FOR some years past I have been in the habit, when putting up at obscure hotels and remote “dak bungalows” during inspection tours, of putting a few drops of the cheap disinfectant known as “Little's soluble phenyle” into my tub before bathing. The bulk of the liquid, when dropped into clear water, diffuses downwards as a milky white emulsion, giving beautiful imitations of inverted cumulus clouds; but a small portion of it, perhaps some oily impurity in the mixture (which is sold under the trade mark C6H5, and should therefore presumably be a definite compound), instantly spreads out over the surface as a drop of oil would do, and then, strange to say, after the lapse of about half a second, and usually before the film has extended more than half-way across the tub, it again contracts. The contraction of the film proceeds until it is only two or three inches in diameter, after which its size appears to remain stationary; but about this time the distinct outline of the film usually disappears, owing to the gradual mixing of its substance with the water below—a circumstance which leads me to believe that the film is not caused by an oily impurity, but by a part of the “phenyle” itself, which possesses the property of emulsifying with water. Temperature seems to have no effect on the phenomenon, beyond perhaps modifying the rate at which the film expands and contracts, the effect being apparently exactly the same whether the liquid be added to a cold bath at 60° or to a hot one at 100° F.