AND THE ATMOSPHERE. 207 



it would be perpendicularly downwards. So 

 far, however, from the assertion being founded 

 in truth, that the pressure of water in water, 

 or of liquids in liquids, of equal density, is in 

 proportion to their perpendicular heights ; I 

 maintain on the contrary, that this proposition 

 which is so universally received as true, and 

 which constitutes the fundamental principle of 

 hydrostatic science, is altogether unfounded. 

 I shall not detail the experiments which are 

 generally used to show the equal pressure of 

 fluids in every direction, as they are familiarly 

 known to every one who has attended a single 

 lecture on hydrostatics ; but shall rather ap- 

 peal to the evidence of common phenomena, 

 as they present themselves to our observation. 

 We shall then find, that bodies placed at the 

 bottom of a column of water, suffer no more 

 pressure, than when they are immediately be- 

 low the upper surface of it ; and that instead of 

 suffering any alteration in figure, or in form, 

 by the increased pressure, which it is errone- 

 ously supposed they undergo, that they con- 

 tinue uniformly the same, in whatever portion 

 of the column they may be placed. The most 

 brittle bodies are often immersed at a depth the 

 most profound, and exposed to this supposed 

 pressure without cracking the most flexible 

 without bendingthe most expansible without 

 bursting. An egg, which would be broken 



