as deserves to be much more seriously examin'd and
consider'd, then I have hitherto found time or ability to do; for
certainly, it may very much instruct us in the nature of the Air,
especially as to some properties of it.

The stems of the Downy branches INOE, being rang'd in the order visible
enough to the naked eye, at the distance of IF, or somewhat more, the
_collateral_ stalks and leaves (if I may so call those bodies I newly
described) are so rang'd, that the leaves or hairy stalks of the one side
lie at top, or are incumbent on the stalks of the other, and cross each
other, much after the manner express'd in the second Figure of the 22.
_Scheme_, by which means every of those little hooked _fibres_ of the
leaved stalk get between the naked stalks, and the stalks being full of
knots, and a prety way dis-join'd, so as that the _fibres_ can easily get
between them, the two parts are so closely and admirably woven together,
that it is able to impede, for the greatest part, the transcursion of the
Air; and though they are so exceeding small, as that the thickness of one
of these stalks amounts not to a 500. part of an Inch, yet do they compose
so strong a texture, as, notwithstanding the exceeding quick and violent
beating of them against the Air, by the strength of the Birds wing, they
firmly hold together. And it argues an admirable providence of Nature in
the contrivance and fabrick of them; for their texture is such, that though
by any external injury the parts of them are violently dis-joyn'd, so as
that the leaves and stalks touch not one another, and consequently several
of these rents would impede the Bird's flying; yet, for the most part, of
themselves they readily re-join and re-contex themselves, and are easily by
the Birds stroking the Feather, or drawing it through its Bill, all of them
settled and woven into their former and natural posture; for there are such
an infinite company of those small _fibres_ in the under side of the
leaves, and most of them have such little crooks at their ends, that they
readily catch and hold the stalks they touch.

From which strange contexture, it seems rational to suppose that there is a
certain kind of mesh or hole so small, that the Air will not very easily
pass through it, as I hinted also in the sixth Observation about small
Glass Canes, for otherwise it seems probable, that Nature would have drawn
over some kind of thin film which should have covered all those almos