Part 6

It remains only to speak of the greater irregularity in the arms and rays as shown by the photographs. The point is a curious and interesting one. In the first place I have to confess that in looking over my original drawings I find records of many irregular or unsymmetrical figures, yet in compiling the history it has been inevitable that these should be rejected, if only because identical irregularities never recur. Thus the mind of the observer is filled with an ideal splash--an "Auto-Splash"--whose perfection may never be actually realized.

But in the second place, when the splash is nearly regular it is very difficult to detect irregularity. This is easily proved by projecting on the screen with instantaneous illumination such a photograph as that of Series X., Fig. 6. My experience is that most persons pronounce what they have seen to be a regular and symmetrical star-shaped figure, and they are surprised when they come to examine it by detail in continuous light to find how far this is from the truth. Especially is this the case if no irregularity is suspected beforehand. I believe that the observer, usually finding himself unable to attend to more than a portion of the rays in the system, is liable instinctively to pick out for attention a part of the circumference where they are regularly spaced, and to fill up the rest in imagination, and that where a ray may be really absent he prefers to consider that it has been imperfectly viewed.

This opinion is confirmed by the fact that in several cases, I have been able to observe with the naked eye a splash that was also simultaneously photographed, and have made the memorandum "quite regular," though the photograph subsequently showed irregularity. It must, however, be observed that the absolute darkness and other conditions necessary for photography are not very favourable for direct vision.

And now my tale is told, or rather as much of it as the limits of the time allowed me will permit. I think you will agree that the phenomena are very beautiful, and that the subject, commonplace and familiar though it is, has yet proved worthy of an hour's attention.

THE END.

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay.

FOOTNOTES:

See Worthington on the "Spontaneous Segmentation of a Liquid Annulus," Proceedings Royal Society, No. 200, p. 49 (1879).

Readers who wish a more detailed account of a greater variety of splashes are referred to papers by the author. Proceedings Royal Society, vol. xxv. pp. 261 and 498 (1877); and vol. xxxiv. p. 217 (1882).

Photographs obtained since this was written show that much may happen after the stages here traced.

A detailed account of the optical, mechanical, and electrical arrangements employed, written by Mr. Cole, will be found in Nature, vol. i., p. 222 (July 5, 1894).

The black streaks, seen especially in Figs. 11, 15, and 16, are due to particles of lamp-black carried down by the drop from the surface of the smoked watch-glass on which it rested.

Three of these photographs, viz. Nos. 11, 12, and 17, are reproduced full size, as a frontispiece, by a photographic process, to enable the reader to form a more correct idea than can be gathered from the engravings, of the amount of detail actually obtained, though even in these reproductions much is inevitably lost.

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