DIVISIBILITY. The property which all bodies possess of being separable into parts. It was a question formerly much agitated among philosophers, whether matter is divisible in infinitum ; or whether a certain term does not exist beyond which the particles are reduced to simple atoms incapable of further di vision. The question is incapable of di rect solution, and fortunately is of no importance to science ; but the extent to which the actual subdivision of bodies has been carried in many cases in the arts may well be considered as prodigious. "In the gilding of buttons, 5 grains of gold, which is applied as an amalgam with mercury, is allowed to each gross ; so that the coating left must amount to the 110,000th part of an inch in thick ness. If a piece of ivory, or white satin, he immersed in a nitro-inuriate solution of gold, and then exposed to a current of hydrogen gas, it will become covered with a surface of gold hardly exceeding in thickness the ten-millionth part of an inch.
" The solution of certain saline bodies, and of other colored substances, exhibits a prodigious subdivision and dissemina tion of matter. A single grain of the sulphate of copper, or blue vitriol, will communicate a fine azure tint to five gal lons of water. In this case the copper
must be attenuated at least ten million times ; yet each drop of the liquid may contain so many colored particles, dis tinguishable by our unassisted Odors are capable of a still wider diffu sion. A single grain of musk has been known to perfume a room for the space of twenty years. Animal matter like wise exhibits in many instances a won derful subdivision. The milt of a cod fish when it begins to putrefy has been computed to contain a billion of perfect insects, so that thousands of these living creatures could be lifted on the point of a needle. But the infusory animalcules display in their structure and functions the most transcendent attenuation of matter. The libvio undula, found in duck weed, is computed to be ten thou sand million times smaller than a hemp seed. The Pibr io lineola occurs in vege table infusiont, every drop containing myriads of these oblong points. The Atoms gelatines, discovered in ditch wa ter, appears in the field of a microscope a mere atoll! endued with life, millions i of them playing like sunbeams in a single drop of liquid."