LETTER 18. PEPPER-WATER 137 
now so dried away, that the pepper began again to he 
above the surface, I filled up the tea-cup with snow-water 
once more. 
On June the Ist, the animalcules were again in as 
great numbers as I had ever before seen, though I can’t 
say that I saw any of the very little ones. But now I 
could see very plain that the animalcules were furnished 
with very thin little legs,* which was a very pretty sight 
to see. 
The same day, I discovered some few very little round 
animalcules,’ that were about 8 times as big as the 
smallest animalcules of all. These had so swift a 
motion before the eye, as they darted among the others, 
that ’tis not to be believed. The big creatures, which 
were about 8 times smaller than the eye of a louse,’ were 
in no less number. 
My further observations on this water I have made no 
note of. 
8rd Observation [on Pepper-water]. 
On May the 26th, I took about $ of an ounce of whole 
pepper, and pounded it small, and then put it in a 
tea-cup in which there was about 22 ounces of rain-water, 
stirring this water about in order that the pepper might 
mix itself with the water and then sink to the bottom. 
And after letting it stand thus an hour or two, I took 
some of the forementioned water in which the whole 
pepper lay, and which contained a multiplicity of little 
animals, and mixed it with this water wherein the 
pounded pepper had now lain for one or two hours: and 
_ 
i.e., the cilia on the ciliates (? Colpidiwm). 
* Probably larger bacteria. 
* This is the first indication which L. gives of the size of his ciliates. 
‘About 8 times smaller’? means “having a diameter of about a half”: 
and this therefore agrees with the supposition that the “ oval animalcule”’ 
was the small species (or variety) of Colpidiwm so commonly found in 
such infusions. 
