_Several kinds of Figures in _Water_ frozen._
Putting fair Water into a large capacious Vessel of _Glass_, and exposing
it to the cold, I observ’d after a little time, several broad, flat, and
thin _laminæ_, or plates of _Ice_, crossing the bulk of the water and one
another very irregularly, onely most of them seem’d to turn one of their
edges towards that side of the Glass which was next it, and seem’d to grow,
as ’twere from the inside of the Vessel inwards towards the middle, almost
like so many blades of _Fern_. Having taken several of these plates out of
water on the blade of a Knife, I observ’d them figur’d much after the
manner of _Herring bones_, or _Fern blades_, that is, there was one bigger
stem in the middle like the back-bone, and out of it, on either side, were
a multitude of small _stiriæ_, or _icicles_, like the smaller bones, or the
smaller branches in _Fern_, each of these branches on the one side, were
parallel to all the rest on the same side, and all of them seem’d to make
an angle with the stem, towards the top, of sixty degrees, and towards the
bottom or root of this stem, of 120. See the fourth _Figure_ of the 8.
_Plate_.
I observ’d likewise several very pretty Varieties of Figures in Water,
frozen on the top of a broad flat Marble-stone, expos’d to the cold with a
little Water on it, some like feathers, some of other shapes, many of them
were very much of the shape exprest in the fifth Figure of the 8. _Scheme_,
which is extremely differing from any of the other Figures.
I observ’d likewise, that the shootings of _Ice_ on the top of Water,
beginning to freeze, were in streight _prismatical_ bodies much like those
of _roch-peter_, that they crost each other usually without any kind of
order or rule, that they were always a little higher then the surface of
the Water that lay between them; that by degrees those _interjacent_ spaces
would be fill’d with _Ice_ also, which usually would be as high as the
surface of the rest.
In flakes of _Ice_ that had been frozen on the top of Water to any
considerable thickness, I observ’d that both the upper and the under sides
of it were curiously quill’d, furrow’d, or grain’d, as it were, which when
the Sun shone on the Plate, was exceeding easily to be perceiv’d to be much
after the shape of the lines in the 6. _Figure_ of the 8. _Scheme_, that
is, they consisted of several streight ends of parallel Plates, which were
of divers lengths and angles to one another without any certain order.
The cause of all which regular Figures (and of hundreds of others, namely
of _Salts_, _Minerals_, _Metals_, &c. which I could have here inserted,
would it not have been too long) seems to be deducible from the same
Principles, which I have (in the 13. _Observation_) hinted only, having not
yet had time to compleat a _Theory_ of them. But indeed (which I there also
hinted) I judge it the second step by which the _Pyramid_ of natural
knowledge (which is the knowledge of the form of bodies) is to be ascended:
And whosoever will climb it, must be well furnish’d with that which the
Noble _Verulam_ calls _Scalam Intellectus_; he must have scaling Ladders,
otherwise the steps are so large and high, there will be no getting up
them, and consequently little hopes of attaining any higher station, such
as to the knowledge of the most simple principle of Vegetation manifested
in Mould and Mushromes, which, as I elsewhere endeavoured to shew, seems to
be the third step; for it seems to me, that the Intellect of man is like
his body, destitute of wings, and cannot move from a lower to a higher and
more sublime station of knowledg, otherwise then step by step, nay even
there where the way is prepar’d and already made passible; as in the
_Elements of Geometry_, or the like, where it is fain to climb a whole
_series_ of Propositions by degrees, before it attains the knowledge of one
_Probleme_. But if the ascent be high, difficult and above its reach, it
must have recourse to a _novum organum_, some new engine and contrivance,
some new kind of _Algebra_, or _Analytick Art_ before it can surmount it.
* * * * *