FREED FROM THE ACTION OF GRAVITY. 39 
If a greater velocity is given to the disc, without however pass- 
ing acertain limit, —if, for example, we give it one turn in three 
seconds,—the phenomena are still of the same kind; only the 
mass is more elongated, the flexure due to Big 5; 
the resistance of the ambient liquid is more 
decided, and the form is more removed 
from an ellipsoid. Figure 5 represents the 
mass viewed on the side, and showing to : 
the eye its greatest length. : 
If the velocity of the disc is increased to a turn in two seconds, 
the phzenomena become less constant and less regular ; we should 
say that there is, for this velocity, a transition from one order of 
phzenomena to another, and that the mass hesitates between the 
two. 
In fact, with a velocity still a little greater, namely about one 
turn in a second and a half, the phenomena begin again to be 
regular and constant, but they are different from the first. They 
are exhibited in all their beauty when the velocity is increased 
to a turn in a second. The mass then is at first deeply hollowed 
around the axis, as if the ring was on the point of being de- 
veloped; and it remains under this form of a circular dowrrelet 
during sixteen to eighteen turns of the disc; we then see it 
elongate gradually according to a horizontal diameter, but no 
longer eccentrically, so that, seen from above, it presents an 
elliptic figure sometimes very perfect, of which the disc occupies 
the centre (fig. 6). This ellipse then lengthens more and more, 
Fig. 6. Fig. 7. 
rather rapidly, and begins to bend by the resistance of the am- 
bient liquid (fig. 7). Lastly, on a sudden the mass becomes 
strongly inflected from both sides, and its 
form seen from above is then as represented 
in figure 8. The mass afterwards preserves 
this last form in a perfectly fixed manner, 
as long as the movement of the disc con- 
tinues. 
23. However capricious these phenomena may appear, chance 
Fig. 8. 
