And indeed, this Plant of _Fearn_, if all particulars be well consider’d, will seem of as simple, and uncompounded a form as any _Vegetable_, next to _Mould_ or _Mushromes_, and would next after the invention of the forms of those, deserve to be enquir’d into; for notwithstanding several have affirm’d it to have seed, and to be propagated thereby; yet, though I have made very diligent enquiry after that particular, I cannot find that there is any part of it that can be imagin’d to be more seminal then another: But this onely here by the by:
For the freezing Figures in _Urine_, I found it requisite,
First, that the Superficies be not disturbed with any wind, or other commotion of the air, or the like.
Secondly, that it be not too long exposed, so as that the whole bulk be frozen, for oftentimes, in such cases, by reason of the swelling the of _Ice_, or from some other cause, the curious branched Figures disappear.
Thirdly, an artificial freezing with _Snow_ and _Salt_, apply’d to the outside of the containing Vessel, succeeds not well, unless there be a very little quantity in the Vessel.
Fourthly, If you take any cleer and smooth Glass, and wetting all the inside of it with _Urine_, you expose it to a very sharp freezing, you will find it cover’d with a very regular and curious Figure.
Exposing a piece of black Cloth, or a black Hatt to the falling _Snow_, I have often with great pleasure, observ’d such an infinite variety of curiously figur’d _Snow_, that it would be as impossible to draw the Figure and shape of every one of them, as to imitate exactly the curious and Geometrical _Mechanisme_ of Nature in any one. Some coorse draughts, such as the coldness of the weather, and the ill provisions, I had by me for such a purpose, would permit me to make, I have here added in the Second _Figure_ of the Eighth _Scheme_.[12]
In all which I observ’d, that if they were of any regular Figures, they were always branched out with six principal branches, all of equal length, shape and make, from the center, being each of them inclin’d to either of the next branches on either side of it, by an angle of sixty degrees.
Now, as all these stems were for the most part in one flake exactly of the same make, so were they in differing Figures of very differing ones; so that in a very little time I have observ’d above an hundred several cizes and shapes of these starry flakes.