previously; for example a ${\cal O}(10\%)$ suppression in the string tension is observed. It is likely that cluster lengths will differ by a corresponding amount and this will prevent a quantitative scaling analysis using this ensemble. The power law indices do appear, however, to be robust [@hart97b] and it also seems likely that ratios of string tensions obtained on the same ensemble can be reliably compared with other ratios.

Cluster properties
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The fact that the largest cluster does not belong to the same distribution as the smaller clusters is seen from the very different scaling properties of these clusters with volume [@hart98]. It is also apparent from the fact that the largest cluster is very much longer than the second largest cluster. Indeed for a large enough volume and for a reasonable size of the configuration ensemble, there will be a substantial gulf between the distribution of largest cluster lengths and that of the second largest clusters. By contrast the length distributions of the second and third largest clusters strongly overlap. This is the situation that prevailed for the larger lattices at $\beta=2.3$ and 2.4 but which broke down on the $L=16$ lattice at $\beta=2.5$. We can now compare 