Excerpt from Investigations on Microscopic Foams and on Protoplasm: Experiments Observations Directed Towards a Solution of the Question of the Physical Conditions of the Phenomena of Life In bringing an English translation of this work before the public, I feel that a word or two of explanation is due to my readers. Many people regard the translation of French or German scientific works as unnecessary, holding that every student of science should have a knowledge of these languages. Without wishing to controvert this opinion generally, I may state the reasons which originally prompted me to undertake this translation. In the first place, the investigations here described are of so fundamental a nature as to be of interest not only to workers in all the various branches of Biology, and to physicists, but perhaps even to those who are not professed students of science at all. In the second place, this work, lying as it does for the most part on the border-line between two sciences so distinct as Physics and Biology, is full of the technicalities of both these sciences, and is therefore by no means easy reading in the original for a modern scientific specialist, however great his knowledge of the German language. For these reasons it seemed to me that a translation of Professor Butschli's valuable investigations might form an acceptable addition to English scientific literature. In preparing this translation certain German words and phrases were found especially difficult to render into English. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."