Nor is this kind of Texture peculiar to Cork onely; for upon examination with my _Microscope_, I have found that the pith of an Elder, or almost any other Tree, the inner pulp or pith of the Cany hollow stalks of several other Vegetables: as of Fennel, Carrets, Daucus, Bur-docks, Teasels, Fearn, some kinds of Reeds, &c. have much such a kind of _Schematisme_, as I have lately shewn that of Cork, save onely that here the pores are rang’d the long-ways, or the same ways with the length of the Cane, whereas in Cork they are transverse.
The pith also that fills that part of the stalk of a Feather that is above the Quil, has much such a kind of texture, save onely that which way soever I set this light substance, the pores seem’d to be cut transversly; so that I ghess this pith which fills the Feather, not to consist of abundance of long pores separated with Diaphragms, as Cork does, but to be a kind of solid or hardned froth, or a _congeries_ of very small bubbles consolidated in that form, into a pretty stiff as well as tough concrete, and that each Cavern, Bubble, or Cell, is distinctly separate from any of the rest, without any kind of hole in the encompassing films, so that I could no more blow through a piece of this kinde of substance, then I could through a piece of Cork, or the sound pith of an Elder.
But though I could not with my _Microscope_, nor with my breath, nor any other way I have yet try’d, discover a passage out of one of those cavities into another, yet I cannot thence conclude, that therefore there are none such, by which the _Succus nutritius_, or appropriate juices of Vegetables, may pass through them; for, in several of those Vegetables, whil’st green, I have with my _Microscope_, plainly enough discover’d these Cells or Poles fill’d with juices, and by degrees sweating them out; as I have also observed in green Wood all those long _Microscopical_ pores which appear in Charcoal perfectly empty of any thing but Air.
Now, though I have with great diligence endeavoured to find whether there be any such thing in those _Microscopical_ pores of Wood or Piths, as the _Valves_ in the heart, veins, and other passages of Animals, that open and give passage to the contain’d fluid juices one way, and shut themselves, and impede the passage of such liquors back again, yet have I not hitherto been able to say any thing positive in it; though, me thinks, it seems very probable, that Nature has in these passages, as well as in those of Animal bodies, very many appropriated Instruments and contrivances, whereby to bring her designs and end to pass, which ’tis not improbable, but that some diligent Observer, if help’d with better _Microscopes_, may in time detect.