s digitos crassus, scaber, rimosus, &
qui nisi detrahatur dehiscit, alioque subnascente expellitur, interior qui
subest novellus ita rubet ut arbor minio picta videatur_. Which Histories,
if well consider'd, and the tree, substance, and manner of growing, if well
examin'd, would, I am very apt to believe, much confirm this my conjecture
about the origination of Cork.

Nor is this kind of Texture peculiar to Cork onely; for upon examination
with my _Microscope_, I have found that the pith of an Elder, or almost any
other Tree, the inner pulp or pith of the Cany hollow stalks of several
other Vegetables: as of Fennel, Carrets, Daucus, Bur-docks, Teasels, Fearn,
some kinds of Reeds, &c. have much such a kind of _Schematisme_, as I have
lately shewn that of Cork, save onely that here the pores are rang'd the
long-ways, or the same ways with the length of the Cane, whereas in Cork
they are transverse.

The pith also that fills that part of the stalk of a Feather that is above
the Quil, has much such a kind of texture, save onely that which way soever
I set this light substance, the pores seem'd to be cut transversly; so that
I ghess this pith which fills the Feather, not to consist of abundance of
long pores separated with Diaphragms, as Cork does, but to be a kind of
solid or hardned froth, or a _congeries_ of very small bubbles consolidated
in that form, into a pretty stiff as well as tough concrete, and that each
Cavern, Bubble, or Cell, is distinctly separate from any of the rest,
without any kind of hole in the encompassing films, so that I could no more
blow through a piece of this kinde of substance, then I could through a
piece of Cork, or the sound pith of an Elder.

But though I could not with my _Microscope_, nor with my breath, nor any
other way I have yet try'd, discover a passage out of one of those cavities
into another, yet I cannot thence conclude, that therefore there are none
such, by which the _Succus nutritius_, or appropriate juices of Vegetables,
may pass through them; for, in several of those Vegetables, whil'st green,
I have with my _Microscope_, plainly enough discover'd these Cells or Poles
fill'd with juices, and by degrees sweating them out; as I have also
observed in green Wood all those long _Microscopical_ pores which appear in
Charcoal perfectly empty of any thing but Air.

Now, though I have with great diligence endeavoured to find whether there
be any such thing in those _Microscopical_ p