402 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1677. 



branes are made up of so many filaments or threads, as if with our naked eye we 

 saw the omentum of an animal. Observing these membranes more narrowly, I 

 saw that they wholly and only consist of small threads running through each 

 other; of which some appeared to be 10, 20, and even 50 times thinner than a 

 hair. — Having taken off these membranes from the carneous filaments, I saw 

 very clearly these carneous threads, which in this piece of flesh were as thick as 

 a hair on the hand. Where they lay rather thick on each other, they appeared 

 red ; but the thinner they were spread the clearer they showed. 



I have used several methods of viewing the particles of these carneous fila- 

 ments, and have always found that they are composed of globular parts. I have 

 also divided before my eye, into many small parts, very small pieces of these 

 carneous filaments, which pieces were several times smaller than a grain of sand; 

 and I have observed besides, that, when the flesh is fresh and moist, and its 

 globules are pressed or rubbed, they dissolve and run together, in appearance 

 like an oily or thick waterish matter. Which globules appearing so small, that 

 1 ,000,000 of them would not make one grain of gravel sand. The general 

 figure of these globules being roundish, but a little compressed, like a multitude 

 of very small blown bladders, lying on a heap. 



I have examined also that membrane of the brain, which is called pia mater, 

 and found that it is permeated by very many small veins, besides those which 

 with the naked eye we see on the brain, especially having first separated the 

 thin membrane from the brain, under which I have seen small veins of an ad- 

 mirable and incredible fineness, and as far as I was able to discern they consist 

 of exceedingly thin filaments. — I have further observed, that the said veins which 

 thus run through the thin membrane, disseminate their ramifications through 

 the brain, after the manner as vines lying upon the earth shoot roots into the 

 ground ; imagining the brain to be like the earth, and the veins like the roots 

 in it. 



Proceeding to the parts of the brain itself, I must still say of them that they 

 consist of no other parts but globules ; but where the brain lay spread very thin, 

 cut through with a knife, as if they had been separated from each other, there 

 they appeared like a very clear matter resembling oil. Continuing my observations, 

 not only of the brains of beasts but also of fishes, and particularly of a cod-fish, 

 and representing it very plainly to my eye, I saw that the said oleaginous matter 

 had not been caused by the knife, but was a matter by itself, wherein the afore- 

 said globules lay. I saw moreover, but most plainly in the brain of a cod-fish, 

 that the said oleous matter consisted of yet much smaller globules than the 

 other. — ^The former or larger globules of the brain I judged about the size of 

 those which I formerly said the blood was made up of, which render the blood 



