r wonder that they
move them so fast as they do, then that they move them no faster. For what
a vastly greater proportion have they of their superficies to their bulk,
then Eels or other larger Fishes, and next, the tenacity and density of the
liquor being much the same to be moved, both by the one and the other, the
resistance or impediment thence arising to the motions made through it,
must be almost infinitely greater to the small one then to the great. This
we find experimentally verify'd in the Air, which though a _medium_ a
thousand times more rarify'd then the water, the resistance of it to
motions made through it, is yet so sensible to very minute bodies, that a
Down-feather (the least of whose parts seem yet bigger then these Eels, and
many of them almost incomparably bigger, such as the quill and stalk) is
suspended by it, and carried to and fro as if it had no weight.

* * * * *

Observ. LVIII. _Of a new Property in the _Air_, and several other
transparent _Mediums_ nam'd _Inflection_, whereby very many considerable
_Phaenomena_ are attempted to be solv'd, and divers other uses are hinted._

Since the Invention (and perfecting in some measure) of _Telescopes_, it
has been observ'd by several, that the Sun and Moon neer the Horizon, are
disfigur'd (losing that exactly-smooth terminating circular limb, which
they are observ'd to have when situated neerer the Zenith) and are bounded
with an edge every way (especially upon the right and left sides) ragged
and indented like a Saw: which inequality of their limbs, I have further
observ'd, not to remain always the same, but to be continually chang'd by a
kind of fluctuating motion, not unlike that of the waves of the Sea, so as
that part of the limb, which was but even now nick'd or indented in, is now
protuberant, and will presently be sinking again; neither is this all but
the whole body of the Luminaries, do in the _Telescope_, seem to be
depress'd and slatted, the upper, and more especially the under side
appearing neerer to the middle then really they are, and the right and left
appearing more remote: whence the whole _Area_ seems to be terminated by a
kind of Oval. It is further observ'd, that the body, for the most part,
appears red, or of some colour approaching neer unto it, as some kind of
yellow; and this I have always mark'd, that the more the limb is slatted or
ovalled, the more red does the body appear, though not alway