irregularites appear'd in them; but this irregularity seem'd ascribable to
the thawing and breaking of the flake by the fall, and not at all to the
defect of the _plastick_ virtue of Nature, whose curiosity in the formation
of most of these kind of regular Figures, such as those of _Salt_,
_Minerals_, &c. appears by the help of the _Microscope_, to be very many
degrees smaller then the most acute eye is able to perceive without it. And
though one of these six-branched Stars appear'd here below much of the
shape described in the Third _Figure_ of the Eighth _Scheme_; yet I am very
apt to think, that could we have a sight of one of them through a
_Microscope_ as they are generated in the Clouds before their Figures are
vitiated by external accidents, they would exhibit abundance of curiosity
and neatness there also, though never so much magnify'd: For since I have
observ'd the Figures of _Salts_ and _Minerals_ to be some of them so
exceeding small, that I have scarcely been able to perceive them with the
_Microscope_, and yet have they been regular, and since (as far as I have
yet examin'd it) there seems to be but one and the same cause that produces
both these effects, I think it not irrational to suppose that these pretty
figur'd Stars of _Snow_, when at first generated might be also very regular
and exact.

III.

_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