Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/356

1831.] nearly so, and the exciting rod resting in the middle of it. Ring-like linear heaps concentric to the exciting rod first form to the number of six or seven; these may be retained by a moderated state of vibration, and produce intervals which measured across the diameter of the rings are to the number of ten in three inches, with a certain constant depth of water. By increasing the force of vibration, the altitude of these elevations increases, but not their lateral dimension; and then linear heaps form across these circles and the plate, and parallel to the bridges, having an evident relation to the manner in which the whole plate vibrates. These, which like all other of these phenomena are strongest at the part most strongly vibrating, soon break up the circles, and are themselves broken up, producing independent heaps, which at first are irregular and changeable, but soon become uniform and produce the quadrangular order; first at angles of 45° to the edges of the plate, but gradually moving round until parallel to them. So the arrangement continues, unless the force be so violent as to break it up altogether: if the vibratory force be gradually diminished, then the heaps as gradually fall, but without returning through the order in which they were produced. The following lines may serve to indicate the course of the phenomena.

When perfectly formed, the heaps are also to the number of ten in three inches with the same depth of water as that which produced the rings. The intervals between the rings and the heaps are the same, other influential circumstances remaining unaltered.

84. Another form of heaps occasionally occurred, but always passing ultimately into those described. These heaps were grouped in an arrangement still very nearly rectangular, and at angles of 46° to the sides of the plate, but were contracted in one direction, and elongated in the other; these directions being parallel to the sides and ends of the plate.