Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15769

    Observations on a quill and on wood

    Date
    12 August 1692
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p25
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 177mm
    width (page): 444mm
    Subject
    Description
    20 figures in a letter from Antoni van Leeuwenhoek to Royal Society. The original drawings are lost.

    Fig. 1-4: parts of a feather quill
    Fig. 5: small piece of wood
    Fig. 6: wood pipe
    Fig. 7: single torn wood pipe
    Fig. 8: small piece of cut-off rush
    Fig. 9: screen in one of the openings of the rush
    Fig. 10: wall of rush pipe
    Fig. 11: one of the smallest blood vessels of the rush
    Fig. 12: small part of the rush, cut crosswise
    Fig. 13: small piece of pine wood or fir wood
    Fig. 14: wood or air pipes
    Fig. 15: small piece of aforesaid fir wood
    Fig. 16: little horizontal vessels or wood pipes
    Fig. 17: one fourth of round tree or branch
    Fig. 18: small piece of lime wood from Norway
    Fig. 19: a few vessels and wood pipes from lime wood
    Fig. 20: small amount of floury substance.

    Leeuwenhoek refers to his engraver in the letter, which probably means that he sent the engraved images with his letter in the first place, instead of drawings. (Alle de brieven, vol. 9, pp. 88-89.)
    Object history
    The letter was also published with the same printed images:
    A. van Leeuwenhoek, Derde Vervolg der Brieven (Delft: H. van Kroonevelt, 1693), pp. 475-507.
    A. van Leeuwenhoek, Arcana Naturae Detecta (Delft: H. a Krooneveld, 1695), pp. 312-23.

    The letter was read at a meeting of the Royal Society. Richard Waller wrote to Van Leeuwenhoek on 28 April 1693, 'Sr yrs of ye 12 of Aug. & 16th of Sept. last were read in a meeting of ye R. Soc: to ye satisfaction of ye Persons present' (Alle de brieven van Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, ed. by a committee of Dutch scientists, 17 vols [ongoing] (Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1939- ), IX (1976), 68-129 (letter 122) (pp. 182-85)).
    Related fellows
    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723, Dutch) , Naturalist
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Netherlands
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