If you take one of these Grains, and wet the Beard in Water, you will
presently see the small bended top to turn and move round, as if it were
sensible; and by degrees, if it be continued wet enough, the joint or knee
will streighten it self; and if it be suffer'd to dry again, it will by
degrees move round another way, and at length bend again into its former
posture.
If it be view'd with an ordinary single _Microscope_, it will appear like a
small wreath'd Sprig, with two clefts; and if wet as before, and then
look'd on with this _Microscope_, it will appear to unwreath it self, and
by degrees, to streighten its knee, and the two clefts will become
streight, and almost on opposite sides of the small cylindrical body.
If it be continued to be look'd on a little longer with a _Microscope_, it
will within a little while begin to wreath it self again, and soon after
return to its former posture, bending it self again neer the middle, into a
kind of knee or angle.
Several of those bodies I examin'd with larger _Microscopes_, and there
found them much of the make of those two long wreath'd cylinders delineated
in the second Figure of the 15. _Scheme_, which two cylinders represent the
wreathed part broken into two pieces, whereof the end AB is to be suppos'd
to have join'd to the end CD, so that EACF does represent the whole
wreath'd part of the Beard, and EG a small piece of the upper part of the
Beard which is beyond the knee, which as I had not room to insert, so was
it not very considerable, either for its form, or any known property; but
the under or wreathed part is notable for both: As to its form, it
appear'd, if it were look'd on side-ways, almost like a Willow, or a small
tapering rod of _Hazel_, the lower or bigger half of which onely, is
twisted round several times, in some three, in others more, in others less,
according to the bigness and maturity of the Grain on which it grew, and
according to the driness and moisture of the ambient Air, as I shall shew
more at large by and by.
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