the various animal and vegetable tissues, whether living or dead, they were always found to exist; and merely by bruising these substances in water, I never failed to disengage the molecules in sufficient numbers to ascertain their apparent identity in size, form, and motion, with the smaller particles of the grains of pollen.
I examined also various products of organic bodies, particularly the gum resins, and substances of vegetable origin, extending my inquiry even to pit-coal; and in all these [9 bodies Molecules were found in abundance. I remark here also, partly as a caution to those who may hereafter engage in the same inquiry, that the dust or soot deposited on all bodies in such quantity, especially in London, is entirely composed of these molecules.
One of the substances examined, was a specimen of fossil wood, found in Wiltshire oolite, in a state to burn with flame; and as I found these molecules abundantly, and in motion in this specimen, I supposed that their existence, though in smaller quantity, might be ascertained in mineralized vegetable remains. With this view a minute portion of silicified wood, which exhibited the structure of Coniferæ, was bruised, and spherical particles, or molecules in all respects like those so frequently mentioned, were readily obtained from it; in such quantity, however, that the whole substance of the petrifaction seemed to be formed of them. But hence I inferred that these molecules were not limited to organic bodies, nor even to their products.
To establish the correctness of the inference, and to ascertain to what extent the molecules existed in mineral bodies, became the next object of inquiry. The first substance examined was a minute fragment of window-glass, from which, when merely bruised on the stage of the microscope, I readily and copiously obtained molecules agreeing in size, form, and motion with those which I had already seen.
I then proceeded to examine, and with similar results, such minerals as I either had at hand or could readily obtain, including several of the simple earths and metals, with many of their combinations.
