Nay, I have observ’d, that putting fair Water (whether Rain-water or Pump-water, or May-dew or Snow-water, it was almost all one) I have often observ’d, I say, that this Water would, with a little standing, tarnish and cover all about the sides of the Glass that lay under water, with a lovely green; but though I have often endeavour’d to discover with my Microscope whether this green were like Moss, or long striped Sea-weed, or any other peculiar form, yet so ill and imperfect are our Microscopes, that I could not certainly discriminate any.

Growing Trees also, and any kinds of Woods, Stones, Bones, &c. that have been long expos’d to the Air and Rain, will be all over cover’d with a greenish scurff, which will very much foul and green any kind of cloaths that are rubb’d against it; viewing this, I could not certainly perceive in many parts of it any determinate form, though in many I could perceive a Bed as ’twere of young Moss, but in other parts it look’d almost like green bushes, and very confus’d, but always of what ever irregular Figures the parts appear’d of, they were always green, and seem’d to be either some Vegetable, or to have some vegetating principle.

* * * * *

Observ.  XXII. Of common Sponges_, and several other Spongie fibrous bodies._

A Sponge is commonly reckon’d among the Zoophyts, or Plant Animals; and the texture of it, which the Microscope discovers, seems to confirm it; for it is of a form whereof I never observ’d any other Vegetable, and indeed, it seems impossible that any should be of it, for it consists of an infinite number of small short fibres, or nervous parts, much of the same bigness, curiously jointed or contex’d together in the form of a Net, as is more plainly manifest by the little Draught which I have added, in the third Figure of the IX. Scheme, of a piece of it, which you may perceive represents a confus’d heap of the fibrous parts curiously jointed and implicated.  The joints are, for the most part, where three fibres onely meet, for I have very seldom met with any that had four.

At these joints there is no one of the three that seems to be the stock whereon the other grow, but each of the fibres are, for the most part, of an equal bigness, and seem each of them to have an equal share in the joint; the fibres are all of them much about the same bigness, not smaller towards the top of the Sponge, and bigger neerer the bottom or root, as is usuall in Plants, the length of each between the joints, is very irregular and different; the distance between some two joints, being ten or twelve times more then between some others.

Nor are the joints regular, and of an equitriagonal Figure, but, for the most part, the three fibres so meet, that they compose three angles very differing all of them from one another.