Note 272 — Chapter V · THE FORMS OF CELLS

The idea of a “surface-tension” in liquids was first enunciated by Segner, De figuris superficierum fluidarum, in Comment. Soc. Roy. Göttingen, 1751, p. 301. Hooke, in the Micrographia (1665, Obs. VIII, etc.), had called attention to the globular or spherical form of the little morsels of steel struck off by a flint, and had shewn how to make a powder of such spherical grains, by heating fine filings to melting point. “This Phaenomenon” he said “proceeds from a propriety which belongs to all kinds of fluid Bodies more or less, and is caused by the Incongruity of the Ambient and included Fluid, which so acts and modulates each other, that they acquire, as neer as is possible, a spherical or globular form....”