is computed, as had been done in his work, from one single observation of a speed under gravity and a corresponding one in an electric field. We further showed that the fact that his values fluctuated about too low an average value meant simply that his particles of gold, silver, and mercury were less dense because of surface impurities, oxides or the like, than he had assumed. The correctness of this explanation would be well-nigh demonstrated if the values of
computed by equations (28) or (29) in [chap. VII] from a large number of observations on Brownian movements always came out as in electrolysis, for in these equations no assumption has to be made as to the density of the particles. As a matter of fact, all of the nine particles studied by us and computed by Mr. Fletcher[111] showed the correct value of
, while only six of them as computed by me fell on, or close to, the line which pictures the law of fall of an oil drop through air ([Fig. 5], [p. 106]). This last fact was not published in 1911 because it took me until 1913 to determine with sufficient certainty a second approximation to the complete law of fall of a droplet through air; in other words, to extend curves of the sort given in [Fig. 5] to as large values of
as correspond to particles small enough to show large Brownian movements. As soon as I had done this I computed all the nine drops which gave correct values of
and found that two of them fell way below the line, one more fell somewhat below, while one fell considerably above it. This meant obviously that these four particles were not spheres of oil alone, two of them falling much too slowly to be so constituted and one considerably too rapidly. There was nothing at all surprising about this result, since I had explained fully in my first paper on oil drops[112] that until I had taken great precaution to obtain dust-free air “the values of
