VOL. XLV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SIS' 



arteries ; and in one of his letters to Mr. Oldenburg says, that he saw more in 

 one minute than the most accurate anatomist could discover by dissection in a 

 day : but when he afterwards changed this system, false as it was, of nerves and 

 arteries for another, he believes as false, that of pre-existing germs in the sper- 

 matic animals, he neglected to improve this observation as he might have done ; 

 nay he afterwards took no further notice of it, but barely to say, that it was tc 

 be neglected. This remark he had from M. de BufFon. 



The difference therefore between Mr. Lewenhoeck and Dr. Harvey was, that 

 the first had an hypothesis to maintain, and the latter nothing in view but to 

 follow nature, without trusting too much to the first phenomena, as he hoped 

 he should appear to have done in this his inquiry. 



He recollects one remark that coincided with his system ; that though ani- 

 mal and vegetable substances by a chemical analysis appear to differ, they are 

 nevertheless found by a natural corruption to be reducible to the same principles. 

 This had been observed long ago by many naturalists. 



Fig. 5 represents the origin of the spermatic animals. Fig. 6, the wheat 

 infusion. Fig. 7, what he has called an island in the wheat infusion. Fig. 8, 

 a group of the chrysalids of the paste-eels. Fig. Q, is a draught of one of the 

 first microscopical plants or zoophytes which he discovered ; where A shows 

 the figure of the plant throwing out its animals, and b the same again after the 

 animals were discharged, again putting out a new shoot from the stem below, 

 through the hollow transparent head, to form a new head, and jjroduce another 

 generation. 



Astronomical Observations made at Paraguay in South America, from the Year 

 1706 to 1730. Communicated by James de Castro Sarmento, M. D., CoL 

 Land. Lie. and F.R.S. N" 490, p. 667. 



These observations were made at the town of St. Ignatius in Paraguay, by 

 Father Bonaventura Suarez, a Jesuit missionary, with a 5-foot telescope, and a 

 second's pendulum, rectified to true time by altitudes of the fixed stars. The 

 latitude of the place being 26° 52' south, and longitude from Paris 3*^ 57"^ 50*. 



The sun was eclipsed, anno 1706, Nov. 5. It began at 8^ 52' in the morn- 

 ing, and ended at 1 ]•" IS'", the greatest quantity at 9^ 50™ being 4 dig. o'. 



The solar eclipse of March 11, 1709, began before sun-rise, which that day 

 was at 5^ 53™. The eclipse ended at l'^ 37"" 15^. The greatest obscuration, at 

 6^ 15'", was 9 dig. 20'. 



The moon was observed eclipsed April 16, 1707. The beginning at 7^ 55™ 

 afternoon; total obscuration at 8'' 58™; and first emersion at 10*^45™. The 

 end was not observed for clouds. 



The moon was observed eclipsed, April 4, 1 708, afternoon. A sensible pe- 



