BY MOLECULAR COALESCENCE. 39 
will be arranged in lines, the scratches generally passing 
through their centres. Now, from these facts it can 
easily be conceived that, when the globules of carbonate 
of lime and the crystals of triple phosphate, both floating 
together in the same fluid medium, are brought into con- 
tact by their mutual attraction one for the other, the car- 
bonate of lime will enter into intimate union or combina- 
tion with the triple phosphate, as it had been before shown 
to do with the glass, and form a compound of the two 
substances, in which the molecules of the triple phosphate 
would be brought within the sphere of the attraction of 
tenacity of the gum contained in the globular carbonate of 
lime. Whentherepulsive or impulsive force before operating 
upon the molecules of the triple phosphate, and causing them 
to be arranged in straight lines, would be neutralized by the 
force of attraction of tenacity in the gum of the globular 
carbonate, and the molecules compounded of the two sub- 
stances being nearly indifferent in respect to any specific 
attraction or repulsion now residing in their own mole- 
cules, would be amenable to the effect of universal attrac- 
tion, and thus undergo the same processes, first of disin- 
tegration, and then of conversion into spherules, as if all 
the molecules had consisted of simple globular carbonate 
of lime. Decisive proofs of the existence of these pro- 
cesses of disintegration and of coalescence can be seen on 
examining slides containing crystals of triple phosphate 
passing, as they become mixed with the particles of 
globular carbonate, from the erystaline to the globular 
state, already observed. Now, as in such combinations the 
attraction of tenacity may be inferred to get weaker just 
in proportion as the globular carbonate combines with in- 
creasing quantities of triple phosphate, the attracting con- 
stituent in this instance being diffused through a larger 
