The short leg of the siphon tube dips into an insulated ink-bottle, so' that the ink it contains becomes electrified, while the long leg has its open end at a very small distance from a brass table, placed with its surface parallel to the plane in which the mouth of the leg moves, and over which a slip of paper may be passed at a uniform rate, as in the spark recorder.
The ink is electrified by a small induction electrical machine E placed on the top of the instrument; this causes it to fall in very minute drops from the open end of the siphon tube upon the brass table or the paper slip passing over it.
Leber experimented with several chemical compounds to find what reaction they had on these cells; by using fine glass tubes sealed at the outer end and containing a chemical substance, and by introducing the open end into the blood vessels he found that the leucocytes were attracted - positive chemiotaxis - by the various compounds of mercury, copper, turpentin, and other substances.
The open end is therefore a loop. It is to be noted that the exciter of the vibrations is in general at the open end, and that the two trains forming the stationary system consist of the direct waves from the exciter travelling into the tube, and the waves reflected back from the closed end.
Using this result Rayleigh found the correction for an unflanged open end by sounding two pipes nearly in unison, each provided with a flange, and counting the beats.
