( 285 ) 



After this I, at two feveral times, examined the water which had 

 Hood a Uttle longer on the caput mortuum, or afhes, and then I law 

 a greater number of the particles with fix fides : I alfo faw a few 

 particles like thofe reprefented at Jig. 11,0. 



Moreover, I put a parcel of Tea in cold clear rain water, and af- 

 terwards fome Tea in hot water, in the fame manner as it is com- 

 monly made for drinking ; this infufion of Tea I fuffered to evapo- 

 rate in part, and, in various obfervations upon it, I always found that 

 there were formed in it manyfaline particles, coagulated or concreted 

 together, as reprefented at Jig. 13, Q, and Jig 15, S ; thefe were of 

 various lizes, and many of them fo miniite as to be almoft invifible. 



Thefe faline particles could not at firil be eafily diftinguiflied, by 

 reafon of the multitudes of fmall particles which were floating in 

 the fluids, in fuch numbers that they made the water thick or 

 muddy, fo that it feemed to me impofllble that hot water could, in 

 fo flioi-t a time, extra6t fuch a number of faline particles from the 

 Tea : and I formed an opinion that the many faline particles in Tea 

 w^ere of fuch a nature and property as to coagulate, or rather con- 

 denfe, the particles in water, which we call watery particles, and 

 that moll of thofe wonderfully minute particles, which I have faid 

 rendered the water turbid or muddy, did not derive their origin from 

 the Tea, but from the water itfelf. Whence I concluded that all 

 the virtue or efled: of Tea, when taken into our bodies, conlifls in 

 this, that it occalions a great coagulation or condenfation of the 

 thick particles of the chyle in the llomach and intellines ; whence 

 the other particles or fubflance of the chyle, which palles to the 

 nouriihment of our bodies, being rendered very fluid, the blood may 

 be in a fliort time diluted or rendered thinner, by which diluting or 

 thinning of the blood we are often relieved from pain in the head, 

 and our whole body refrefhed. 



I might here add my fentiments as to the reafons why drinking 

 Tea is fo very falubrious to many people, though the ufe of it docs 

 not agree with fome few. But, as thefe my fentiments might not 



