in Fluids. 355 



CHAPTER II. 



Water made to congeal at its under Surface. — Observation 

 respecting the Formation of Ice at the Bottoms of Rivers. 

 — Reasons for concluding that Heat can never be equally 

 distributed in any Fluid. — Perpetual Motions occasioned 

 in Fluids by the unequal Distribution of Heat. — An in- 

 conceivably rapid Succession of Collisions among the inte- 

 grant Particles of Fluids is occasioned by the internal Mo- 

 tions into which Fluids are thrown in the Propagation of 

 Heat. — An Attempt to estimate the Number of those Col- 

 lisions which take place in a given Time. — These Investi- 

 gations will greatly change our Ideas respecting the real 

 State of Fluids apparently at rest. — Fluidity may be 

 called the Life of inanimate Bodies. — Conjectures 

 respecting the Vital Principle in living animals ; and 

 the Nature of Physical Stimulation. 



WHATEVER the mechanical operation may in 

 fact be, by which those effects are produced that 

 have given rise to the idea, of the existence of an attrac- 

 tion of affinity (a power different from gravitation) be- 

 tween solid bodies and their liquid menstrua, and between 

 different portions of the same menstruum differently 

 saturated, the result of the foregoing experiment (No. 

 57) proves that two particles of water in combination 

 with very different quantities of sea-salt, — or a particle 

 of water saturated with salt, and another perfectly free 

 from salt, may be in contact with each other for any 

 length of time without showing any appearance of a dis- 

 position to equalize the salt between them. 



But should we even admit as a fact, what this experi- 



