7 6 Dr. Young’s Essay 
grains, taking .141 as the height: and for a French circular 
inch, 433 grains, or 528 French grains. Now, in the experi- 
ments of Morveau, the cohesion of a circular inch of gold to 
the surface of mercury appeared to be 446 grains, of silver 
429, of tin 418, of lead 397, of bismuth 372, of zinc 204, of 
copper 142, of metallic antimony 126, of iron 115, of cobalt 
8 : and this order is the same with that in which the metals 
are most easily amalgamated with mercury. It is probable 
that such an amalgamation actually took place in some of 
the experiments, and affected their results, for the process 
of amalgamation may often be observed to begin almost 
at the instant of contact of silver with mercury ; and the 
want of perfect horizontally appears in a slight degree to 
have affected them all. A deviation of one-fiftieth of an inch 
would be sufficient to have produced the difference between 
446 grains and 528 ; and it is not impossible that all the dif- 
ferences, as far down as bismuth, may have been accidental. 
But if we suppose the gold only to have been perfectly wetted 
by the mercury, and all the other numbers to be in due pro- 
portions, we may find the appropriate angle for each substance 
by deducting from 180°, twice the angle of which the sine is 
to the radius as the apparent cohesion of each to 44b grains ; 
that is, for gold .1, for silver about .97, for tin .95, for lead 
.90, for bismuth .85, for zinc .46, for copper .32, for antimony 
.29, for iron .26’, and for cobalt .02, neglecting the sur- 
rounding elevation, which has less effect in proportion as the 
surface employed is larger. Gellert found the depression of 
melted lead in a tube of glass multiplied by the bore equal to 
about .0054. 
It would perhaps be possible to pursue these principles so 
