LETTER 18. VINEGAR, GINGER-WATER 153 
had broken in pieces, lie a-writhing, and remain alive so 
long, that it wearied me to keep my eye upon it. I have 
also seen two small living eels come forth from an eel 
after I had cut it in pieces: and they moved themselves, 
and swam, and were in bigness like the smallest sort. To 
sum up, the more observations I made on this matter, 
the clearer did I demonstrate that the small living eels 
come out of eels: and I conceive also that ’tis certain 
I have seen the little eels alive in the big eels; but this 
came to my notice only when I had taken the big eels 
out of the vinegar, and when they lay a-dying.’ 
[ Observations on Ginger-water. | 
The 6th of May, 1676, I put into a porcelain tea-cup, 
which holds a little more than 24 ounces of water, three 
of the ordinary large pieces” of ginger, after I had first 
of all bruised them a bit with a hammer; merely with 
the idea of seeing if the snow-water which I poured on 
the ginger would bring forth living creatures with it. 
The 14th ditto. I observed this water almost every 
day, but till now I could perceive no living animalcules ; 
and by this time the water was so dried up, or drawn into 
the ginger, that I poured fresh water upon it. 
The 29th ditto, having again examined this water 
almost from day to day since the 14th, I now discovered 
* L. at this point enters upon a long digression (about one whole page), 
in which he describes and discusses the structure of the peppercorns them- 
selves and attempts to explain why they have a hot taste. This leads him 
further to discuss the constitution of wheat and other kinds of grain, and 
several physiological problems suggested by his observations. After this he 
suddenly returns to his experiments with infusions, and at this point I have 
resumed my translation. The observations here omitted have no interest 
from a protistological standpoint. 
* clawwen MS. UL. evidently means the broken pieces of the dried 
rhizome of the plant, as commonly sold by apothecaries.—I am informed 
that the irregularly branching pieces of rhizome are known in the trade as 
“hands” of ginger: and I take it that L.’s “ claws” were the broken-off 
“fingers” of such “ hands”’. 
