Essays in natural history and philosophy. Containing a series of discoveries, by the assistance of microscopes / By John Hill.

  • Hill, John, 1714?-1775.
Date:
1752
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays in natural history and philosophy. Containing a series of discoveries, by the assistance of microscopes / By John Hill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    were fo thick as to impede one another’s Mo¬ tions, throwing themfelves over their Heads, creeping under the whole Range, forcing their Way through the rnidft, or wheeling round the whole duller with a furprizing Rapidity. It was not only that, the Microfcope could dif- cover nothing for them to eat, that would in¬ duce one, were the Suppofition natural, to ima¬ gine they liv’d without it, they never Hop’d to feize or fwallow any thing. Motion ieem’d their great, indeed their foie Delight, and that Mo¬ tion was i-ncefiant, in all Forms and Directions backward and forward, to one Side and to the other, in Angles circularly, and in a thoufand other Directions in the Space of a fingle Mo¬ ment. Though it was impoflible to difcGver that thefe Creatures eat, it was equally impoffible to mifs the Obfervation that they were eaten. It had at firft appear’d furprizing that Nature produc’d fuch amazing Multitudes of thefe to over run the whole Extent of the Matter, and croud up¬ on, incommode and ftarve one another; but it foon appear’d on the contrary, when we faw the Devaftation that was made among them by the next Order in Size, and in fine by all the feveral Kinds of larger Animalcules that inhabited the fame Fluid, that the Won¬ der was how any Number, ever fo great, cou’d fupply fuch Multitudes as thefe found neceffary for their Support, how any Provifion cou’d be S made