VOL. XXV.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 373 



composed of screw-like parts, as seen in four of them between i and h. From 

 this observation I supposed, that they were not at first made in an instant of 

 time, but that they gradually receive their increavse. 



Whether the china chinae be of two sorts of trees, is not now the subject of 

 my inquiry, but in the mean time I judge by those pieces of bark which I had, 

 that they are for the most part taken from the exterior part of the bark, which 

 is in a manner perished, for want of enjoying any longer its nourishment from 

 J^he tree; and since the smoother inner bark, which I steeped some days in 

 brandy, would not subside, but floated therein almost equal with the surface, 

 one would be apt to conclude, that the heaviness of the bark depended on the 

 multiplicity of those long particles represented by fig; 15. To give a true idea 

 of the horizontal vessels in this bark, I caused a small part of them to be drawn, 

 as in fig. 17, which vessels lay very near the extremity or outside of the bark, 

 and in which the painter could discover only three long particles, km, pm, 

 and po. 



Having infused the bark in various liquids, to examine any salts that might 

 be obtained, I took a little of the brandy, about the quantity of 3 or 4 grains 

 of sand, in which some of the china chinas had been infused, but not in whole 

 pieces, and mixed it with about a like quantity of my blood, which by the prick 

 of a needle I had drawn out of my finger, and very quickly placed it before my 

 microscope; and then with great amazement observed the operation of this 

 mingled stuff, in which there was such a fermenting and running about of the 

 parts, as is impossible to be expressed ; and in these commotions I observed, 

 that most of the globules of the blood, which are the cause of its redness, were 

 dissolved, and I judged that this fermentation lasted about a quarter of a 

 minute. 



I also mixed my blood with some French wine, in which the bark had been 

 infused, but discovered no such fermentation as I had observed before; but I 

 could perceive in some few places the globules of blood coagulated after such a 

 manner, that it appeared like a very thin membrane torn to pieces, and several 

 very thin fibres or threads thereof lay about, such as I had never seen before; 

 and I think I never saw so little coagulation of the globules of blood when 

 mingled with any liquid, as I perceived in this mixture; but when the blood was 

 dry, and where it had lain pretty thick, there it was so much coagulated, that 

 there could be no globules any longer observed therein. 



Now if we consider, that our stomachs deliver out such juices as coagulate 

 the common salts which are in our meat and drink, and discharge them with 

 the excrements, it is possible that many more parts of the china chinae are dis- 

 solved in the stomach, and such a coagulation caused in the chyle, that the 



