Micrographia eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 539 pages of information about Micrographia.

Micrographia eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 539 pages of information about Micrographia.

Sixthly that the number of the Pearls or Hemispheres in the clusters of this Fly, was neer 14000. which I judged by numbering certain rows of them several ways, and casting up the whole content, accounting each cluster to contain about seven thousand Pearls, three thousand of which were of a size, and consequently the rows not so thick, and the foure thousand I accounted to be the number of the smaller Pearls next the feet and proboscis.  Other Animals I observ’d to have yet a greater number, as the Dragon-Fly or Adderbolt:  And others to have a much less company, as an Ant, &c. and several other small Flies and Insects.

Seventhly, that the order of these eies or Hemispheres was altogether curious and admirable, they being plac’d in all kind of Flies, and aerial animals, in a most curious and regular ordination of triangular rows, in which order they are rang’d the neerest together that possibly they can, and consequently leave the least pits or trenches between them.  But in Shrimps, Crawfishes, Lobsters, and such kinds of Crustaceous water Animals, I have yet observ’d them rang’d in a quadrangular order, the rows cutting each other at right angles, which as it admits of a less number of Pearls in equal surfaces; so have those creatures a recompence made them, by having their eyes a little movable in their heads, which the other altogether want.  So infinitely wise and provident do we find all the Dispensations in Nature, that certainly Epicurus, and his followers, must very little have consider’d them, who ascrib’d those things to the production of chance, that wil, to a more attentive considerer, appear the products of the highest Wisdom and Providence.

Upon the Anatomy or Dissection of the Head, I observ’d these particulars: 

First, that this outward skin, like the Cornea of the eyes of the greater Animals, was both flexible and transparent, and seem’d, through the Microscope perfectly to resemble the very substance of the Cornea of a man’s eye; for having cut out the cluster, and remov’d the dark and mucous stuff that is subjacent to it, I could see it transparent like a thin piece of skin, having as many cavities in the inside of it, and rang’d in the same order as it had protuberances on the outside, and this propriety, I found the same in all the Animals that had it, whether Flies or Shell-Fish.

Secondly, I found that all Animals that I have observ’d with those kind of eyes; have within this Cornea, a certain cleer liquor or juice, though in a very little quantity, and,

I observ’d thirdly, that within that cleer liquor, they had a kind of dark mucous lining, which was all spread round within the cavity of the clutter, and seem’d very neer adjoining to it, the colour of which, in some Flies, was grey; in others, black, in others red; in others, of a mix’d colour; in others, spotted; and that the whole clusters, when look’d on whilst the Animal was living, or but newly kill’d, appear’d of the same colour that this coat (as I may so call it) appear’d of, when that outward skin, or Cornea, was remov’d.

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Micrographia from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.