On Gravity in relation to Centripetal Velocity. 55 



which can exist ; and if a litre contain any oxygen at all, it must 

 contain 1 '430 grm. of oxygen. In a litre of steam there is cer- 

 tainly oxygen, there must therefore be 1*430 grm. of oxygen. 

 Unfortunately a litre of steam weighs only 0'805 grm. Would 

 not the modulus £ lead us straight to phlogiston, which, as we 

 all know, is blessed with a negative weight, and which would 

 figure as a in steam with the negative weight —'625 ? 



Chlorine a compound, phlogiston — behold the results of the 

 Chemical Calculus. 



VII. On the Change that would be superinduced upon an Elliptic 

 Orbit if the intensity of the force of Gravity were influenced by 

 the centripetal velocity of the Orbital Body. By J. J. Water- 

 ston, Esq.* 



THE law of gravitation, as applied to the planetary motions, 

 assumes that the power acts with a velocity that is prac- 

 tically infinite, that the acceleration of a body descending when 

 its motion is in the same direction as the acting force, is exactly 

 the same as the retardation of the same body ascending when 

 its motion is contrary to the acting force. 



To state this in its potential aspect : a body descending towards 

 the sun at the earth's mean distance through a mile of its radial 

 distance acquires an addition to its square velocity that amounts 

 to 7 millionths (of a square mile), and in ascendingt hrough the 

 same it loses the same amount. This result is held not to be in- 

 fluenced by the velocity with which the body moves through 

 that mile. It may be an inch per second, or it may be 100 

 miles per second, the accession to the vis viva or square velocity 

 at the end of the mile is the same, viz. 7 millionths. 



The maximum velocity with which the earth approaches the 

 sun, or the rate at which the radius-vector diminishes, is about 

 one-third of a mile per second ; so that in three seconds it dimi- 

 nishes one mile, and in that time acquires the increment of square 

 velocity 7 millionths (of a mile) ; i. e. a mechanical or work -force 

 to this amount is transferred to each ton of its mass from some 

 unknown source. 



This is equal to the work performed by the same ton descend- 

 ing through 3*25 feet at earth's surface. 



If this gradual appearance of vis viva at uniform rate in re- 

 spect to radial distance passed through (but increasing as the 

 inverse square of that distance) is a transference and not a gene- 

 sis of force, the amount transferred must diminish as the velo- 

 city of the motion in the direction of the transference increases. 



* Communicated by the Author. 



