670 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 
of imbibition is attained, they display while swelling a remark-_ 
able quite symmetrical star-shaped form. This is, however, of — 
short duration, the faces of the crystalloids being quite plane 
when the process is completed.’ 
If the process of formation of intercalated solid and liquid 
assemblages, just described, is not sufficiently uniform and gradual 
for the combination produced to display uniformity of orienta- 
tion throughout any considerable space, shrinkage and imbibi- 
tion may nevertheless take place, much as in the cases above 
referred to, and we may have mixtures or intercalations of prac- 
tically amorphous assemblages possessing the qualities referred 
to above. 
And as resembling these less regular mixtures, the gelatinous 
bodies known as colloids may be instanced. | 
Increase of disturbance and the strain occasioned by the intus- 
susception of portions of a liquid assemblage may, it is conceiv- 
able, rupture a sponge-like framework of the kind referred to and 
reduce it to fragments, which, although no longer able to impart 
to the mass the properties of a solid, may have considerable 
magnitude as compared with the distances apart of the ultimate 
constituents, and may hinder very materially the relative move- 
ment of its parts. 
To compare with this we have the interesting fact that colloids 
will not diffuse in colloids. | 
A. further reference to crystalloids is made presently in con- 
nection with a certain kind of diffusion.’ 
Intercalation or intermingling of two fluid assemblages. Comparison 
to solutions. 
When two assemblages which pack closer when apart, and are 
at the same time so related that layers in one are more or less 
compatible with layers in the other,? do not either of them sohdify 
when they come in contact, there will, nevertheless, as in the cases 
above dealt with, be some amount of intercalation or intermingling 
as a consequence of local disturbances.* And indeed 7 these 
1 Schimper, ‘‘ Ueber die Krystallisation,’’ &c. Zeitschr. f. Kryst., v., p. 154. 
2 See p. 682. 3 Comp. p. 649. 4 See Appendix, p. 687. 
