, as I am inform'd, has a grain altogether
admirable, nor have I ever seen or heard of any other stone that has the
like. It is made up of an innumerable company of small bodies, not all of
the same cize or shape, but for the most part, not much differing from a
Globular form, nor exceed they one another in Diameter above three or four
times; they appear to the eye, like the Cobb or Ovary of a _Herring_, or
some smaller fishes, but for the most part, the particles seem somewhat
less, and not so uniform; but their variation from a perfect globular ball,
seems to be only by the pressure of the _contiguous_ bals which have a
little deprest and protruded those toucht sides inward, and forc'd the
other sides as much outwards beyond the limits of a Globe; just as it would
happen, if a heap of exactly round Balls of soft Clay were heaped upon one
another; or, as I have often seen a heap of small Globules of
_Quicksilver_, reduc'd to that form by rubbing it much in a glaz'd Vessel,
with some slimy or sluggish liquor, such as Spittle, when though the top of
the upper Globules be very neer spherical, yet those that are prest upon by
others, exactly imitate the forms of these lately mention'd grains.
Where these grains touch each other, they are so firmly united or settled
together, that they seldom part without breaking a hole in one or th'other
of them, such as a, a, a, b, c, c, &c. Some of which fractions, as a, a, a,
a, where the touch has been but light, break no more then the outward
crust, or first shell of the stone, which is of a white colour, a little
dash'd with a brownish Yellow, and is very thin, like the shell of an Egg:
and I have seen some of those grains perfectly resemble some kind of Eggs,
both in colour and shape: But where the union of the _contiguous granules_
has been more firm, there the divulsion has made a greater Chasm, as at b,
b, b, in so much that I have observ'd some of them quite broken in two, as
at c, c, c, which has discovered to me a further resemblance they have to
Eggs, they having an appearance of a white and yelk, by two differing
substances that envelope and encompass each other.
That which we may call the white was pretty whitish neer the yelk, but more
duskie towards the shell; some of them I could plainly perceive to be shot
or radiated like a _Pyrites_ or _fire-stone_; the yelk in some I saw
hollow, in others fill'd with a duskie brown and porous substance like a
kind of pith.
The s
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