ON CAPILLARY ACTION. g§7 



to guide us to farther searches, but leaving the merit of dis- 

 covery almost wholly to him, who shall establish them on 

 solid foundations by observation or analysis. 



I intend to publish without delay, in a supplement to my Supplement to 

 Theory of Capillary Action, the analytical demonstrations !^ ie Theoi 7 of 

 of the theorems, which I have only mentioned in different promised. 

 numbers of this Journal. At the same time I shall give a 

 new method of arriving at the fundamental equations of this 

 theory. From these equations I shall deduce the general 

 theorems, which I am now about to lay before the reader, 

 demonstrating them by the direct consideration of all the 

 forces, that concur in the production of capillary effects. 

 It will appear, that the forces, on which these effects de- Forces on which 

 pend, do not stop at the surface of fluids; but that they ca P iL |ary attrac- 

 j .1 i ,1 i , /• , . . , , tion depends not 



extend through the whole of their interior, and even to the confined to the 



extremities of the bodies immersed in them : which esta- sur f a . c f> 



i ,• i , ,.,.<. and identical 



-Wishes the complete identity of these forces with affinities, with affinities. 



u If we conceive any kind of prismatic tube, in a yerti- Theorem. 

 cal position, with its inferior extremity immersed in a fluid 

 of indeterminate quantity; the volume of fluid within, 

 raised above the level by capillary action, is equal to the 

 •circumference of the interior base of the prism, multiplied 

 hy a constant quantity, which is the same for all prismatic 

 tubes of the same matter immersed in the same fluid." 



To demonstrate this theorem, let us imagine, at the infe- Demonstration, 

 rior extremity of the tube, a second tube, the infinitely thin 

 sides of which arc the prolongation of the interior surface 

 of the first tube, and, having no action on the fluid, do 

 not prevent the reciprocal attraction between the molecules 

 of the first tube and the fluid. Let us suppose, that the se- 

 cond tube is at first vertical, that then it bends horizontally, 

 and that afterward it resumes its vertical direction, retain- 

 ing the same figure, and the same size, throughout its whole 

 extent. It is evident, that, while the fluid is in equilibrio, 

 the pressure in the two vertical branches of the canal formed 

 by the first and second tube will be the same. But, as there 

 is more fluid in the first vertical branch formed of the first 

 tube and part of the second, than in the other vertical 

 branch, the excess of pressure, that results from this, must 

 be destroyed by the attractions of the prism and the fluid 



for 



