REMARKS  ON  THE  COHESION  FIGURES  OF  LIQUIDS. 
345 
about  60°.  Two  specimens  of  East  India  castor  oil,  supplied 
by  an  importer,  were  tried.  The  first,  a  colorless,  viscid  oil, 
gave  a  good  figure,  though  small,  probably  due  to  the  low  tem- 
perature. The  second,  which  had  a  slight  tinge  of  brown,  gave 
a  good  figure,  rather  larger  than  the  first.  Two  other  oils  from 
the  same  house  also  furnished  capital  figures. 
Three  other  specimens  were  furnished  by  Messrs.  Baiss, 
Brothers.  The  first,  East  Indian,  a  bland,  viscid,  colorless  oil, 
produced  an  admirable  figure.  The  second,  Italian,  prepared 
«  from  the  finest  decorticated  seeds,"  was  a  sweet,  bland  oil, 
and  gave  even  a  still  finer  figure,  the  colored  rings  being  very 
persistent.  The  third,  which  has  been  in  my  possession  nearly 
three  years,  and  produced  the  figure  from  which  my  description 
and  large  diagram  were  taken,  is  still  as  good  as  ever.  An  oil, 
bought  about  the  same  time  at  a  druggist's,  produced  a  figure 
by  no  means  so  good ;  it  did  not  open  so  freely,  nor  were  the 
colors  so  bright  as  with  the  finest  oils,  but  the  residual  figure 
was  good,  and  I  am  not  able  to  say  but  that  it  was  a  pure  oil. 
A  specimen  from  the  Jamaica  Court  of  the  International  Ex- 
hibition was  of  a  yellow-brownish  color  ;  the  taste  rather  acrid. 
The  colored  rings  of  the  figure  were  finer  than  in  the  former 
specimens,  but  the  lace-like  border  was  not  so  well  developed, 
and  the  perforations  were  smaller. 
Another  specimen  from  the  Italian  Court  of  the  International 
Exhibition,  gave  an  admirable  figure  ;  it  opened  well  with  very 
persistent  colors.  The  silvery  corona  also  opened  into  innu- 
merable small  well-shaped  circular  holes  before  the  lace-like 
pattern  was  developed.  The  outer  colored  rings  were  also 
perforated. 
A  specimen  from  the  India  Museum,  a  colorless  oil,  gave  an 
exquisite  figure :  another,  from  the  same  source,  an  opaque 
specimen  of  a  yellowish  color,  gave  a  very  small  figure,  only 
about  half  the  usual  size  ;  the  residual  figure  was  not  like  that 
of  the  other  specimens,  and  it  soon  gathered  itself  up  into  a 
small  disk. 
I  am  not  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  commercial  treat- 
ment of  castor  oil  to  make  any  remarks  on  the  change  of  figure 
likely  to  arise  therefrom,  but  I  give  these  details  respec  n  g  a 
dozen  specimens  from  different  parts  of  the  world  to  show  how 
