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glafs tubes, wherein T poured foine rain water which had been boiled 

 and afterwards cooled. 



This fediment confifted of a fmall portion of earth, fome fand, 

 pieces of mortar ; and among it were mixed fome pieces of hair, 

 threads of wool of different colours, and bits of ftraw, which things 

 we may fuppofe to have been brought thither by the winds ; and 

 the furface of it conlifted of thofe red and green Animalcules, ap- 

 parently dead. 



As foon as I had poured on the water, I ftirred the whole about, 

 that the fediment which, by means of the hairs in it, feemed to ad- 

 here like a folid body, might be the fooner mixed with the water : 

 and when it had fettled to the bottom of the glafs, I examined it, and 

 perceived fome of the Animalcules lying clofely heaped together. In 

 a Ihort time afterwards they began to extend their bodies, and in 

 half an hour at leaft an hundred of them were fv^imming about the 

 glafs, though the whole of the fediment which I had put into it did 

 not, in my judgment, exceed the weight of two grains. After five 

 or fix hours had elapfed I faw two feveral forts of Animalcules f\\ im- 

 ming in the water, the leaft of which were fo minute, that many 

 thoufands of them would fcarcely equal the fize of a grain of fand. 



The preceding experiment I afterwards repeated, and met with 

 the fame event. 



Thus we fee that thefe Animalcules, when the water dries away, 

 contrail their bodies into an oval Ihape, and, even in the heat of 

 fummer, preferve their oval lliape for a long time : and, that when 

 they are again fupplied with water, they, in a very little time, unfold 

 and extend their different limbs or organs, ufing them in the fame 

 manner, and with the like motions as they did before the want of 

 water caufed them to contraft themfelves. And this I obferved, not 

 only in the full grown ones, but in the moft minute of thofe Ani- 

 malcules. 



Hence we may conclude, that in like manner as the fhells of the 

 eggs of moths or butterflies, whence caterpillars are hatched. 



