FREED FROM THE ACTION OF GRAVITY. 43 
that of the alcoholic liquor. But what occasions trouble is, that 
then, so to speak, it has contracted an adherence with this same 
surface, from which it is not detached without great difficulty. 
It is at first easy to prevent the production of this effect by 
pouring on the surface of the liquor a small layer of pure alco- 
hol; and this same means will serve also to destroy the effect in 
question, if it is already produced. In this latter case we may 
again invert the vessel with caution: the movement thus im- 
parted to the ambient liquor suffices ordinarily to detach the 
mass of oil, with the exception of a small portion, which almost 
always remains adhering to the surface. 
26. Lastly, I have already mentioned the fact, that after a 
certain number of experiments the oil becomes filled with small 
spherules of alcoholic liquor. Now, reciprocally, the ambient 
alcoholic liquor is also often sprinkled with a multitude of small 
spherules of oil. It is scarcely necessary to remark that when 
all these spherules have become too numerous, and we desire to 
restore the liquids to their original transparency, this is easily 
accomplished by filtrations similar to those of which I have 
spoken above (§ 24). 
27. We have been hitherto engaged with the figures assumed 
by a liquid mass abstracted from the action of gravity and sub- 
mitted to the attraction of its molecules, either when this mass 
is at rest, or when a movement of rotation upon itself is imparted 
to it. Notwithstanding the difference of the laws which the at- 
tractive forces follow in this case and in that of the large 
planetary masses, we have seen produced, on a small scale, a 
striking representation of the majority of the phenomena of 
configuration relative to the celestial bodies. In the second 
part of this investigation we shall submit our liquid masses to 
new forces, and we shall then see developed a series of phzeno- 
mena quite as curious but of a different class. 
Norte. 
[ Professor Faraday, who has repeated many of M. Plateau’s remarkable and 
beautiful experiments, informs me that he coloured his oil green, for the pur- 
pe of rendering it more distinctly visible in the spirit, by dissolving in it a 
ittle oxide of copper. This, he states, is easily done by heating a little oil with 
the oxide, and then mingling that with the rest.— Ep. } 
