LEEUWENHOEtfS OBSERVATIONS. 3 



related, such truly astonishing results were obtained, and out of which 

 the highly perfected optical instruments of the present day have, by slow 

 and tedious steps, been finally elaborated. Fontana, of Naples, Cornelius 

 Drebell, the Dutchman, and Zacharius Jansen and son, fellow-country- 

 men of Drebell, have thus alike been respectively credited by different 

 authorities with this distinction. However this may be, it is at all events 

 generally conceded that the microscope, in its simplest form, was first 

 brought into public notice in or about the year 1619. Regarded at this 

 early date in the mere light of an ingenious and interesting toy, little or no 

 promise was then given of the important r61e in the onward march of 

 science it was afterwards destined to fulfil. Nearly half a century, indeed, 

 elapsed before its aid was invoked for the systematic exploration of the 

 hidden mysteries of nature. With the exception, perhaps, of the Italian 

 philosopher Petrus Borellus, our own countryman Dr. Robert Hooke, 

 author in the year 1665 of the famous ' Micrograph i a Illustrata,' claims the 

 first place in the ranks of scientific microscopic investigators. The dis- 

 covery of the minute organic beings that form the special subject of this 

 treatise, fell, however, a few years later to the lot of the illustrious Dutch- 

 man Antony van Leeuwenhoek. The accounts of the animalcules first 

 observed, as given by Leeuwenhoek and a few other investigators who, 

 animated by his example, towards the close of the seventeenth century 

 devoted their attention to the further exploration of this fascinating and 

 then newly opened field for discovery, possess intrinsically such high classic 

 interest, and display, notwithstanding the simple and imperfect character 

 of the optical appliances employed, so keen an insight into, and appreciation 

 of, the structural features and phenomena of the various forms encountered, 

 that quotations from the same, with a faithful reproduction of their original 

 quaint style of diction, are herewith appended in extenso. Leeuwenhoek's 

 earliest contribution to the literature of this subject necessarily takes the 

 first place upon the list, and is found embodied in the 'Philosophical 

 Transactions,' vol. xii. No. 133, for the year 1677. The title of his first 

 record and associated account of the various species therein described runs 

 as follows : 



" Observations communicated to the Publisher by Mr. Antony van Leeuwenhoek, in 

 a Dutch letter of the gth of October, 1676, here Englished, concerning little 

 animals observed in Rain, Well, Sea, and Snow Water, as also in Water wherein 

 Pepper had lain infused." 



OBSERVATION I. 



"In the year 1675 I discovered living creatures in rain-water which had stood 

 but four days in a new earthen pot, glased blew within. This invited me to view this 

 water with great attention, especially those little animals appearing to me ten 

 thousand times less than those represented by Mons. Swammerdam, and by him called 

 water-fleas or water-lice, which may be perceived in the water with the naked eye. 

 The first sort by me discovered in the said water, I divers times observed to consist 

 f 5> 6, 7, or 8 clear globules, without being able to discover any film that 

 held them together, or contained them. When these animalcula or living atoms 



B 2 



