©N CAPILLARY ACTION. 



i, f, The two handles, by which the machine is managed. 



k, A slender iron bar, with a peg and holes to direct the 

 distance of the expansion or contraction of the machine. 



/, A strong iron rice, which works in a grooved iron, 

 fixed to the inner side of the wing d, and which, when 

 screwed down, holds the machine firm at the distance of 

 expansion wanted for use. 



Fig. 4. Shows on a larger scale one of the hinder hoes 

 separate from the machine, and the manner by which it may 

 occasionally be raised or lowered in the machine by a pin 

 and holes. 



VII. 



On Capillary Action. By Mr. Laplace.* 



Results of capil-JDY considering the theory of capillary action in a new 

 generalized! 011 V omt °f view, I have not only succeeded in simplifying it, 

 but in generalizing the results, to which I had been led be- 

 fore by analysis. I had determined the elevation or depres- 

 sion of fluids only in circular capillary spaces, and between 

 Determined for planes: but I shall here proceed to determine them, what- 

 figur? anc j f 0T ever these spaces may be, or whatever the nature of the 

 any number of surfaces fay which they are included ; supposing even in these 

 spaces any number of fluids placed one above another; and 

 I shall thence deduce the increase or diminution of weight, 

 that bodies plunged in fluids undergo by capillary action. 

 Affinities of The combination of these results with those I have found 



substances to by analysis has given me an accurate expression of the affi, 



fluids deduced ... 



from their re- nities of different substances to fluids, by means of experi- 



sistance to sepa men ts made on the resistance, that disks of different sub- 

 ration. . ' 



stances, applied to the surface of fluids, oppose to their 



separation. I dare venture to believe, that this will throw 

 great light on the theory of affinities; for what I advance is 

 founded on geometrical reasonings, and not on vague and 

 precarious considerations, which ought to be strictly ban- 

 ished from natural philosophy; unless, imitating Newton 

 in his Optics, we give them merely as conjectures calculated 



* Journal de Physique, Vol. LXIII. p. 474, Dec. 1806. 



to 



