in Organic and Inorganic Bodies. S65 



arsenic. In a word, in every mineral which I could reduce to 

 a powder, sufficiently fine to be temporarily suspended in water, 

 I found these molecules more or less copiously ; and in some 

 cases, more particularly in silicious crystals, the whole body 

 submitted to examination appeared to be composed of them. 



In many of the substances examined, especially those of a 

 fibrous structure, as asbestus, actinolite, tremolite, zeolite, and 

 even steatite, along with the spherical molecules, other corpuscules 

 were found, like short fibres somewhat moniliform, whose trans- 

 verse diameter appeared not to exceed that of the molecule of 

 which they seemed to be primary combinations. These fibrils, 

 when of such length as to be probably composed of not more 

 than four or five molecules, and still more evidently when formed 

 of two or three only, were generally in motion, at least as vivid 

 as that of the simple molecule itself; and which from the fibril 

 often changing its portion in the fluid, and from its occasional 

 bending, might be said to be somewhat vermicular. 



In other bodies which did not exhibit these fibrils, oval par- 

 ticles of a size about equal to two molecules, and which were 

 also conjectured to be primary combinations of these, were not 

 unfrequently met with, and in motion generally more vivid 

 than that of the simple molecule ; their motion consisting in 

 turning usually on their longer axis, and then often appearing 

 to be flattened. Such oval particles were found to be nume- 

 rous and extremely active in white arsenic. 



As mineral bodies which had been fused contained the moving 

 molecules as abundantly as those of alluvial deposits, I was de- 

 sirous of ascertaining whether the mobility of the particles ex- 

 isting in organic bodies was in any degree affected by the ap- 

 plication of intense heat to the containing substance. With 

 this view small portions of wood, both living and dead, linen, 

 paper, cotton, wool, silk, hair, and muscular fibres, were exposed 

 to the flame of a candle, or burned in platina forceps, heated by 

 the blowpipe ; and in all these bodies so heated, quenched in 

 water, and immediately submitted to examination, the molecules 

 were found, and in as evident motion as those obtained from the 

 same substances before burning. 



In some of the vegetable bodies burned in this manner, in 

 addition to the simple molecules, primary combinations of these 



