But this I cannot be positive in, for upon cutting the wreath'd part in
many places transversly, I was not so well satisfy'd with the shape and
manner of the pores of the pith; for looking on these transverse Sections
with a very good _Microscope_, I found that the ends of those transverse
Sections appear'd much of the manner of the third Figure of the 15.
_scheme_ ABCFE, and the middle of pith CC, seem'd very full of pores
indeed, but all of them seem'd to run the long-ways.
This Figure plainly enough shews in what manner those clefts, K and L
divided the wreath'd Cylinder into two unequal parts, and also of what kind
of substance the whole body consists; for by cutting the same Beard in many
places, with transverse Sections, I found much the same appearance with
this express'd; so that those pores seem to run, as in most other such Cany
bodies, the whole length of it.
The clefts of this body KK, and LL, seem'd (as is also express'd in the
Figure) to wind very oddly in the inner part of the wreath, and in some
parts of them, they seem'd stuffed, as it were, with that Spongie
substance, which I just now described.
This so oddly constituted Vegetable substance, is first (that I have met
with) taken notice of by _Baptista Porta_, in his _Natural Magick_, as a
thing known to children and Juglers, and it has been call'd by some of
those last named persons, the better to cover their cheat, the Legg of an
_Arabian Spider_, or the Legg of an inchanted _Egyptian fly_, and has been
used by them to make a small Index, Cross, or the like, to move round upon
the wetting of it with a drop of Water, and muttering certain words.
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