The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-12-06

light upon many studies connected with | the human body-such. for example, as | the various functions of the nervous sys- tenn in living organism; with the growth of various forms of plant life; and with | the further development of several im-
 portant commercial industries. It has been discovered that the scientist. work ing his laboratory. can produce very simple mineral and organic colloidal solu- tions, which have, however, properties similar to those of the complex colloids of nature, and it is through the compara- lively simple study of their chemical reac- | ton that the phenomena involving natures colloids bid fair to be elucidated. The colloids, whose existence was first
 suspected some fifty years ago, reveal therefore a condition that had before ap-
 peared impossible. namely that such in- soluble substances as gold, silver, iron
 and other materials may exist in liquids.
 in a state analogous to that of an ordi-
 nady solution but with other distinct and
 remarkable properties; and also that they can thus constitute part of almost every
 vegetable or animal organism. The
 further study of these minute particles of matter reaches therefore into nearly every form of life and matter.
 These colloids are inhnitesimally small particles of substances that may be either
 mineral or non-mineral, organic or in- organic, standing in size somewhere be- low the highest magnifying power of the microscope. Being invisible they can be studied only by chemical actions and re- actions, although their presence may
 usually be detected by the color which they impart to water or other fluids In which they are held in solution. In ex- amining a solution of gold colloid-gold, in other words, so infinitely subdivided that each particle probably will be forever in- visible-the amount of 6 Id may be rough ly estimated by the depth of the red color which the colloidal substance has impart- ed to the water. Other eolloidal sub- stances have other characteristic cOlors and although. under ordinary conditions, the colloids would remain thus held in
 solution practically forever, there are cer- | tain chemical agents-salts which when
 dissolved are capable of conducting an
 electric ourreIt--that not only cause them
 to settle in the form of insoluble masses
 but apear definitely to prove that each
 of these infinitely little bits of matter, be- side which a Enicrobe is a giant and a
 drop of water a world, is charged with electricity. This electrical condition is held to explain the fact that the indi- 1 vidual particles would never voluntarily unite in visible masses and so settle to the bottom of a vessel containing them. | for each particle repels its immediate
 neighbors in all directions and the whole
 mass is thus perpetually maintained in a state of suspension. Roughly speaking
 the condition Is similar to what might
 happen if each lump of coal in a coal bin
 separated itself by an inch or more from every neighboring lump-as one body
 charged with positive or negative cleo
 tricity repels another similarly charged and the whole bin thus became filled with
 individual bits of coal held in suspension between floor and ceiling In the case
 of the colloids they may be actually pre-
 cipltated-ahd this Is held to be one proof
 of their electrified condition-only by the addition of the salts known as electrolytes | because of their power to carry electrici- ty. The presence of these salts imme-
 diately disturbs the electrical conditions
 existing between the different particles,
 and by taking all the electricity to It.
 self. permits them to come together and
 form masses. visible to the naked eye and each made up. 1t Is believed, of millions and millions of particles. To turn to the
 coal bin figure the effect Is the same as
 if the electricity in the individual coals
 were all at once diverted and absorbed by
 the woodwork of the bin itself and the
 coals left to fall to the bottom by force
 of gravity. It is one of the marvels of modern science that the invisible can not