Page:Micrographia - or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses with observations and inquiries thereupon.djvu/49

Rh so near us as to fill our eys and fancies with a sense of the vastness of it may by a little Distance, and some convenient Diminishing Glasses, be made vanish into a scarce visible Speck, or Point (as I have often try'd on the Moon, and (when not too bright) on the Sun it self.) So, could a Mechanical contrivance successfully answer our Theory, we might see the least spot as big as the Earth it self; and Discover, as Des Cartes also conjectures, as great a variety of bodies in the Moon, or Planets, as in the Earth.

But leaving these Discoveries to future Industries, we shall proceed to add one Observation more of a point commonly so call’d, that is; the mark of a full stop, or period. And for this purpose I observed many both printed ones and written; and among multitudes I found few of them more round or regular then this which I have delineated in the third figure of the second Scheme, but very many abundantly more disfigur'd, and for the most part if they seem’d equally round to the eye, I found those points that had been made by a Copper-plate, and Roll-press, to be as misshapen as those which had been made with Types, the most curious and smothly engraven strokes and points, looking but as so many furrows and holes, and their printed impressions, but like smutty daubings on a matt or uneven floor with a blunt extinguisht brand or stick’s end. And as for points made with a pen they were much more rugged and deformed. Nay, having view'd certain pieces of exceeding curious writing of the kind (one of which in the bredth of a two-pence compris'd the Lords prayer, the Apostles Creed, the ten Commandments, and about half a dozen verses besides of the Bible, whose lines were so small and near together, that I was unable to number them with my naked eye, a very ordinary Microscope, I had then about me, inabled me to see that what the Writer of it had asserted was true, but withall discover'd of what pitifull bungling scribbles and scrawls it was compos’d, Arabian and China characters being almost as well shap'd; yet thus much I must say for the Man, that it was for the most part legible enough, though in some places there wanted a good fantsy well preposest to help one through. If this manner of small writing were made eafie and practicable (and I think I know such a one, but have never yet made tryal of it, whereby one might be inabled to write a great deale with much ease, and accurately enough in a very little roome) it might be of very good use to convey secret Intelligence without any danger of Discovery or mistrusting. But to come again to the point. The Irregularities of it are caused by three or four coadjutors, one of which is, the uneven surface of the paper, which at best appears no smother then a very course piece of shag'd cloth, next the irregularity of the Type or Ingraving, and a third is the rough Daubing of the Printing-Ink that lies upon the instrument that makes the impression, to all which, add the variation made by the Different lights and shadows, and you may have sufficient reason to ghess that a point may appear much more ugly then this, which I have here presented, which though it appear'd through the Microscope gray, like a great splatch of London dirt, about three inches over; yet to the naked eye it was black, and no bigger then that in the midst of the Circle A, And could I have Rh