THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH, and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[FOURTH SERIES.] 

 JULY 1871. 



I. On the Universal Powers of Nature and their Mutual Depend- 

 ence. By L. A. Colding*. 



MY previous works upon this subject have been so favour- 

 ably accepted by the Royal Scientific Society, that I am 

 encouraged once more to lay before the Society some inquiries 

 founded upon the principle of the Lost Forces, which I for- 

 merly stated; and I am the more happy at having- been re- 

 quested to continue my researches, which have afforded me many 

 pleasant recreations from my other occupations, because the 

 sequel will contain a basis for a series of inquiries which, I am 

 sure, are in many respects not without interest. 



On former occasions, as is well known, I have in part referred 

 to the intimate connexion which is proved to exist between the 

 powers of nature; in part I have tried to explain the common 

 law according to which the respective powers of nature may be 

 developed from each other; and the correctness of the funda- 

 mental principles proposed here has been confirmed by experi- 

 ments, which I have performed upon the heat developed by fric- 

 tion of solid bodies. 



I cannot omit the remark that just as it is the various forces 

 of nature connected with the parts of matter which continu- 

 ally have caused and continually will cause the incessant deve- 

 lopment of the endless variety of different bodies which nature 

 presents at all times, and just as the peculiar character of 

 the bodies is owing to these forces, so the incessant change 

 which, in fact, may be considered to be the characteristic of mat- 

 ter is caused by their mutual effect. But a general view of the 



* Communicated by Professor Tait. 

 Phil Mag, S. 4. Vol. 42, No. 277. July 1871. B 



