Page:Micrographia - or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses with observations and inquiries thereupon.djvu/86

Rh of a loose texture also, and, according as the cold strikes inwards from the bottom and sides, are quenched, as it were, and made rigid in that very posture wherein the cold finds them. For the parts of the crust being already hardened, will not suffer the parts to shrink any more from the outward Surface inward; and though it shrink a little by reason of the small parcels of some Aerial substances dispersed through the matter of the Glass, yet that is not neer so much as it appears (as I just now hinted;) nor if it were, would it be sufficient for to consolidate and condense the body of Glass into a tuff and close texture, after it had been so excessively rarified by the heat of the glass-Furnace.

But that there may be such an expansion of the aerial substance contained in those little blebbs or bubbles in the body of the drop, this following Experiment will make more evident.

Take a small Glass-Cane about a foot long, seal up one end of it hermetically, then put in a very small bubble of Glass, almost of the shape of an Essence-viol with the open mouth towards the sealed end, then draw out the other end of the Pipe very small, and fill the whole Cylinder with water, then set this Tube by the Fire till the Water begin to boyl, and the Air in the bubble be in good part rarified and driven out, then by sucking at the smalling Pipe, more of the Air or vapours in the bubble may be suck'd out, so that it may sink to the bottom; when it is sunk to the bottom, in the flame of a Candle, or Lamp, nip up the slender Pipe and let it cool: whereupon it is obvious to observe, first, that the Water by degrees will subside and shrink into much less room: Next, that the Air or vapours in the Glass will expand themselves so, as to buoy up the little Glass: Thirdly, that all about the inside of the Glass-pipe there will appear an infinite number of small bubbles, which as the Water grows colder and colder will swell bigger and bigger, and many of them buoy themselves up and break at the top.

From this Disceding of the heat in Glass drops, that is, by the quenching or cooling Irradiations propagated from the Surface upwards and inwards, by the lines C T, C T, D T, D E, &c. the bubbles in the drop have room to expand themselves a little, and the parts of the Glass contract themselves; but this operation being too quick for the sluggish parts of the Glass, the contraction is performed very unequally and irregularly, and thereby the Particles of the Glass are bent, some one way, and some another, yet so as that most of them draw towards the Pith or middle T E E E, or rather from that outward: so that they cannot extricate or unbend themselves, till some part of T E E E be broken and loosened, for all the parts about that are placed in the manner of an Arch, and so till their hold at T E E E be loosened they cannot fly asunder, but uphold, and shelter, and fix each other much like the stones in a Vault, where each stone does concurre to the stability of the whole Fabrick, and no one stone can be taken away but the whole Arch falls. And wheresoever any of those radiating wedges D T D, &c. are removed, which are the component parts of this Arch, the whole Fabrick presently falls to Rh