668 PLATEAU ON THE PHiENOMENA OF A FREE LIQUID MASS 



It is evident that the numbers relating to the same diameter 

 do not differ sufficiently from each other to prevent our regard- 

 ing the proportion of the two means as closely approximating 

 to the true proportion of the durations. Now the proportion 

 of these two means is 2'04, i. e. almost exactly equal to that of 

 the two diameters. Moreover, it is evident that in the case of 

 each of the latter the greatest of the numbers obtained must cor- 

 respond to that case where the cylinder is formed in the most 

 perfect manner, consequently it is probable that the proportion 

 of these two greatest numbers also closely approximates to the 

 true proportion of the durations. Now, these two numbers are, 

 on the one hand 36*4, and on the other 73"6, and their pro- 

 portion is 2*02, which number differs still less from 2, or from 

 the proportion of the diameters. 



We may therefore admit that the durations relating to these 

 two cylinders are to each other as their diameters ; whence 

 we deduce this law, that the partial duration of the transfor- 

 mation of a cylinder of the same kind is in proportion to its 

 diameter. 



I have said (^ 64) that the law thus obtained would of itself 

 furnish a new motive for believing that it would not change if 

 our short cylinders of oil were produced in vacuo or in air. In 

 fact the proportionality to the diameter is the simplest possible 

 law ; and, on the other hand, the circumstances under which 

 the phaenomenon is produced are less simple in the case of the 

 presence of the alcoholic liquid than they would be in that of its 

 absence ; consequently, if the law changed from the first to the 

 second, it would follow that a simplification in the circumstances 

 would on the contrary induce a complication of the law, which 

 is not very probable. 



We may therefore, I think, legitimately generalize the above 

 law in accordance with the whole of the remarks made in the 

 preceding section, and deduce the following conclusions : — 



1. If we conceive a cylinder of mercury formed in vacuo or 



carrying away with it any perceptible quantity of oil j- for this purpose, instead 

 of making the entire ring adhere to the great mass, I left a small portion of the 

 latter free, and, as its action was then insufficient to make the large mass reach 

 the other, I aided it by gently pushing the oil with the extremity of the point 

 of the syringe. On withdrawing the ring after the reunion of the two masses, 

 only a very small spherule of oil separated from it in the alcoholic liquid, which 

 in the next experiment I again united to the rest of the oil by means of the ring 

 itself, as also tlie largest of the spherules arising from the transformation of the 

 line. 



