[From Nature, Vol. x.] 



LXVI. Plateau on Soap- Bubbles?- '. 



Ox an Etruscan vase in the Louvre figures of children are seen blowing 

 bubbles. Those children probably enjoyed their occupation just as modern 

 children do. Our admiration of the beautiful and delicate forms, growing and 

 developing themselves, the feeling that it is our breath which is turning dirty 

 soap-suds into spheres of splendour, the fear lest by an irreverent touch we 

 may cause the gorgeous vision to vanish with a sputter of soapy water in our 

 eyes, our wistful gaze as we watch the perfected bubble when it sails away 

 from the pipe's mouth to join, somewhere in the sky, all the other beautiful 

 things that have vanished before it, assure us that, whatever our nominal age 

 may be we are of the same family as those Etruscan children. 



Here, for instance, we have a book, in two volumes, octavo, written by 

 a distinguished man of science, and occupied for the most part with the theory 

 and practice of bubble-blowing. Can the poetry of bubbles survive this ? Will 

 not the lovely visions which have floated before the eyes of untold generations 

 collapse at the rude touch of Science, and "yield their place to cold material 

 laws " ? No, we need go no further than this book and its author to learn 

 that the beauty and mystery of natural phenomena may make such an impres- 

 sion on a fresh and open mind that no physical obstacle can ever check the 

 course of thought and study which it has once called forth. 



M. Plateau in all his researches seems to have selected for his study those 

 phenomena which exhibit some remarkable beauty of form or colour. In the 

 zeal with which he devoted himself to the investigation of the laws of the 

 subjective impressions of colour, he exposed his eyes to an excess of light, and 



* Slatique experimental* et tfteoriqrue des Liquides soumis aux seules Forces moleculaires. Par J. 

 Plateau, Professeur a 1' University de Gand, <fcc. (Paris, Gauthier-Villars ; London, Trubner & Co.; 

 Gand et Leipzig, F. Clemm. 1873.) 



VOL. IL 50 



