less in themselves,
meerly from Exhaustion: Or, if there should be no sweats, the internal Heat
spends the spirits, and dries up the Liquors; the consequence whereof may
reasonably be presumed to be this Flaccidity of parts, and great and sudden
Change, made in them; not that there is need of any _Parenchyma_ to fill up
these Muscles considering what hath been said. Mean while, I humbly
conceive, that if it be in any part of a Muscle, their Ingenuity, that
plead for it, will put them upon some experiments, to bring it to Ocular
Demonstration, either in Living or Dead Muscle, any kind of flesh, raw,
rosted, boyl'd, or in what they can best make it out. And when I shall be
convinc'd of an Errour in what I have discoursed, I shall beg pardon for
giving the Occasion of the trouble of that Experiment, which shall prove a
{320} _Parenchyma_ in any Muscle; and think my time well spent in receiving
a full satisfaction of the ungroundedness of my opinion; and readily submit
to the Author, with a grateful acknowledgement of my Obligation to any one
that shall rectifie me in my mistake, if it be one.

* * * * *

_Observables touching _Petrification_._

Though much hath been already said and written of _Petrification_, yet 'tis
conceived, that all that comes so far short of a competent stock for the
composing of a perfect _History of Petrification_, that the incompleatness
thereof ought to awaken the more diligent attention of the Curious, and to
call in their aid for Additions, thereby so to encrease and to complete the
_Materials_ for that work, that it may the better serve to clear and make
out the Cause of that Transmutation. And that the rather, because if it lay
in the power of humane Skill (by the knowledge of _Nature_'s works) to
raise _Petrification_, or to allay, or prevent it, or to order and direct
it (which perchance in time might be attained the said way) much use might
be made of this Art; especially if it could be made applicable to hinder
the Generation of the Stone and Gravel in humane Bodies, or to dissolve the
Stone, where 'tis formed; besides other valuable Uses, that might be
excogitated.

Upon this Consideration, care is, and further _will be_ taken in these
Papers, to record, among other Observables of Nature, what shall be
communicated of this kind of _Change_.

In _Num._ 1. 2. and 5. several Relations have been made belonging to this
Argument. Much of it, together with co