Mr. W. R. Browne on Action at a Distance. 437 



The fact, therefore, that Joule's value of J obtained by this 

 method is too large (assnming his water-friction value to be 

 correct), points to the conclusion that the ohm is really smaller 

 than it was intended to be, in accordance with the results of 

 Rowland* and Lorenzf, and in direct contradiction to that of 

 Kohlrausch. As the erroneous statement of Dr. Wright has 

 apparently been confirmed by a redetermination of J, recently 

 communicated by him to the Physical Society, and has, 

 further, been given wide publicity by a reference in the ad- 

 dress of Prof. W. G-rylls Adams before the British Association, 

 I am unwilling to allow it to pass any longer unchallenged. 

 I have been engaged for the greater part of a year in a re- 

 determination of J by the electrical method, avoiding the error 

 due to superheating ; and the results so far obtained confirm 

 the supposition that the ohm is smaller than 1 earth-quadrant 

 per second, although considerable time must elapse before I 

 can publish the exact amount of its error. 

 Baltimore, November 8, 1880. 



LIE. On Action at a Distance. By Walter R. Browne, 

 M.A., M. Inst. C. E., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge f . 



THE object of this paper is partly historical, partly critical. 

 In discussing what is called " Action at a Distance," 

 the statement is frequently made that Newton was of opinion 

 that "nobody who possessed a competent faculty of thinking " 

 could possibly imagine such a thing to exist. The writer 

 wishes, first, to show historically that this is by no means an 

 accurate representation of Newton's views, and, secondly, to 

 consider critically whether the repudiation of " action at a dis- 

 tance," which is now certainly common, is, after all, justified 

 by the facts of the universe. 



In the first place, Newton's words, contained in the Third 

 Letter to Bentley, are as follows : — " That gravity should be 

 innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may 

 act on another body at a distance through a vacuum, without 

 the mediation of any thing else by and through which their 

 action and force may be conveyed from one to the other, is to 

 me so great an absurdity that I believe no man who has in 

 philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever 

 fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting con- 

 stantly according to fixed laws ; but whether this agent be 



* Am. Jour. Sci. and Arts, April 1878 (vol. xv.). 

 t Pogg. Ann. Bd. cxlix. (187-">) p. 251. 



X Communicated by the Physical Society, having been read at the 

 Meeting on November 13. 



Phil. Mag. S. 5. Vol. 10. No. 64. Dec. 1880. 2 I 



