I’ve spent more time than many will believe [making microscopic observations], but I’ve done them with joy, and I’ve taken no notice those who have said why take so much trouble and what good is it?
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKI’ve spent more time than many will believe [making microscopic observations], but I’ve done them with joy, and I’ve taken no notice those who have said why take so much trouble and what good is it?
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKExamining this water…I found floating therein divers earthy particles, and some green streaks, spirally wound serpent-wise.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKIn rain water, I observed a small red worm and two other kinds of very minute insects; of those of the larger size, I judged that 30,000 together would not equal a coarse sand.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKThe 4th sort of creatures… which moved through the 3 former sorts, were incredibly small, and so small in my eye that I judged, that if 100 of them lay [stretched out] one by another, they would not equal the length of a grain of course Sand; and according to this estimate.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKThe whole circumference of each of these streaks was about the thickness of a hair of one’s head. … all consisted of very small green globules joined together: and there were very many small green globules as well. [The earliest recorded observation of the common green alga Spyrogyra.]
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKAnd therewithal, whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people might be informed thereof.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKThere was discover’d by me a fifth sort, which had near the thickness of the former, but they were almost twice as long. The first time bacteria were observed.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKAmong other things, I saw in the body of one of these animalcules a bright and round corpuscle, placed near the head, and in which a very wonderful swift motion was to be seen, consisting of an alternate extension and contraction.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKI have oft-times been besought, by divers gentlemen, to set down on paper what I have beheld through my newly invented microscopia, but I have generally declined.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKJust as the supposed number may differ from the true number by fully 100, 150, or even 200 in a flock of 600 sheep, so may I be even more out of my reckoning in the case of these very little animalcules.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKHow inscrutable and incomprehensible are the hidden works of Nature!
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKTen hundred thousand of them could not equal the dimensions of a grain of such course Sand.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKWhenever I found something remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people be informed thereof.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKHow little do we discover in comparison of those things which now are and forever will be hidden from our sight? The whole of which I am fully persuaded no one will ever be able to dive into, and to explain their causes and effects.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKThe 31th of May, I perceived in the same water more of those Animals, as also some that were somewhat bigger.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEKAnd I judge that some of these little creatures were above a thousand times smaller than the smallest ones I have ever yet seen, upon the rind of cheese, in wheaten flour, mould, and the like.
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK