And fourthly, for the usefulness of this knowledge, when acquir'd;
certainly none can doubt, that considers that it caries us a step forward
into the Labirinth of Nature, in the right way towards the end we propose
our selves in all Philosophical Enquiries. So that knowing what is the form
of Inanimate or Mineral bodies, we shall be the better able to proceed in
our next Enquiry after the forms of Vegetative bodies; and last of all, of
Animate ones, that seeming to be the highest step of natural knowledge that
the mind of man is capable of.
* * * * *
Observ. XIV. _Of several kindes of frozen _Figures_._
I have very often in a Morning, when there has been a great _hoar-frost_,
with an indifferently magnifying _Microscope_, observ'd the small
_Stiriae_, or Crystalline beard, which then usually covers the face of
most bodies that lie open to the cold air, and found them to be generally
_Hexangular prismatical_ bodies, much like the long Crystals of
_Salt-peter_, save onely that the ends of them were differing: for whereas
those of _Nitre_ are for the most part _pyramidal_, being terminated either
in a point or edge; these of Frost were hollow, and the cavity in some
seem'd pretty deep, and this cavity was the more plainly to be seen,
because usually one or other of the six _parallelogram_ sides was wanting,
or at least much shorter then the rest.
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