Wrote Letter L-418 of 1704-02-11 to Pieter Valckenier about rock crystal, its origins in the mountains, and fossils of ocean fish found in his Swiss mountains
Text of the letter in the original Dutch and in English translation from Alle de Brieven. The Collected Letters at the DBNL - De Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren
Leeuwenhoek wrote this letter about rock crystal, its origins in the mountains, and fossils of ocean fish found in his Swiss mountains.
It is known only by reference in Letter L-431 of 13 December 1704 to the Royal Society
I sent to the very learned and widely famed Mr. Petrus Valkenier, on the 11th of February of this year, when the said gentleman was envoy of the State of the United Netherlands in Switzerland, my ideas and observations about rock-crystal, which consisted mainly in that it neither originates from ice nor grew on the mountains or increases in size, as many people think, but that at the creation, where it is found on the mountains, it crystallized from the air and that air and a little moisture are enclosed in the crystal, and that, when the crystal has been split up, it is divided again into oblong parts, many of which are six-sided.
When the said gentleman had come from Switzerland into this country again, I observed in his house many shells of fishes and snail-shells and other curiosities which were assumed to have changed into stone and also many which were assumed to have changed into metal, many of which that gentleman had combined to a collection and which things are found on and in the mountains of Switzerland. ...
The above-mentioned Mr. Valkenier had also handed me the little body here designated in Fig. 8 by XYZ24, which is also found on the high Swiss mountains.
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