(1704) I left the water standing upon the so - called chalky matter .It had evaporated in a few days and then I discovered a great many very small gleaming particles on the bottom of the copper vessel in which the said matter had been , which I took from the copper as cleanly as I could , and I put them on three different very clean glasses .And when I then observed them through the magnifying glass , my amazement was much greater still , for then not only did I see so many different structures - nay so much so that there were no two resembling each other - but they were all as bright as crystal may appear to us ; nay some of them had as beautifully shaped points as polished diamonds , though they were a thousand and more times smaller than a coarse grain of sand .