I have never seen nor been enform'd of the true manner of the growing of
Sponges on the Rock; whether they are found to increase from little to
great, like Vegetables, that is, part after part, or like Animals, all
parts equally growing together; or whether they be _matrices_ or feed-baggs
of any kind of Fishes, or some kind of watry Insect; or whether they are at
any times more soft and tender, or of another nature and texture, which
things, if I knew how, I should much desire to be informed of: but from a
cursory view that I at first made with my _Microscope_, and some other
trials, I supposed it to be some Animal substance cast out, and fastned
upon the Rocks in the form of a froth, or _congeries_ of bubbles, like that
which I have often observ'd on Rosemary, and other Plants (wherein is
included a little Insect) that all the little films which divide these
bubbles one from another, did presently, almost after the substance began
to grow a little harder, break, and leave onely the thread behind, which
might be, as 'twere, the angle or thread between the bubbles, that the
great holes or pores observable in these Sponges were made by the eruption
of the included _Heterogeneous_ substance (whether air, or some other body,
for many other fluid bodies will do the same thing) which breaking out of
the lesser, were collected into very large bubbles, and so might make their
way out of the Sponge, and in their passage might leave a round cavity; and
if it were large, might carry up with it the adjacent bubbles, which may be
perceiv'd at the outside of the Sponge, if it be first throughly wetted,
and sufferr'd to plump itself into its natural form, or be then wrung dry,
and suffer'd to expand it self again, which it will freely do whil'st
moist: for when it has thus plump'd it self into its natural shape and
dimensions, 'tis obvious enough that the mouths of the larger holes have a
kind of lip or rising round about them, but the other smaller pores have
little or none.
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