Nor is the skin of animals only thus pervious, but even those of vegetables also seem to be the same; for otherwise I cannot conceive why, if two sprigs of Rosemary (for Instance) be taken as exactly alike in all particulars as can be, and the one be set with the bottom in a Glass of water, and the other be set just without the Glass, but in the Air onely, though you stop the lower end of that in the Air very carefully with Wax, yet shall it presently almost wither, whereas the other that seems to have a supply from the subjacent water by its small pipes, or microscopical pores, preserves its greenness for many days, and sometimes weeks.

Now, this to me, seems not likely to proceed from any other cause then the avolation of the juice through the skin; for by the Wax, all those other pores of the stem are very firmly and closely stop’d up.  And from the more or less porousness of the skins or rinds of Vegetables may, perhaps, be somewhat of the reason given, why they keep longer green, or sooner wither; for we may observe by the bladdering and craking of the leaves of Bays, Holly, Laurel, &c. that their skins are very close, and do not suffer so free a passage through them of the included juices.

But of this, and of the Experiment of the Rosemary, I shall elsewhere more fully consider, seeming to me an extreme luciferous Experiment, such as seems indeed very plainly to prove the Schematism or structure of Vegetables altogether mechanical, and as necessary, that (water and warmth being apply’d to the bottom of the sprig of a Plant) some of it should be carried upwards into the stem, and thence distributed into the leaves, as that the water of the Thames covering the bottom of the Mills at the Bridge foot of London, and by the ebbing and flowing of it, passing strongly by them, should have some part of it convey’d to the Cesterns above, and thence into several houses and Cesterns up and down the City.

* * * * *

Observ.  XXXIII. Of the Scales_ of a Soal, and other Fishes._

Having hinted somewhat of the skin and covering of terrestrial Animals, I shall next add an Observation I made on the skin and Scales of a Soal, a small Fish, commonly enough known; and here in Fishes, as well as other Animals, Nature follows its usual method, framing all parts so, as that they are both usefull and ornamental in all its composures, mingling utile and dulce together; and both these designs it seems to follow, though our unassisted senses are not able to peceive them:  This is not onely manifest in the covering of this Fish, but in multitudes of others, which it would be too long to enumerate, witness particularly that small Sand Shell, which I mention’d in the XI.  Observation, and infinite other small Shells and Scales, divers of which I have view’d.  This skin I view’d, was flead from a pretty large Soal, and then