366 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676-7. 



manifestly pass upon the alcalizat liquor as upon a floor, and appear somewhat 

 elliptical ; the weight of the upper parts depressing the drops, and making the 

 horizontal diameter somewhat longer than the transverse. — 3. If a yet greater 

 portion of oil were let fall on the heavy liquor, it would for a pretty while ap- 

 pear in the form of a somewhat imperfect hemisphere, or some other large 

 section of a sphere, the lower part being cut off, by the horizontal surface of 

 the deliquated salt. — 4. But if the quantity of oil were not too great, it was plea- 

 sant to observe, that though at first putting in it perhaps spread itself over the 

 subjacent liquor, and lie as it were flat upon it; yet by slow degrees it would be 

 crowded together into a figure of a lesser surface, and consequently less hindering 

 the motions of the vinous liquor. For by the action of this spirit, the oil would 

 by degrees be raised above the surface of the fluid nitre, and be reduced to the 

 figure, either of half a globe, or of a greater segment of a globe, or even of an 

 imperfect ellipsis, according as the bulk or weight of the oil made it more or 

 less apt to resist the action of the ambient spirit. — 5. Though these globules or 

 portions of oil did often readily mingle, when they touched one another, yet 

 divers times also we observed, that having warily approached them, we were 

 able to make them touch without mingling; as if some odd subtile matter, that 

 the eye could not discern, interposed, to keep them unconfounded. Insomuch 

 that we have with pleasure made them so far bear against one another's surfaces, 

 as manifestly to press them inwards, though being parted they would presently 

 resume their former figure : which circumstance suggested to me suspicions, 

 that I cannot now stay to name. But in case any of these oily portions came 

 by a more pressing contact to be united, they would then alter the figures they 

 had whilst separate, and take others, suitable to the bulk of the aggregate. — 

 6. When a large portion of oil rested on the saline liquors; if then the ambient 

 spirit were moderately and warily agitated, it was not unpleasant to observe the 

 various figurations, which the convex and protuberant part of the mutilated 

 globe would be put into by these shakes, without any visible solution of con- 

 tinuity, or considerable motion of the whole body, which would very quickly 

 recover its former figure. Though if the agitation were too strong, some por- 

 tions would be quite broken off, and presently turned into little globes. 



I tried to produce another phenomenon that would not have been unpleasant, 

 by putting together, in a pretty large vessel with other liquors, two oils, which 

 first by reason of the oleaginous nature wherein they agreed, might exactly 

 mingle and make a compounded liquor; and then by reason of their being one 

 heavier, and the other lighter in specie than water, might by this liquor be 

 again separated, and include between them the liquor that had divided them. 

 But I found that the oils, being once united, would not be easily parted, but 



