1/4 ADHESION OF BODIES TO FLUIDS. 



it does not stop at the surface of bodies, but, penetrating 

 into them to depths which, though imperceptible to our 

 and accounts senses > are ver y sensible in the action of affinities, it produces 

 for the influ- that influence of masses, the effects of which have been dis- 

 ou C theL maSSeS P la Y ed b Y M r- Berthollet in such a happy and novel man- 

 ner. Combined with the figure of capillary spaces, it gives 

 rise to an almost infinite variety of phenomena, which, like 

 those of the celestial bodies, are now brought within the do- 

 Allies chemis- mains of analysis. Their theory is the most intimate point 

 sics. W1 P J " of contact between chemistry and natural philosophy ; two 

 sciences, which now approach each other on so many sides, 

 that one cannot be cultivated with much success, without a 

 thorough knowledge of the other. 

 Capillary at- The resemblance of the figure of fluids raised, depressed, 

 duces a cate- or founded by capillary action, with the surfaces generated 

 nary curve, by the curves known under the name of catenary, lintear, 

 and elastic, on which mathematicians employed themselves 

 at the origin of the infinitesimal calculus, led some philo- 

 but the sur- sophers to suppose, that the surfaces of fluids had a uni- 

 havenotauni- f° rrn tension, like elastic surfaces. Segner, who appears to 

 form tension, have been the first that suggested this idea*, was well aware, 

 that it could be no more than a fiction, adapted to represent 

 the effects of an attraction between the molecules decreasing 

 with great rapidity. This able mathematician endeavoured 

 to demonstrate, that this attraction must have the same re- 

 sults : but, if we examine his reasoning, it is easy to per- 

 ceive its inaccuracy; and we may conclude from the note 

 appended to his researches, that he seems not to have been 

 satisfied with it himself. Other philosophers, resuming the 

 idea of a uniform tension of fluid surfaces, have applied it 

 to various capillary phenomena. But they have not been 

 more successful than Segner, in the explanation of this force ; 

 and the most able have contented themselves with consider- 

 Conjecture j n g \^ as a m eans f representing the phenomena. In giving 

 may hit upon . n . , ■ , . ~ , . b 



truths, int o all the conjectures, which may arise from the first view 



of these phenomena, we may hit on some truths; but they 



will almost always be mingled with many errours, and the 



but he is the discovery of them belongs only to him, who, separating 



discoverer who 



observes or in- # Mem rJ , hc RoyaJ g ociety of Go-tingen, Vol. I. 



them 



