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XXVIII. Experiments and Obfervations on 
various Phenomena attending the Solution 
of Salts : By R. Watfon, A. M. F. R. S. 
Fellow of Trinity College, and ProfeJJor 
of Chemifry> in the Univerfity of Cam- 
bridge. 
Read May 24, 31, T~ ~T AVING lately had occafton, in 
JL Tome chemical enquiries, to make 
various folutions of falts, I met with fome pheno- 
mena, which did not appear to me either to have 
been fufficiently attended to, or confiftently explained 
by writers upon that fubjeCt. The fufpenfion of 
falts in water, of metals in acids, of fulphur in oils, 
and of other bodies in menftruums fpecificallv lighter 
than the bodies themfelves, hath ever been con- 
fidered in chemiftry, as a problem of difficult fo- 
lution. Thofe philofophers who acquiefce, upon the 
whole, in the caul'e which hath been affigned for this 
phenomenon by Sir Ifaac Newton, in his optical 
Queffions, have taken great pains to illuftrate the 
manner how it is effected, by fuppofing that the 
bodies are received into the pores of their refpeCtive 
menftruums, and there kept fufpended by the at- 
traction or, as Bernouilli and Freind would have if, 
by the refiftance arifing from the tenacity of the 
fluid. Hence it. happens, fay thefe philofophers, that 
after 
