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Those that M. Lehmann terms semi-liquid still present traces of polyhedric delimitation, but with the peaks and angles rounded by surface-tension, while the others tend to a strictly spherical form. The optical examination of the first-named bodies is very difficult, because appearances may be produced which are due to the phenomena of refraction and imitate those of polarization.
A more or less considerable delay may take place, and the vapour will remain supersaturated. We easily discover that this phenomenon is due to the intervention of capillary action. On a drop of liquid a surface-tension takes effect which gives rise to a pressure which becomes greater the smaller the diameter of the drop.
Solutions possessing the same surface-tension, though not in molecular equilibrium, would thus be always in osmotic equilibrium. We must not conceal from ourselves that this result would be in contradiction with the kinetic theory.
Yet in the case of the flat body it is not altogether inappropriate to say that the water resists penetration and thus supports the body. The modern physicist explains the phenomenon as due to surface-tension of the fluid. Of course, Galileo's disquisition on the mixing of air with the floating body is utterly fanciful.
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