particulars, circumstances, and informations collected with them as could
be obtained, that from such a History of Observations well rang'd, examin'd
and digested, the true original or production of all those kinds of stones
might be perfectly and surely known; such as are _Thunder-stones_, _Lapides
Stellares_, _Lapides Judaici_, and multitudes of other, whereof mention is
made in _Aldonandus_, _Wormius_, and other Writers of Minerals.

* * * * *

Observ. XVIII. _Of the _Schematisme_ or _Texture_ of _Cork_, and of the
Cells and Pores of some other such frothy Bodies._

I took a good clear piece of Cork, and with a Pen-knife sharpen'd as keen
as a Razor, I cut a piece of it off, and thereby left the surface of it
exceeding smooth, then examining it very diligently with a _Microscope_, me
thought I could perceive it to appear a little porous; but I could not so
plainly distinguish them, as to be sure that they were pores, much less
what Figure they were of: But judging from the lightness and yielding
quality of the Cork, that certainly the texture could not be so curious,
but that possibly, if I could use some further diligence, I might find it
to be discernable with a _Microscope_, I with the same sharp Penknife, cut
off from the former smooth surface an exceeding thin piece of it, and
placing it on a black object Plate, because it was it self a white body,
and casting the light on it with a deep _plano-convex Glass_, I could
exceeding plainly perceive it to be all perforated and porous, much like a
Honey-comb, but that the pores of it were not regular; yet it was not
unlike a Honey-comb in these particulars.

First, in that it had a very little solid substance, in comparison of the
empty cavity that was contain'd between, as does more manifestly appear by
the Figure A and B of the XI. _Scheme_, for the _Interstitia_, or walls (as
I may so call them) or partitions of those pores were neer as thin in
proportion to their pores, as those thin films of Wax in a Honey-comb
(which enclose and constitute the _sexangular celts_) are to theirs.

Next, in that these pores, or cells, were not very deep, but consisted of a
great many little Boxes, separated out of one continued long pore, by
certain _Diaphragms_, as is visible by the Figure B, which represents a
sight of those pores split the long-ways.

I no sooner discern'd these (which were indeed the first _microscopical_
pores I ever saw, a