PREFACE. 



SHORTLY after the delivery of my lecture " On 



Capillarity" at the Royal Institution, in January 



a 

 1886, it was suggested to me by Mr. Lockyer, 



that it might be advisable to make that lecture 

 more easily and more conveniently accessible 

 than it could be in the " Transactions of the Royal 

 Institution " or in the pages of Nature. It was 

 accordingly arranged to bring out, as one of the 

 Nature series, a small volume containing' the 

 lecture " On Capillarity," together with several 

 other papers pertinent to the subject. 



While the earlier sheets of this book were passing 



