LEEUWENHOEK'S OBSERVATIONS. J 



stopped. In it I could discover no living creatures : And having poured some of it 

 into a porcelain thea-cup, I put therein half an ounce of whole pepper, and so I 

 placed it in my study. Observing it daily until the 3rd of May, I could never 

 discover any living thing in it ; and by this time the water was so far evaporated, 

 and imbibed by the pepper, that some of the pepper-corns began to lye dry. This 

 water was now very thick of odd particles ; and then I poured more snow-water to 

 the pepper, until the pepper-corns were cover'd with water half an inch high. 

 Whereupon viewing it again the 4th and 5th of May, I found no living creatures in 

 it ; but the 6th I did very many, and these exceeding small ones, whose body seemed 

 to me twice as long as broad ; but they moved very slowly and often round ways. 



" The 7th I saw them yet in far greater numbers. 



" The loth I put more snow-water to the pepper, because the former was again 

 so exhaled, that the pepper-corns began to dry again. 



"The 1 3th and i4th I saw the little creatures as before ; but the i8th the water 

 was again so dryed away, that it made me pour in more of it. And the 23rd I 

 discovered, besides the aforesaid little animals, another sort, that were perfectly 

 oval, and in figure like cuckow-eggs. Me thought the head of them stood on the 

 sharp end : their body did consist, within, of 10, 12 or 14 globuls, which lay separate 

 from one another. When I put these animalcula in a dry place, they then changed 

 their body into a perfect round and often burst asunder, and the globuls, together 

 with some aqueous particles, spread themselves everywhere about, without my being 

 able to discern any other remains. These globuls, which in the bursting of these 

 creatures did flow asunder here and there, were about the bigness of the first very 

 small creatures. And though as yet I could not discern any feet in them, yet 

 me thought, they must needs be furnished with very many, seeing that the smallest 

 creatures, which I said before to be very plentiful in the water, and lay sometimes 

 more than 100 of them on one of the oval creatures, were by the motion made in 

 the water by the great ones (though to my eye they seem'd to lye still) driven away 

 by them as we blow a feather from our mouth. Of the same oval creatures I never 

 could discover any very little ones, how attentive soever I was to observe them. 



"The 24th of May observing this water again, I found in it the oval little 

 animals in a much greater abundance. And in the evening of the same day, I 

 perceived so great a plenty of the same oval ones, that 'tis not one only thousand 

 which I saw in one drop ; and of the very small ones, several thousands in one drop.* 



"The 25th I saw yet more oval creatures : and the 26th I found so vast a plenty 

 of these oval creatures, that I believe there were more than 6 or 8000 in one drop, 

 besides the abundance of those very little animals whose number was yet far greater. 

 This water I took from the very surface ; but when I took up any from beneath, I 

 found that not so full of them by far. Observing that these creatures did augment 

 into vast numbers, but not being able to observe them increase in bigness, I began 

 to think whether they might not in a moment, as 'twere, be composed or put 

 together : But this speculation I leave to others. The 26th of May at night, I 

 discovered almost none of the little creatures, but saw some with tayls, of which I 

 have spoken heretofore, to have seen them in rain-water : But there drove in the 

 water throughout an infinity of little particles, like very thin hairs, only with this 

 difference, that some of them were bent. 



" May the 26th, I took about ^ of an ounce of whole pepper, and having 

 pounded it small, I put it into a thea-cup with z\ ounces of rain-water upon it, stirring 

 it about, the better to mingle the pepper with it, and then suffering the pepper to 

 fall to the bottom. After it had so stood an hour or two, I took some of the water, 

 before spoken of, wherein the whole pepper lay, and wherein were so many several 

 sorts of little animals ; and mingled it with this water, wherein the pounded pepper 

 had lain an hour or two, and observed that when there was much of the water of 

 the pounded pepper, with that other, the said animals soon died, but when little they 

 remained alive." 



* " This phenomenon and some of the following ones seeming to be very extraordinary, the author 

 hath been desired to acquaint us with his method of observing, that others may confirm such 

 observations as these." 



