parts fly in pieces, because the parts have no bended Springs.  The relaxation also in the temper of hardned Steel, and hammered Metals, by nealing them in the fire, seems to proceed from much the same cause.  For both by quenching suddenly such Metals as have vitrifed parts interspers’d, as Steel has, and by hammering of other kinds that do not so much abound with them, as Silver Brass, &c. the parts are put into and detained in a bended posture, which by the agitation of Heat are shaken, and loosened, and suffered to unbend themselves.

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Observ.  VIII. Of the fiery Sparks struck from a Flint or Steel.

It is a very common Experiment, by striking with a Flint against a Steel, to make certain fiery and shining Sparks to fly out from between those two compressing Bodies.  About eight years since, upon casually reading the Explication of this odd Phaenomenon, by the most Ingenious Des Cartes, I had a great desire to be satisfied, what that Substance was that gave such a shining and bright Light:  And to that end I spread a sheet of white Paper, and on it, observing the place where several of these Sparks seemed to vanish, I found certain very small, black, but glittering Spots of a movable Substance, each of which examining with my Microscope, I found to be a small round Globule; some of which, as they looked prety small, so did they from their Surface yield a very bright and strong reflection on that side which was next the Light; and each look’d almost like a prety bright Iron-Ball, whose Surface was prety regular, such as is represented by the Figure A. In this I could perceive the Image of the Window prety well, or of a Stick, which I moved up and down between the Light and it.  Others I found, which were, as to the bulk of the Ball, prety regularly round, but the Surface of them, as it was not very smooth, but rough, and more irregular, so was the reflection from it more faint and confused.  Such were the Surfaces of B. C. D. and E. Some of these I found cleft or cracked, as C, others quite broken in two and hollow, as D. which seemed to be half the hollow shell of a Granado, broken irregularly in pieces.  Several others I found of other shapes; but that which is represented by E, I observed to be a very big Spark of fire, which went out upon one side of the Flint that I struck fire withall, to which it stuck by the root F, at the end of which small Stem was fastened-on a Hemisphere, or half a hollow Ball, with the mouth of it open from the stemwards, so that it looked much like a Funnel, or an old fashioned Bowl without a foot.  This night, making many tryals and observations of this Experiment, I met, among a multitude of the Globular ones which I had observed, a couple of Instances, which are very remarkable to the confirmation of my Hypothesis.

And the First was of a pretty big Ball fastened on to the end of a small sliver of Iron, which Compositum seemed to be nothing else but a long thin chip of Iron, one of whose ends was melted into a small round Globul; the other end remaining unmelted and irregular, and perfectly Iron.