“Passing just lately over this lake, ... and examining this water next day, I found floating therein divers earthy particles, and some green streaks, spirally wound serpent-wise, and orderly arranged, after the manner of the copper or tin worms, which distillers use to cool their liquors as they distil over. The whole circumference of each of these streaks was about the thickness of a hair of one's head. ... all consisted of very small green globules joined together: and there were very many small green globules as well. [The earliest recorded observation of the common green alga Spyrogyra.]” WellsWholeUseTogetherScienceNextFoundWaterCommonWiseHairGreenWoundsPassingPassingsObservationLakesNext DayFloatingWormsParticlesLiquorOrderlyExaminingSerpentStreaksTinCopperThickness Author:Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
“The 4th sort of creatures... which moved through the 3 former sorts, were incredibly small, and so small in my eye that I judged, that if 100 of them lay [stretched out] one by another, they would not equal the length of a grain of course Sand; and according to this estimate, ten hundred thousand of them could not equal the dimensions of a grain of such course Sand. There was discover'd by me a fifth sort, which had near the thickness of the former, but they were almost twice as long. The first time bacteria were observed.” IfsFirstsLongEyeScienceCoursesThousandTenCreaturesEqualHundredFirst TimeMovedLaysFormerDimensionsSandLengthJudgedGrainFifthBacteriaThickness Author:Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
“The 31th of May, I perceived in the same water more of those Animals, as also some that were somewhat bigger. And I imagine, that [ten hundred thousand] of these little Creatures do not equal an ordinary grain of Sand in bigness: And comparing them with a Cheese-mite (which may be seen to move with the naked eye) I make the proportion of one of these small Water-creatures to a Cheese-mite, to be like that of a Bee to a Horse: For, the circumference of one of these little Animals in water, is not so big as the thickness of a hair in a Cheese-mite.” MayLittlesBigsEyeMovingScienceWaterAnimalImagineHairThousandTenCreaturesEqualOrdinaryHundredBiggerHorseNakedCompareProportionSandImagine ThatGrainBeesCheeseGrains Of SandNaked EyesThickness Author:Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
