Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/194

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
182
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of Fig. 2, C, till a little secondary ring is formed, which sometimes remains attached, is at other times separated and divided into several others, that will, if they are small enough, continue for a long time suspended in the liquid.

All of these little rings, with the curved filaments supporting them, form in the water a very marked figure—a kind of diadem, a fantastic hydra, or a diaphanous cup (Fig. 2, B)—the singular figure of which causes us to neglect at first certain less visible details in which the real mechanism of the phenomenon is revealed; and a very light or a very dark ground, according to the character of the colored liquid, is required in order to discover the frame-work and the processes of the formation.

Rings of vapor are capable of attaining considerable dimensions without breaking. If we take a box, make a hole in it, substitute a stretched cloth or plate of metal for one of its sides, and develop in it vapors of phosphoric acid or muriate of ammonia, we can easily by

Fig. 5.—The same experiment, performed with a box made of playing-cards. The box is filled from the mouth at the hole in the upper side.

means of a slight blow cause wreaths several inches in diameter, exhibiting the structural details of the liquid rings, to shoot out to a considerable distance. A soap-bubble filled with smoke produces similar effects when it bursts; and a cubic box made of playing-cards