Abstract
Is it not the fact that sunshine causes a kind of “greasiness” which makes drops of water roll up when in contact with glass instead of spreading uniformly over the surface? I have frequently been troubled with this action when endeavouring to mount diatoms, and it is only recently that I have observed that it comes on as soon as the sun begins to shine, and that when the operation is performed in dull weather the difficulty does not arise. In clearing the diatoms from flocculent matter my practice is to rock the material from side to side in a shallow dish, dragging the diatoms into lines and rolling the dust and dirt off into lumps that can be sucked up with a syringe, but this process fails in sunshine owing to the diatoms floating. The evolution of a thin film of gas or vapour on the surface of the glass is a suggested explanation.
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BRYAN, G. Supposed Effect of Sunlight on Water-drops. Nature 103, 125 (1919). https://doi.org/10.1038/103125b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/103125b0
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