VOL. XXVI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTIONS. 5lQ 



Observations on the Hair mentioned in the foregoing Letter^ &c. By Mr. 

 Lemvenhoeck, F. R. S. N° 323, p. 41 6. 



Viewing part of the aforesaid hairy substance through a microscope, I judge 

 it to be the hair or white wool of a sheep ; which wool was broken into such 

 small or short particles, that some of them were no longer than 6 hairs 

 breadths. I suppose it had been found in the heel of a stocking; and the of- 

 tener I repeated my observations, the more I was confirmed in my opinion ; for 

 I could not only discover the short broken woolly particles, but I saw also a 

 great number of the ends ground to pieces as it were; so that not only the 

 outside of the woolly particles were rubbed off, but the inner little hairs, of 

 which the wool is composed, were so divided from each other, that they ap- 

 peared with their ends like little brushes. Also under these white woolly parts, 

 there lay very small particles, composed of exceedingly slender little tubes or 

 pipes, which seemed to be small bits of straw ; there were other small particles 

 of the same figure, seemingly the outer husk or skin of a grain of wheat or 

 rye; and under those I saw one particle covered all over with small hairs, such 

 as we see at the top of wheat or rye; as also some few little bits of wool, 

 rather thicker than a hair: there was also a small particle of the outer skin of a 

 man, for I could see the little scales of which our outer skin is composed very 

 plainly. Now those particles that were not wool, might be very easily brought 

 into the stocking, in case the bare foot is set upon the floor before putting it 

 on. 



There lay in the said matter a vast number of exceedingly slender long par- 

 ticles, which I imagine to be those hairy particles, of which a small fibre of 

 wool is composed ; as also several earthy particles, which I took to be part of 

 the dirt of the floor, or of the foot itself. There lay also a great many particular 

 small figures, but I could not discover what they were ; and these were so 

 strongly joined to some little hairs or wool, by the perspired viscous matter from 

 the foot, as I suppose, that I could not separate them without the help of water: 

 among others, 1 also saw two slender particles lying, which I should likewise 

 have taken for the outer skin of a man, were it not that they were larger than 

 any of the scales that I could ever take from my skin, which are mostly of an 

 equal thickness. In short, there appeared so many and such particular figures, 

 that there was no account to be given of them ; only I observed among them 

 one small particle, not of a single feather, such as it appears to our naked eye 

 on the body of a bird, but rather of the finest down ; and the more I unravelled 

 or separated the particles of wool from one another, still the greater reason had 

 I to judge, that the person who had worn the stocking, had been used to go 



