LETTER 150. 5 FEBRUARY 1703 287 
Nearly all of these branch-like particles were fixed by 
their little stalks to the glass, and seemed to have had 
their beginnings in a little bit of matter that was stuck 
to the glass. 
To satisfy myself further hereof, on the foresaid fourth 
of August I put some of the water that was flowing along 
in front of my dwelling into another glass tube, which 
was rather longer and wider than the first, after flinging 
away the first and second lots of water that entered the 
tube. 
IT examined this water divers times; and after it had 
stood some thirty hours in the tube, I discovered the 
bough-like structures as perfect as I have before described 
them; and among others, one that lay so that the thick 
stem from which the other branches sprouted seemed 
right against my eye. 
I fixed a microscope before this last-mentioned particle, 
with the idea of finding out if ’twould grow bigger in the 
course of time. 
After the lapse of another six hours, I couldn’t discern 
that it had increased in bigness; but now I perceived 
that the extreme tips of the twigs, which were more than 
twenty! in number, were nearly all beset with round 
transparent globules,” whose diameters were quite three 
times that of the extremities of the topmost twigs. 
As I now saw that some transparent animalcules, of 
the bigness of the round globules just described, were 
moving about among the twigs, it occurred to me that 
the round globules also might be animalcules, and that 
these animalcules had made themselves fast on the 
extremities of the little twigs aforesaid.’ 
RI ROE Ea SN Oe EE De ee 
1 meer dan twintig MS. Chamberlayne wrongly translates “ about 
twenty ’’. 
? bolletjens MS. Chamberlayne translates “bubbles” —quasi belletjens. 
But I think this somewhat distorts the sense. Bol and bel are not equivalent, 
and I. does not use their diminutives indiscriminately. 
* The flagellates forming the flower-like “heads” of Anthophysa do, in 
fact, frequently break off and swim away. 
