, the inner pulp or pith of the Cany hollow stalks of several other Vegetables:  as of Fennel, Carrets, Daucus, Bur-docks, Teasels, Fearn, some kinds of Reeds, &c. have much such a kind of Schematisme, as I have lately shewn that of Cork, save onely that here the pores are rang’d the long-ways, or the same ways with the length of the Cane, whereas in Cork they are transverse.

The pith also that fills that part of the stalk of a Feather that is above the Quil, has much such a kind of texture, save onely that which way soever I set this light substance, the pores seem’d to be cut transversly; so that I ghess this pith which fills the Feather, not to consist of abundance of long pores separated with Diaphragms, as Cork does, but to be a kind of solid or hardned froth, or a congeries of very small bubbles consolidated in that form, into a pretty stiff as well as tough concrete, and that each Cavern, Bubble, or Cell, is distinctly separate from any of the rest, without any kind of hole in the encompassing films, so that I could no more blow through a piece of this kinde of substance, then I could through a piece of Cork, or the sound pith of an Elder.