158 Osborne .• Theory of Gel Structure. 



microscopic examination. i In egg-white coagulated by heat, we 

 have a gel containing some 86% water, but no fluid is extruded 

 when the coagulum is subjected to ether. It is just likely that we 

 have a honey-comb structure here, though the hydrophile nature 

 ■of the framcAvork may also take its part. On the other hand, the 

 thallus of laminaria, as Struve discovered, exudes fluid copiously. 

 A silicic acid gel containing 13.4% solid matter, though easily 

 fractured, did not give a positive result. 



It seems to me, therefore, that the Struve-Baumstark phenome- 

 non can be employed to distinguish those gels where the liquid 

 phase is held, in part at least, by capillarity from those in which 

 the fluid is held, through imbibition, by the hydrophile lattice of the 

 solid phase. 



1 See for instance, W. H. Howell: Structure of the Fibrin-Gel and Theories of Gel Formation. 

 American Journ. of Physiol. Vol. f,0, p. 526. ivne. 



