Notes and Queries, Number 36, July 6, 1850 by Various
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page 16 of 66 (24%)
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imperceptible) red veins. At the end of some of which, in time,
there will be gathered together a knot of matter, which by little and little will take the form of a head and you will, ere long, begin to discern eyes and a beak in it. All this while the first red spot of blood grows bigger and solider, till at length it becomes {85} a fleshy substance, and, by its figure, may easily be discern'd to be the heart; which as yet hath no other inclosure but the substance of the egg. But by little and little, the rest of the body of an animal is framed out of those red veins which stream out all about from the heart. And in process of time, that body encloses the heart within it by the chest, which grows over on both sides, and in the end meets and closes itself fast together. After which this little creature soon fills the shell, by converting into several parts of itself all the substance of the egg; and then growing weary of so strait a habitation, it breaks prison and comes out a perfectly formed chicken."--Sir Kenelm Digby's _Treatise of Bodies_, Ch. xxiv. p. 274. ed. 1669. Could Sir Kenelm return to the scenes of this upper world, and pay a visit to Mr. Cantelo's machine, his shade might say with truthfulness, what Horace Smith's mummy answered to his questioner,-- "--We men of yore Were versed in all the knowledge you can mention." The operations of the two machines appear to be precisely the same: the only difference being the Sir Kenelm's was an experimental one, made for the purpose of investigating the process of nature; while Cantelo's, in accordance with "the spirit of the iron time," is a practical one, made for the purposes of utility and profit. Sir Kenelm's Treatise appears to |
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