* * * * *
Observ. XXII. _Of common _Sponges_, and several other _Spongie_ fibrous
bodies._
A Sponge is commonly reckon'd among the _Zoophyts_, or Plant Animals; and
the _texture_ of it, which the _Microscope_ discovers, seems to confirm it;
for it is of a form whereof I never observ'd any other Vegetable, and
indeed, it seems impossible that any should be of it, for it consists of an
infinite number of small short _fibres_, or nervous parts, much of the same
bigness, curiously jointed or contex'd together in the form of a Net, as is
more plainly manifest by the little Draught which I have added, in the
third _Figure_ of the IX. _Scheme_, of a piece of it, which you may
perceive represents a confus'd heap of the fibrous parts curiously jointed
and implicated. The joints are, for the most part, where three _fibres_
onely meet, for I have very seldom met with any that had four.
At these joints there is no one of the three that seems to be the stock
whereon the other grow, but each of the _fibres_ are, for the most part, of
an equal bigness, and seem each of them to have an equal share in the
joint; the _fibres_ are all of them much about the same bigness, not
smaller towards the top of the Sponge, and bigger neerer the bottom or
root, as is usuall in Plants, the length of each between the joints, is
very irregular and different; the distance between some two joints, being
ten or twelve times more then between some others.
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