The Consistence of Mixtures of True Fluid and of a Fluid with Solid Particles

Abstract

WHEN two fluids which have no chemical action on one another and are mutually insoluble, are well shaken together, the mixture consists of small globules of one fluid embedded in a matrix of the other, and is in general less fluid than either of the constituents taken separately. Common examples of this sort of stiffening are to be found in cream, mayonnaise sauce, and butter (mixtures of oil and watery fluid), but the most striking case is that of oil and mercury, which forms a stiff black mud. In the first three examples it is the oil which takes the globular form, and in the last the mercury.