The disclosed method of measuring the flow of a fluid with a porous particulate ceramic tracer and an optical instrument is characterized in that spherical particles having diameters in the range of 0.5 to 150 .mu.m are used as the tracer. Inasmuch as the tracer particles for flow measurement are spherical, the sectional area of scattered light to be detected by an optical sensor means is constant regardless of the orientation of particles. Furthermore, spherical particles have no surface irregularities that might cause concatenation so that individual particles are not agglomerated in tracking a fluid flow, thus contributing to improved measurement accuracy.