f 329 ] 
containing twelve times as many pores fhould abforb 
twelve times as much, (fince it is an allowed faCt that 
the minuteft portion of a fait is uniformly diffufed 
through the largeft quantity of water) and it might 
confequently be expected, that the water fhould rife 
higher in the neck of the fmaller matrafs than in 
that of the larger, which is contrary to the experi- 
ment. 
Experiment III. 
Apprehending that common pump water, with 
which I had made the preceding experiments, might 
have its interftices preoccupied by felenites and other 
heterogeneous matters, and be thereby rendered in- 
capable of admitting into them any additional fub- 
ftance j and obferving that Mr. Eller had ufed in all 
his experiments 8 ounces of diftilled water, I had 
hopes to have reconciled my experiments to his by 
that means: but upon trial, with diftilled water, I 
found the elevation precifely the fame as before. 
Nor do the conclufions depend upon the kind of 
fait j they hold true mutatis mutandis of any other 
fait as well as nitre. During the folution the water 
is refrigerated and thereby contracted in magnitude, 
and the fmaller the quantity the greater will be the 
cold and confequent contraction produced by the ad- 
dition of fmall portions of fait j but I cannot fup- 
pofe that this circumftance could be overlooked by 
Mr. Eller, though it induced me to ufe a much 
larger quantity, or that he attributed the finking of 
the water during the folution, to an imbibition of the 
particles of the feveral falts into the pores of the 
Vol. LX U u water. 
