with others,—as, the attractions and repulsions among the particles themselves, their unstable equilibrium in the fluid in which they are suspended, their hygrometrical or capillary action, and in some cases the disengagement of volatile matter, or of minute air bubbles,—have been considered by several writers as sufficiently accounting for the appearances. Some of the alleged causes here stated, with others which I have considered it unnecessary to mention, are not likely to be overlooked or to deceive observers of any experience in microscopical researches; and the insufficiency of the most important of those enumerated may, I think, be satisfactorily shown by means of a very simple experiment.
This experiment consists in reducing the drop of water containing the particles to microscopic minuteness, and prolonging its existence by immersing it in a transparent fluid of inferior specific gravity, with which it is not miscible, and in which evaporation is extremely slow. If to almond-oil, which is a fluid having these properties, a considerably 4] smaller proportion of water duly impregnated with particles, be added, and the two fluids shaken or triturated together, drops of water of various sizes, from 1-50th to 1-2000dth of an inch in diameter, will be immediately produced. Of these, the most minute necessarily contain but few particles, and some may be occasionally observed with one particle only. In this manner minute drops, which if exposed to the air would be dissipated in less than a minute, may be retained for more than an hour. But in all the drops thus formed and protected, the motion of the particles takes place with undiminished activity, while the principal causes assigned for that motion, namely, evaporation, and their mutual attraction and repulsion, are either materially reduced or absolutely null.
It may here be remarked, that those currents from centre to circumference, at first hardly perceptible, then more obvious, and at last very rapid, which constantly exist in drops exposed to the air, and disturb or entirely overcome the proper motion of the particles, are wholly prevented in drops of small size immersed in oil,—a fact which, however,
