Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 095.djvu/95

Rh and the same inclination will serve for a larger or a smaller drop at the same place. Now when the drop approaches to the line of contact, the difference of the appropriate heights for a small drop of a given diameter will increase as the square of the distance decreases; for the fluxion of the reciprocal of any quantity varies inversely as the square of that quantity: and, in order to preserve the equilibrium, the sine of the angle of elevation of the two plates must be nearly in the inverse ratio of the square of the distance of the drop from the line of contact, as it actually appears to have been in 's experiments.

We have now examined the principal phenomena which are reducible to the simple theory of the action of the superficial particles of a fluid. We are next to investigate the natural foundations upon which that theory appears ultimately to rest. We may suppose the particles of liquids, and probably those of solids also, to possess that power of repulsion, which has been demonstratively shown by to exist in aeriform fluids; and which varies in the simple inverse ratio of the distance of the particles from each other. In airs and vapours this force appears to act uncontrolled; but in liquids, it is overcome by cohesive force, while the particles still retain a power of moving freely in all directions; and in solids the same cohesion is accompanied by a stronger or weaker resistance to all lateral motion, which is perfectly independent of the cohesive force, and which must be cautiously distinguished from it. It is simplest to suppose the force of cohesion nearly or perfectly constant in its magnitude, throughout the minute