WITNESS OF ROYALTY AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY 185 
viewing with a good microscope such small pipes contain- 
ing the liquor or water, in which those multitudes of 
exceedingly small insects or animals wriggling among 
each other are discovered; for that he alledged, that the 
said pipes being filled with liquors became themselves as 
it were magnifying glasses. . . . . . It was therefore 
ordered, that against the next meeting pepper-water should 
be provided, and some better microscope than that made 
use of, that the truth of Mr. Leewenhoeck’s assertions 
might, if possible, be experimentally examined. 
Accordingly, at the next meeting, on 8 November 1677, 
“the first thing exhibited was the experiment charged on 
Mr. Hooke at the last meeting, of examining pepper-water with 
better microscopes and thinner and small pipes.”* But the 
experiment was not wholly satisfactory, and various objections 
to the observations were raised by the Fellows present. At 
the following meeting, however, on November 15, ample 
confirmation was forthcoming. In the words of Birch :* 
The first experiment there exhibited was the pepper- 
water, which had been made with rain-water and a small 
quantity of common black pepper put whole into it about 
nine or ten days before. In this Mr. Hooke had all the 
week discovered great numbers of exceedingly small 
animals swimming to and fro. They appeared of the 
bigness of a mite through a glass, that magnified about 
an hundred thousand. times in bulk; and consequently it 
was judged, that they were near an hundred thousand 
times less than a mite. Their shape was to appearance 
like a very small clear bubble of an oval or egg form; 
and the biggest end of this egg-lke bubble moved fore- 
most. They were observed to have all manner of motions 
to and fro in the water; and by all, who saw them, they 
were verily believed to be animals; and that there could 
be no fallacy in the appearance. ‘They were seen by Mr. 
' Birch, Vol. III, p. 349. 
* Bireh, Vol: IL, p: 352. 
