WITHDRAWN FROM THE ACTION OF GRAVITY. 711 



and accounts for all the details and all the laws of the pheeno- 

 menon, at least so long as the modifications produced in it by 

 extraneous causes, i. e. by the vibratory movements transmitted 

 to the liquid, are excluded. 



As regards the mode of action of these vibratory movements, 

 it is evident that the properties of the liquid cylinders cannot 

 make us acquainted with them. These movements consti- 

 tute a totally different cause from the configuring forces, conse- 

 quently one which is foreign to the general object of our treatise ; 

 however, to avoid leaving a deficiency in the theory, we will also 

 examine, relying upon other considerations, the manner in which 

 the vibratory movements act upon the vein, and we shall thus 

 arrive at the complete explanation of the modifications which 

 result from it, and the constitution of the latter ; but we shall 

 reserve this subject for the following series. 



The influence exerted by the vibratory movements commu- 

 nicated to the liquid, led Savart to regard the constitution of the 

 vein as being itself the result of certain vibratory movements 

 inherent in the phaenomenon of the flow. From this assump- 

 tion, Savart has endeavoured to explain how the kind of 

 disturbance occasioned in the mass of the liquid by the emission 

 of the latter, might in reality give rise to vibration, and he has 

 shown that the existence of the latter would entail the alternate 

 formation of dilatations and constrictions in the vein. It has 

 been shown, in the exposition of our theory, that the constitu- 

 tion of the vein is explained in a necessary manner by facts, 

 quite independently of all hypothesis. We may then, I think, 

 dispense with a detailed discussion of the ingenious ideas w^hich 

 we have mentioned, ideas for the complete comprehension of 

 which we must refer to Savart's memoir itself. We shall 

 merely remark, that it is difficult to admit the kind of disturb- 

 ance supposed by Savart to occur, except during the first mo- 

 ments after the orifice is opened ; moreover, that it is not very 

 evident how the vibrations in question, after having traced 

 upon the surface of the vein a nascent division, would produce 

 the further development of the latter, so as to make it pass gra- 

 dually, during its descent, to the state of an isolated mass; 

 lastly, that to remove these difficulties, we should again be 

 obliged to have recourse to additional hypotheses, to arrive at 

 the laws governing the length of the continuous portion, and 

 those to which the numbers of vibrations corresponding to the 



