[ 327 ] 
late Mr. Eller, of Beilin, hath carried this (peculation 
fo far, as to publifh a Table in the Beilin Memoirs for 
1750, exhibiting the feveral quantities of above 
twenty different kinds of fait, which a given quan- 
tity of water will abforb into its pores, without being 
in the lead: augmented in bulk. It is not therefore 
without fome uneafinefs that I find myfelf con- 
(trained to diffent from the general opinion, a.td par- 
ticularly to differ from Mr. Eller, who hath treated 
this fubjedt ex profeJfo\ who made his experiments, 
as he himfelf allures us, with the greateft exadtnefs j 
and who was led by them to the difcovery of what 
he is pleafed to call, line verite incontejiable , f avoir y 
que les plus petites parties conjlituantes de lean font 
doiices de pores on d’interjlices dans lefquels les atomes de 
fel peuvent nicher , fans augmenter leur volume. I do 
not at prefent fee any very probable method of recon- 
ciling the different refults of our enquiries; I will 
therefore content myfelf with giving a plain relation 
of the experiments which I have made upon this 
fubjedt. 
* Experiment I. 
I took a large mattrafs, containing, when filled to 
the middle of its neck, 132 ounces of water, Troy 
weight ; the diameter of the cavity of the neck was 
fix lines : having with a diamond marked the place 
where the water flood in the neck of the mattrafs, 
I dropped into it a fingle piece of purified nitre, the 
weight of which was a 2600th part of the weight of 
the water, and immediately obferved that the water 
was confiderably elevated in the tube : during the 
folution 
