mall pores, or _interstitia_ eeee betwixt the Globules, I plainly saw,
and found by other trials to be every way pervious to air and water, for I
could blow through a piece of this stone of a considerable thickness, as
easily as I have blown through a Cane, which minded me of the pores which
_Des Cartes_ allow his _materia subtilis_ between the _aethereal_ globules.

The object, through the _Microscope_, appears like a _Congeries_ or heap of
Pibbles, such as I have often seen cast up on the shore, by the working of
the Sea after a great storm, or like (in shape, though not colour) a
company of small Globules of Quicksilver, look'd on with a _Microscope_,
when reduc'd into that form by the way lately mentioned. And perhaps, this
last may give some hint at the manner of the formation of the former: For
supposing some _Lapidescent_ substance to be generated, or some way brought
(either by some commixture of bodies in the Sea it self, or protruded in,
perhaps, out of some _subterraneous_ caverns) to the bottom of the Sea, and
there remaining in the form of a liquor like Quicksilver, _heterogeneous_
to the ambient _Saline_ fluid, it may by the working and tumblings of the
Sea to and fro be jumbled and comminuted into such Globules as may
afterwards be hardned into Flints, the lying of which one upon another,
when in the Sea, being not very hard, by reason of the weight of the
incompassing fluid, may cause the undermost to be a little, though not
much, varied from a globular Figure. But this only by the by.

After what manner this _Kettering-stone_ should be generated I cannot
learn, having never been there to view the place, and observe the
circumstances; but it seems to me from the structure of it to be generated
from some substance once more fluid, and afterwards by degrees growing
harder, almost after the same manner as I supposed the generation of Flints
to be made.

But whatever were the cause of its curious texture, we may learn this
information from it; that even in those things which we account vile, rude,
and coorse, Nature has not been wanting to shew abundance of curiosity and
excellent Mechanisme.

We may here find a Stone by help of a _Microscope_, to be made up of
abundance of small Balls, which do but just touch each other, and yet there
being so many contacts, they make a firm hard mass, or a Stone much harder
then Free-stone.

Next, though we can by a _Microscope_ discern so curious a shape in the
partic