266 



Mr. A. M. Worthington on the 



[June 15^ 



sidered as free cylinders o£ liquid, will be in equilibrium till the length 

 bears a certain proportion to their diameter, after ^yhich they will tend to 

 split each into a row of drops. 



Set 3. 



M. Plateau, in his ' Statique experimentale des Liquides,' has sho^^Ti 

 that a cylinder of mercury Mng on a horizontal plate breaks into drops, 

 whose number depends on the friction between the liquid and the plate. 



The pressure of the convex surface at the end of the cylinder will tend 

 to drive the liquid into the cylinder and diminish its length while in- 

 creasing its thickness, but only so long as the sum of the reciprocals of 

 the principal radii of curvature at any point of the convexity are greater 

 than the reciprocal of the radius of the cylinder. 



Set 4. 



This may, however, always be the case, for the thickness and radius 

 of the cylinder is continually increased by the supply of liquid from the 



