drop (leaving out only the very tip) in fine supple Kids-leather very closely, I nipped off the small top, and found, as I expected, that notwithstanding this skin of Glue, and the close wrapping up in Leather, upon the breaking of the top, the drop gave a crack like the rest, and gave my hand a pretty brisk impulse: but yet the skin and leather was so strong as to keep the parts from flying out of their former posture; and, the skin being transparent, I found that the drop retained exactly its former figure and polish, but was grown perfectly opacous and all over flaw'd, all those flaws lying in the manner of rings, from the bottom or blunt end, to the very top or small point. And by several examinations with a Microscope, of several thus broken, I found the flaws, both within the body of the drop, and on the outward surface, to lye much in this order.
Let A B in the Figure X of the fourth Scheme represent the drop cased over with Icthyocolla or Isinglass, (by being ordered as is before prescribed) crazed or flawed into pieces, but by the skin or case kept in its former figure, and each of its flawed parts preserved exactly in its due posture; the outward appearance of it somewhat plainly to the naked eye, but much more conspicuous if viewed with a small lens[errata 1] appeared much after this shape. That is, the blunt end B for a pretty breadth, namely, as far as the Ring C C C seemed irregularly flawed with divers clefts, which all seemed to tend towards the Center of it, being, as I afterwards found, and shall anon shew in the description of the figure Y, the Basis, as it were, of a Cone, which was terminated a little above the middle of the drop, all the rest of the Surface from C C C to A was flawed with an infinite number of small and parallel Rings, which as they were for the most part very round, so were they very thick and close together, but were not so exactly flaw'd as to make a perfect Ring, but each circular part was by irregular cracks flawed likewise into multitudes of irregular flakes or tiles; and this order was observed likewise the whole length of the neck.
Now though I could not so exactly cut this conical Body through the Axis, as is represented by the figure Y; yet by anatomizing, as it were, of several, and taking notice of divers particular circumstances, I was informed, that could I have artificially divided a flaw'd drop through the Axis or Center, I should with a Microscope have found it to appear much of this form, where A signifies the Apex, and B the blunt end, C C the Cone of the Basis, which is terminated at T the top or end of it, which seems to be the very middle of the blunt end in which, not only the conical body of the Basis C C is terminated, but as many of the parts of the drop as reach as high as D D.
And it seemed to be the head or beginning of a Pith, as it were, or a part of the body which seemed more spungy then the rest, and much more irregularly flawed, which from T ascended by E E, though less visible, into the small neck towards A. The Grain, as it were, of all the flaws, that proceeds from[errata 2] from all the outward Surface A D C C D A, was much the same, as is represented by the black strokes that meet in the middle D T, D T, D E, D E, &c.
Errata
