Alle de brieven. Deel 9: 1692-1694

[p. 348]

Letter from Richard Waller
31st January, 1693/4 O.S.

Addressed to: Antoni van Leeuwenhoek.

Manuscript: The manuscript has not been recovered. A copy is present in London, Royal Society, Letter Book Original, Vol. XI, Part I, pp. 205-206.

No publication is known.

Summary:

Acknowledgment of the receipt of two letters from L.; request for a research on the colours of birds' feathers and for an observation of the presence of spermatozoa in the egg.

Remarks:

The text as here printed is based on the copy in the Letter Book Original.

[p. 349]

A Letter to M^r Anth: Van Leeuwenhoek

Lond. Ian. 31. 1693/4

S^r

y^r two Letters came safe to our hands, the former containing your observations of y^e generation of y^e flea; the other those of y^e Mite and other small creatures¹⁾, wherin the subjects are prosecuted w^th y^r usual curiosity & exactness, fully illustrateing proving I think satisfactorily univocall generation, as you have formerly don, in several other subjects both animal and Vegetable, and indeed the opinion of spontaneous generation, (the creature that we recieved being from y^e mud of Nile)^a) looses credit dayly and dwindles in the Repute of y^e more nice Examinen of Nature²⁾.

Sr By order of y^e R. Soc.³⁾ I return thankes for the communication of y^r discoverys, and desire y^e continuance therof. and quere if It^b) might not be worth y^r trouble to make some microscopical Observations of y^e difference of colours particularly of feathers as I proposed in my last to you, as likewise of other coloured bodys; possibly the same thread of silke, dyed of different colours, might be examined to see what alteration is made in the outward or inward parts therof, w^ch causes that different reflexion of Light giving those colours; possibly painters Colours may be fit subjects, and possibly the several disguises of Mercury in white, red, yellow and the like might give different appearances of y^e constituent parts in the microscope, which I leave to y^r choice⁴⁾.

If you have ever bin so happy as to observe the Animalcule of y^e Male-sperme in the Egg of the female, the communication therof would be very acceptable to us, & possibly the Eggs of Insects are the fittest subjects to looke

1) The letter containing the observations on the generation of the flea is Letter 126 [76], of 15 October 1693, pp. 211-259, in the present volume; the other one, on the mite and other small creatures, is Letter 129 [77], of 20 December 1693, pp. 269-317, in the present volume.

a) The text between brackets has been deleted in the manuscript.

2) On univocall generation Waller wrote already at length in his letter of 28 April 1693 O.S. (8 May 1693 N.S.), pp. 183-185 and note 6, in the present volume.

3) No explicit order of the Council or of the Fellows of the Royal Society is to be found either in the Minutes of Council or in the Journal Book Original in the period 1693-1694.

b) Originally this read I, but it has been corrected to It in different ink.

4) On an earlier occasion already, in his letter of 28 April 1693 O.S. (8 May 1693 N.S.), p. 183, in the present volume, Waller had asked L. to carry on research about the colours of birds' feathers, which request had been answered by L. with a few remarks on the colours of the feathers of a parrot and of a woollen thread in Letter 126 [76], of 15 October 1693, pp. 207-211, in the present volume.

[p. 350]

for this Animalcule in, as being less than y^e Eggs of other creatures, and therfor you have not so far to seeke for the Animalcule⁵⁾.

A small parcel of y^e Philos. Transact. being all that have bin publisht since the last you recieved, shall be sent you to Rotterdam and left w^th y^r kinsman⁶⁾ as you direct by the first opportunity w^ch you are desired to accept off from

S^r y^r most humble servant
Ric: Waller

5) After his unsuccessful attempt to discover the entrance of the spermatozoa into the egg-cell L. seems to have assumed so far that the essence of the fertilization process consisted in the superficial contact of the spermatozoa with the egg-cell; see Letter 72 [38], of 16 July 1683, Collected Letters, Vol. 4, pp. 57-67, dealing, amongst other things, with the reproduction of frogs. L. was to answer Waller's request in Letter [80], of 2 March 1694, to be published in Vol. 10.

6) The small parcel of the Philosophical Transactions may have been Volume XVIII for the years 1691-1693. The imprimatur for this volume was given by the Chairman of the Royal Society on 31 January 1693/4 O.S. (10 February 1694 N.S.), i.e. on the same date as that of this letter.
L.'s kinsman was his sister's son, Philips van Leeuwen; see Letter 128, of 8 December 1693, p. 267, in the present volume.