In repeating some of the beautiful experiments of Professor Plateau, on the Equilibrium of Liquid Films, contained in seven Memoirs, published in the “Transactions of the Royal Belgic Academy,” and in prosecuting my experiments on the colours of the soap-bubble, I observed several new phenomena which may have escaped the notice of the Belgian philosopher.

In plunging a wire cube in a solution of soap, and lifting it up vertically, Professor Plateau found that there was formed within it a polyhedron, as shown in Plate XXXIV. Fig. 1, consisting of twelve similar liquid films adhering by capillary attraction to the twelve wires which compose the cube, and a small quadrangular film suspended in the middle of them. In many cases M. Plateau found that the vertical quadrangular film was often horizontal, as in Fig. 2; and M. Van Rees discovered, that by blowing very lightly upon one of its sides it was reduced to a simple line, and then reproduced in a horizontal position, from which it could be blown again into a vertical position, as in Fig. 1.