504 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 692-3. 



times appeared oval, and at other times round ; they moved swiftly by each 

 other, like gnats playing in the air ; and of these I discerned thousands in a 

 drop of water ; they showed no larger than a sand, and in the drop, the water 

 was to the animalcules as Q to 1. But most of the matter I examined, con- 

 sisting of long slender parts, all of a thickness, but differing in length ; and 

 because I have formerly observed animalcules of this shape in water, I en- 

 deavoured to discover if these lived, but could not. I have found the same in 

 the matter taken from between the teeth of other persons, as well such as 

 drank wine and smoked tobacco, as of such as did neither, but not in their 

 spittle, in which I found no animalcules. I found the same after I had washed 

 my teeth very well with vinegar, though the vinegar killed them when they 

 were put into it. Amongst the rest I saw some transparent particles 25 times 

 larger than a blood globule, which had they not sunk down in the liquor, I 

 should have taken for particles of fat. 



I examined the supposed worms taken out of the skin of the nose and other 

 parts of the face, but found them only soft brittle particles of fat : and per- 

 ceiving on my nose several small black specks, I squeezed out some, and found 

 them to be only a bundle of hairs, and in one of these I told 36 small hairs, 

 besides the matter that stuck about them. 



In a letter to Mr. Oldenburg, in the year 1074, I mentioned that I could 

 not otherwise perceive, but that the scarf-insensible-skin consisted of small 

 round scales, and declared my sense of the skin's fabric thus, that continually 

 as it was worn away on the outside, it was supplied from beneath, and in several 

 observations since I have found nothing new. These scales I judge so minute, 

 that a sand might cover 200 or more of them ; but viewing them with a better 

 microscope, I find they are not formed by the moisture transpiring through the 

 skin, as I then imagined ; but that all the upper part of our skin is scaly, if I 

 may be allowed to use that word, for they are very like those of fish, though 

 they are without comparison smaller, and serve to the same purpose, which is, 

 to defend the skin. These scales lay over one another as those of fish : they 

 were five-sided, and I could plainly perceive a border or line about them. I 

 guessed they were about 23 times broader than thick ; they lay three double, 

 for there was not above -|- of each visible. The scales of fish lie after the same 

 manner, only they never shed their scales, and our skin peels often, sometimes 

 1000 scales more and more, together in a flake. 



By these observations I have now, as well as formerly, shown, that there are 

 no pores in our upper skin, but that the moisture thrust out of our body gets 

 through between the scales, at which places there may be possibly channels for 

 it to issue at. — If we consider, that 200 of these scales may be covered with a 



