COLEPS. GUTTER-WATER 267 
almost exhaled, and the animalcule could no longer turn 
and twist itself about in it, it took on an oval figure, and 
stayed lying thus, without my being able to see that the 
moisture evaporated away out of the creature’s body, for 
it kept its oval figure. 
At this point Leeuwenhoek returns to his experiments with 
the Rotifers: but in the account of their revivification after 
drying he notes that he 
also saw two several sorts of little animalcules 
a-swimming through the water, whereof the least were so 
little, that many thousands together would not equal a 
coarse grain of sand in bigness.’ 
After some further remarks on Rotifers he then says: 
Once more we see here the unconceivable Providence, 
perfection, and order, bestowed by the Lord Creator of 
the Universe upon such little creatures which escape our 
bare eye, in order that their kind shouldn’t die out. 
From these discoveries we can well understand that in 
all falling rain, carried from gutters into water-butts, 
animalcules are to be found; and that in all kinds of 
water, standing in the open air, animalcules can turn up. 
For these animalcules can be carried over by the wind, 
along with the bits of dust floating in the air: and on the 
other hand, animalcules which are a hundred million 
times and more smaller than a coarse grain of sand, can 
be borne aloft, along with the water particles, albeit not 
as high as the clouds, but at least a little way up; and 
then when the sun goes down, they fall to earth in what 
we call dew; and they may well be taken up too and 
carried along by the wind. This is the more probable, 
since we know that in a storm the sea is so lashed on the 
shore by the wind, that drops of sea-water are found on 
trees, running down their trunks, and still salty, more 
than half-an-hour’s journey from the coast. This salt 
" Lit. cit., Brieven III, p. 409. These were evidently not Rotifers but 
Protozoa or Bacteria. 
