That which we may call the white was pretty whitish neer the yelk, but more duskie towards the shell; some of them I could plainly perceive to be shot or radiated like a Pyrites or fire-stone; the yelk in some I saw hollow, in others fill’d with a duskie brown and porous substance like a kind of pith.
The small pores, or interstitia eeee betwixt the Globules, I plainly saw, and found by other trials to be every way pervious to air and water, for I could blow through a piece of this stone of a considerable thickness, as easily as I have blown through a Cane, which minded me of the pores which Des Cartes allow his materia subtilis between the æthereal globules.
The object, through the Microscope, appears like a Congeries or heap of Pibbles, such as I have often seen cast up on the shore, by the working of the Sea after a great storm, or like (in shape, though not colour) a company of small Globules of Quicksilver, look’d on with a Microscope, when reduc’d into that form by the way lately mentioned. And perhaps, this last may give some hint at the manner of the formation of the former: For supposing some Lapidescent substance to be generated, or some way brought (either by some commixture of bodies in the Sea it self, or protruded in, perhaps, out of some subterraneous caverns) to the bottom of the Sea, and there remaining in the form of a liquor like Quicksilver, heterogeneous to the ambient Saline fluid, it may by the working and tumblings of the Sea to and fro be jumbled and comminuted into such Globules as may afterwards be hardned into Flints, the lying of which one upon another, when in the Sea, being not very hard, by reason of the weight of the incompassing fluid, may cause the undermost to be a little, though not much, varied from a globular Figure. But this only by the by.
After what manner this Kettering-stone should be generated I cannot learn, having never been there to view the place, and observe the circumstances; but it seems to me from the structure of it to be generated from some substance once more fluid, and afterwards by degrees growing harder, almost after the same manner as I supposed the generation of Flints to be made.
But whatever were the cause of its curious texture, we may learn this information from it; that even in those things which we account vile, rude, and coorse, Nature has not been wanting to shew abundance of curiosity and excellent Mechanisme.
We may here find a Stone by help of a Microscope, to be made up of abundance of small Balls, which do but just touch each other, and yet there being so many contacts, they make a firm hard mass, or a Stone much harder then Free-stone.
Next, though we can by a Microscope discern so curious a shape in the particles, yet to the naked eye there scarce appears any such thing; which may afford us a good argument to think, that even in those bodies also, whose texture we are not able to discern, though help’d with Microscopes, there may be yet latent so curious a Schematisme, that it may abundantly satisfie the curious searcher, who shall be so happy as to find some way to discover it.
Next, we here find a Stone, though to the naked eye a very close one, yet every way perforated with innumerable pores, which are nothing else but the interstitia, between those multitudes of minute globular particles, that compose the bulk it self, and these pores are not only discover’d by the Microscope, but by this contrivance.
I took a pretty large piece of this stone, and covering it all over with cement, save only at two opposite parts, I found my self able, by blowing in at one end that was left open, to blow my spittle, with which I had wet the other end, into abundance of bubbles, which argued these pores to be open and pervious through the whole stone, which affords us a very pretty instance of the porousness of some seemingly close bodies, of which kind I shall anon have occasion to subjoyn many more, tending to prove the same thing.
I must not here omit to take notice, that in this body there is not a vegetative faculty that should so contrive this structure for any peculiar use of Vegetation or growth, whereas in the other instances of vegetable porous bodies, there is an anima or forma informans, that does contrive all the Structures and Mechanisms of the constituting body, to make them subservient and usefull to the great Work or Function they are to perform. And so I ghess the pores in Wood, and other vegetables, in bones, and other Animal substances, to be as so many channels, provided by the Great and Alwise Creator, for the conveyance of appropriated juyces to particular parts. And therefore, that this may tend, or be pervious all towards one part, and may have impediments, as valves or the like, to any other; but in this body we have very little reason so suspect there should be any such design, for it is equally pervious every way, not onely forward, but backwards, and side-ways, and seems indeed much rather to be Homogeneous or similar to those pores, which we may with great probability believe to be the channels of pellucid bodies, not directed, or more open any one way, then any other, being equally pervious every way. And, according as these pores are more or greater in respect of the interstitial bodies, the more transparent are the so constituted concretes; and the smaller those pores are, the weaker is the Impulse of light communicated through them, though the more quick be the progress.