From supersaturated solutions the form unstable at the temperature of the experiment is, as a rule, separated, especially on the introduction of a crystal of the unstable form; and, in some cases, similar inoculation of the fused substance is attended by the same result.
The old idea of the circulating blood being supersaturated with lime salts which in some way had first become liberated from atrophying bones, and then deposited, to form calcified areas in different tissues will have to be given up, as there is no evidence that this " metastatic " calcification ever takes place.
The surface of the water in the supersaturated soil is known as the "water-table" and is exemplified in water standing in a well.
Jacobsen on some occasions found water in the surface layers of the Baltic supersaturated with oxygen, which he ascribed to the action of the chlorophyll in vegetable plankton; in other cases when examining the nearly stagnant water from deep basins he found a deficiency of oxygen due no doubt to the withdrawal of oxygen from solution, by the respiration of the animals and by the oxidation of the deposits on the bottom.
Glauber's salt readily forms supersaturated solutions, in which crystallization takes place suddenly when a crystal of the salt is thrown in; the same effect is obtained by exposure to the air or by touching the solution with a glass rod.